Deformance / Hypertext Project

This is a sort of two-pronged post, addressing Matt’s question towards the end of last class, re: how the readings / class discussions are helping me think more about my data (or final) project.

I’m really interested in the ideas and examples of “deformance” (in Jerome McGann’s definition = interpretation + performance) that have come up recently, especially and most recently in Lev Manovich & Kevin’s digital work. I suppose I think of “deformance” as a way of turning art into new art… the purpose of which is beyond just “playing around” and being creative (good purpose in itself), but also, as Kevin pointed out, to ask questions of the “data” (the art, or the world in which it was produced) that you wouldn’t have known to ask before. Disordering the work of art (text, photo, or film) in order to change its questions, its answers, its “rules.” I have also been interested in the way that digital “deformance” tends to “aesthetically pleasing” results – Kevin and Lev’s work simply “look good,” and I’d love if one my projects in this course (i.e., project fully executed) could aspire to that type of artistic attention (which seems to derive from direct intention + skills + a level of pure play or “accident”).

Along these lines, it is now my intention to do a “deformance” project that is focused on my own writing / creative process. That is, rather than trying to uncover and work with the huge and somewhat impossibly impenetrable “data set” I previously proposed (Appropriation in Contemporary Poetry), I would like to either:

  • 1 – Make a digital hypertext edition of my book manuscript (Babette, recently published in print this month), adding one or more layers of text to discover more information about the language on the page. This may include anecdotes, links, or perhaps even other “poems,” that seem to enrich, deconstruct, or disorder the present text. Thus the “data set” would be the original text (+ the new text?) I would like this hypertext edition to move the reader away from the “search” (for meaning) and towards the “browse” function, revealing both writing and reading as dynamic, non-linear, and layered, with interconnected information and experiences. On that note, a final goal would be to open the text to “community, relationship, and play” (Stephen Ramsay) by allowing “users” to add their own interpretations, experiences, links, etc. (though I understand this might be beyond the scope of this project).

OR

  • 2 – Create a digital hyper-text edition of my three published manuscripts (Babette, Parades, and Latronic Strag) and do a data-visualization of the neologisms I’ve used in these works. The “data set” would thus be these “neologistic” words, about which I could ask starting questions such as: “how often do they appear in each book,” “how much do they sound like one another,” “how closely are they “related” to each other (by the computer’s definition),” how closely are they “related” to “real” words, what words do these associate with in my mind (or the computer’s, or in the minds of other readers)… what “real” language do they sound like, and is there some sort of “neologistic” conversation going on between the words, phrases, poems, manuscripts? Again, the aim would be to use the language as data to “browse” for new questions about the text, rather than “search” for these answers, and one ultimate goal would be to have the project allow for “users” to add in their own experience of these words (creating more data).

Allowing others to add reactions, data, or personal experience is one way for me to get away from the fear that this would be a “vanity project” (in which the data in the set is simply my own data). Another way would be to see this project as a starting point for hypertext-ing or disordering other texts, texts that are not my own. Perhaps I see this project as one that might move me closer to that more “research”-like or scholarly question of how language is appropriated or repurposed in contemporary poetry.

As for creating a “digital edition” of one (or more) of my books, I found a tool called Ediarum on the DIRT site, which claims to help authors “transcribe, encode, and edit” manuscripts.

As for the second (and I’d imagine, more fun and elaborate) task of “hypertexting” the book(s), I had to do a little more research to see what’s out there, and where it’s coming from. What “kind” of hypertext am I looking to produce? Based on the Wikipedia definitions of “forms of hypertexts,” I’d surely like to create something that is “networked,” i.e. “an interconnected system of nodes with no dominant axis of orientation… no designated beginning or designated ending.” And, if I wanted to be able to add that user interaction, I’d want something “layered”: a structure with two layers of linked pages in which readers could insert data of their own.

Searching for tools to create networked / layered hypertext lead me to two options on DIRT: Mozilla Thimble, and TiddlyWiki. (It also lead me to investigate what software is or has been available for hypertext, starting with Ted Nelson’s ProjectXanadu, and ending, it seems, with the popular (and expensive, at $300) program from Eastgate called StorySpace, neither of which I think will be very helpful).

I’d love any thoughts on which project (1 or 2) seems more interesting, appropriate, or feasible for this project… I’m going to make an appointment with the Digital Fellows to get their advice (and guidance on the tools).

Thanks!

– Sara

 

Hey Girl

For those of you thinking of a public history-oriented final project proposal (like I am), you might appreciate the Public History Ryan Gosling Tumblr.  Although its most recent entry is from 2013 and the meme is old, the ideas are still very relevant. More to the point , this  short post by the authors on the NCPH website explains how they used their Tumblr  to call attention to issues around public engagement, the ethics of historical representation of the “underrepresented”, public communities vs. academic communities, and more. Anyway, it’s a helpful reminder of things to consider while developing a project. Plus Ryan Gosling.

Native American Boarding Schools

At my other class we read Report of the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth & Reconciliation Commission. That is how I found out that the little Native Americans in Maine are 5.1 times as likely to go to foster care than the non-native children. The Native Americans see it as the continuation of the genocide they have experienced from the Europeans. To them, foster care is a sequel to the Indian boarding schools.

Having come from a different part of the world I knew some common facts about Native Americans, but I did not know anything about their boarding schools. The latter were created to deal with “the Indian question”. Captain Richard H. Pratt established the first boarding school in Pennsylvania in 1879 with hope to “kill the Indian and save the man”. Europeans thought that if they teach the native children their ways (like religion, team sports, the notion of private property) and give them some education, there would be no need in eradicating the race. The main goal of the Indian schools was to assimilate the Natives with their Caucasian neighbors. It was done in the most hurtful ways. Children as young as six had to adapt to a new way of life: their hair was cut, clothes burnt, native language prohibited. At a boarding school everyone had to wear uniforms, accustom to a very rigid schedule, and speak English. For any kind of misbehavior the Indian children were severely punished. Physical and even sexual abuse was a rather frequent phenomenon in the Native American boarding schools. Since boarding schools for Indian kids were mandatory, the approximate number of their students reached 60000 in 1973. This leads us to believe almost every Indian family was impacted by the system. The mistreated students of the Native American boarding schools carried pain and resentment into their adulthood, which often resulted in substance abuse and poor parenting skills.

The truth commissions are created for those who need reconciliation. Having openly discussed their negative experiences, adults are trying to forgive the system and possibly become better parents to their kids. A loss of a child to foster care is a parent’s personal tragedy. For Native Americans it is also a tribal catastrophe, since their communities are too small and risk extinction without progeny. Everyone makes mistakes, and the Native Americans have as much rights for their children as any other racial group.

For my project, I would like to tell this story in a digital way. I plan on making some introduction about the purpose of the Indian boarding schools and illustrate the narrative with pictures. Then, I would like to use Neatline to map the schools across the States. When clicked on a certain school, a short history of it has to show up. To make it more complex, photographs of schools will be presented. Since there were about one hundred Indian boarding schools in the US, it is too big of an undertaking to map and describe all of them. Therefore, I will concentrate on the biggest or the most famous ones. The project should be accompanied with the Trail of Tears music at the background. If time permits, the project will develop with a narrative of Native American revival: schools, festivals, and modern culture. With happy Indian music, of course.

I am not sure about the data I will draw the information from. So far I have not found any collective sources I hoped to come across while doing research. It is possible I will be looking up every school separately and using my Zotero account to cite the sources.

Suggestions and any kind of help are highly appreciated:).

Sculpting in Time: Andrey Tarkovsky ‘s Individual Shot

“History is still not Time; nor is evolution. They are both consequences. Time is a state: the flame in which there lives the salamander of the human soul.” – Andrey Tarkovsky, from Sculpting in Time

 

As the semester has progressed, I’ve found, each week, that my sense of what interests and excites me about the current DH landscape is becoming richer, honed, and focused. Even as I marvel at, and have great respect and admiration for the large scale digital analysis that’s going on in the realm of social media scraping , and big data crunching, I keep finding my way back toward the idea of “distortion” and de-formance as a research method and outcome in DH. Jotting down notes that might help me find my way toward a generative approach to DH scholarship, I’ve pulled a surprising combination of books from my shelf for inspiration: John Berger’s And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photographs, In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki, Joseph Cambell’s The Inner Reaches of Outerspace, and  On Weathering: The Life of Buidlings in Time by Mohsen Mostafavi to name a few. My instincts keep drifting toward the aesthetic, and remembering a point Matt made in class about some DH practitioners creating imperfect 3D-printed objects as teaching tools, I scoured the internet for DH studies in Materiality.

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Still taken from Andrey Tarkovsky’s film Nostalgia

In mulling over the DH landscape gradually examined in our readings and class discussions, I’ve found, in a way, that I’ve been chasing myself. In a course focused less on subject matter, and more on methodology and approach, I’m forced to burrow down into what really motivates me in my learning. This week, I was blown away by the work that Kevin is doing with ImageJ. I’m excited to the point of jumping the gun on this blog post when I think about the potential projects that might come about when building and theorizing around the ImageJ software. Today, I downloaded the ImageJ package for Mac OS X Java App. I’ll begin experimenting with it in the coming weeks. For my initial data project, I would like to analyze a bundle of still frame from a film by Andrey Tarkovsky (The Mirror, or The Sacrifice, or potentially, Stalker). Alternatively, and somewhat thematically as the flame of time indicates in the epigraph to this blog post, I would love to analyze the nearly 10-min sequence in Nostalghia where the film’s main protagonist walks the length of a long fountain, all the while shielding the flame of a candle he cradles inside his overcoat to prevent it from going out. I hope for this data exercise to be an entryway into a more focused thesis for a larger project. (Not necessarily of a similar vein, but definitely derivative of what I learn in the process). I’m currently reading Tarkovsky’s cinema theory monograph, Sculpting in Time. What I hope to learn from a project that analyzes an iconic, yet not widely-viewed director in this initial data project is modest. In addition to creating an outcome that can visualize the “sculpting” in time of Tarkovsky’s films, I hope to get a sense of his sculpting of time by utilizing the ImageJ Stacks menu.

I’ve always loved Tarkovsky’s films, even though, at times, I find them difficult to watch. They’re  ghostly, beautiful, and most often, mysterious. Tarkovsky’s rhythmic examinations of nature and landscape of all types and scale with slow, drawn out single shots that seem to extend far longer than their actual temporal length have always contrasted with the contentious, even dangerous political climate that existed in modern Russia during the time in which they were created.  I hope to take on this small-scale project as a way to delve deeper into a subject that stimulates me. And from there, I will turn my gaze toward the DH community at large to try and locate gaps in the collective methodological toolbox, or places from which I can propose and launch a meaningful contribution on a larger scale.

Next step, capture and organize a bundle of still frames. And get my feet wet using ImageJ Stacks.

After spending sometime with the primary sources and after a few weeks devoted in class to using maps in DH projects, I would like to propose a project similar to the Interactive Map of the Battle of Gettysburg by a team led by Anne Kelly Knowles. Instead of emphasizing sight lines, I would like to focus in on sound.

One of the more fascinating tidbits of Civil War history is how sound played a role on the battlefield and surrounding region. Commanders and troops used sound to clue themselves in orders or where the enemy was because the weapons of the time literally created a fog of war obscuring clear sight lines. There is a scientific phenomenon known as acoustic shadowing; some troops marching into battle sometime did not hear the cacophony of fighting until they got extremely close or just over a hill. At the same time, towns or villages dozens of miles away heard the battle as if it was close by.

 

-David Campmier

Workshop: User Experience with Samantha Raddatz

I had a lot of questions about user experience of digital tools and Samantha Raddatz answered them all during her User Experience workshop. Raddatz is a user experience consultant for the CUNY Academic Commons.

The workshop was divided into two parts: what good user experience is and how to do user testing. Not surprisingly, focus on the user is key for success of your tool. Therefore, user experience has to be as seamless as possible; the user should not have to think about how to use the tool. Not intuitive architecture, for example, can be frustrating and reduce the use of the app. Since the aim of the tool is to maximize the time a user spends on your page or program, the developer needs to spend the necessary time and resources testing throughout the development process. Raddatz listed the steps on the PowerPoint in a clear fashion, which was very helpful for my comprehension and retention. She spoke in an engaging and accessible manner and provided multiple recommended resources for further assistance. Overall, I found the workshop to be valuable for my understanding of digital tools development.

The main takeaway for me was that whatever you’re developing, do user testing frequently throughout the process. If you wait until the last minute, it might be too late to rework the architecture. And if you’re working with limited resources, do guerrilla testing in a coffee shop with cookies as treats for volunteers! 🙂

Teen pregnancy in NYC dataset

New York City has an incredible amount of data available on their website for the public to explore. They have annual summary reports, as well as interactive tools where one can select variables they are interested in seeing. The instantly available data is already crunched, but one can request “raw” data with an online request form. According to the instructions, it can take anywhere from two to four weeks for the files to be sent to you.

For the dataset project, I am interested in exploring the teen pregnancy rates in the five boroughs. I will start playing with the data and see what correlations stand out to me when I visualize them using various visualization tools. Perhaps I will notice something beyond the correlation between economic status and unplanned pregnancy and discover something new for me. On Wednesday, I went to the Digital Fellows office hours and talked to Patrick Smyth, Hannah Aizenman, and Stephen Zweibel about my options. They suggested I start with Excel pivot tables and then move on to Gapminder and Tableau to see what I can do there.

Special shout-out to Davide for his post on the Data Visualization workshop 🙂

Workshop: The GC Python Users’ Group (PUG)

Last week, I attended my first Python Users’ Group (PUG) with the GC Digital Fellows for help with setting up and accessing Python on my machine.  They meet every other Monday from 2 – 4PM in the GC Digital Scholarship Lab (Room 7414) to help and support students working on digital projects.  So far this semester, I’ve attended several workshops but felt that the instruction I received at PUG (on both Python and MALLET) was particularly helpful due to the collaborative atmosphere and the opportunity for one-on-one discussions.

Evidence of my attendance: me on the far right, confused but determined.

Evidence of my attendance: me on the far right, confused but determined.

PUG will meet again next week, November 16.  A recap from last week’s session makes two suggestions for participants:

  1. Come to learn Python independently with a group of tutors nearby.
  2. Come with a specific Python-related question or project that you want help with.

I regret not having a data set prepared to work on the last time I attended but I encourage everyone in class to go with something to work on.  Since the last session, I have been working on accessing my data set (a recently published short story collection) and converting it into a readable file for analysis.

Data Set for project

Hi all

As a historian, I study the US Civil War quite closely. One of the recurring themes I’ve noticed while reading primary source accounts is the role that sound plays in describing the war. While soldiers, observers, civilians, etc. all describe what they see regularly, I notice that sound is incredibly important to these writers and often most poetically described.

I would like to use electronic databases which catalog diaries and newspapers from the Civil War era as my data set to get at sound’s importance to the experience of the war. I will use The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Illustrated Civil War Newspapers and Magazines, and the Nineteenth Century Masterfile.

Many thanks,

Dave Campmier