DANM202 Final Assignment Proposals

James

I've been unable to decide which of the following three proposals I should pursue. Any input would be appreciated:

Option I... Based on Nakamura's issue of access – not just as access to computers and network connections, but access to the tools of creating the web in that they are complicated and difficult to use – make the argument that the tools of computer science, like the tools of Literary Criticsim, are more arcane than they need to be due to the bias of non-visual thinkers. This would require investigation into the latest research on thinking styles (right vs left brain doesn't cut it anymore, but some aspects seem to be holding up), and the history of computer language development such as SmallTalk, HyperCard, and HTML

Option II... Based on the question I posited last week on the viability of emergent forms in databases as a means of aesthetic expression, create a project proposal for how this might be done and what it might look like. Would require investigations into database theory and emergent art forms such as Steve Reich's minimalist music.

Option III... Based on Benjamin, but not on the part the we read in class, rather on his Thesis of the Philosophy of History, a proposal for a sculpture which incorporates ideas and themes from "Progress is an angel facing backwards into the future". This is a sculpture I have been thinking about since the beginning of the quarter and may very well build as apart of my thesis.

Alan

My final paper is a description of a project I started last year concerning Japanese internment camp haiku. The working title of this project is Dedekoro (prisoner set free). The paper will describe the project from several angles: the research I have done so far; the areas I need to further develop; the formal aspects of the haiku as well as some background on the development of haiku in America; and the description of the specifications of the final form all this material will take: a web site. And I will discuss the development of a traveling exhibit involving media. Relevant to the material discussed in class I would also like to delve into hypertext as a kind of theoretical framework for the project. Readings in Landow: Hypertextuality and his latest Hypertext 2.0. I would also like to discuss otherness and identity as a theme in my project in order to connect my project to the readings of Nakamura, Bimber, Bell and possibly Boellstorf (after the discussion today I'll be better informed as to the relevance of this reading to my project).

the research I have done so far:

• Last summer I traveled throughout the U.S. with my father making contacts, doing research in the national archives, interviewing internees, and photographing former camp sites at Rhower, AK, Jerome,AK & Heart Mountain,WY. I took over 3000 photographs and conducted over five hours of interviews on mini dv.

research I have yet to do:

• I need to contact as many former internees as possible to collect their stories and create a data base of sound files.
• I need a translator to work with me to present a bilingual website so that Haiku can be heard and read both in English and in Japanese
• I would also like to work with a calligrapher to present graphically the Japanese characters in their most beautiful form.

Haiku

Haiku: a seventeen syllable poem that tells it like it is

• In this section of the paper I would like to discuss Basho, a master of the Haiku form and what the importance is of this Japaese literary figure, How the West has seen some interpretation of haiku (Brautigan and other beat poets for example as well as the clearly bastardized versions of Haiku that lapse into sentimentality )and what the possibilities for a cross cultural poetics might be.

the japanese internment:

• Tell the story of the internment in a way that communicates all the complexities as well as the contradictions of a situation where a people had their newly formed identity taken from them as well as how they clung to their identity in spite the internment. This Identity is seen clearly and sublimely through the expression of haiku.

the web site

• in this section I'll describe what the viewer will see and hear when visiting the site as well as the "back end" specifics of how I intend to create these effects. There will be a non-traditional navigational strategy something akin to what we explored on the Vectors website. Layers of text in english and Japanese will float over movie clips of the camps in their present condition. These clips will to a large extent be assembled from my stills.

the exhibit

• In this section of the paper I'll begin to imagine the possibilities of a traveling exhibit that can reach a different audience and induce a different experience than the website.