Wednesday, April 29, 2009

All A-Twitter over Nothing

DTC 375 – Dr. Farman
E-Lit Group Project
04/30/2009
Word Count: 763

All A-Twitter over Nothing

Produced by: Team Twitterpated
Josh Colby
Kristin Elsen
Shannon Mendenhall
Sheila Newsom
Zack Woffinden

Upon avid brainstorming efforts, Team Twitterpated made an executive decision to pursue the creation of electronic literature centered on the often perceived nothingness of the Twitter application. Twitter is often regarded as pointless due to the large capacity of mundane information entered into the application, but as we discovered through personal experience, when hundreds of pieces of mundane information are combined they result in what we now know as ambient intimacy. The mission of Team Twitterpated is to exhaust the concept of ‘nothing’ in the form of electronic literature.

Team Twitterpated thought that this concept would fit well in embracing the medium of electronic literature as opposed to printed literature. Twitter is an edgy social platform that utilizes cyberspace for functionality so it is appropriate that our literature exists electronically as well. Twitter has also been utilized as a medium/platform by electronic literature writers. Jay Bushman created The Good Captain which takes Herman Melville’s novella, “Benito Cereno” and publishes it via Twitter updates (Bushman). Because of this usage we believe electronic literature is appropriate for our subject.

Team Twitterpated decided to use the Adobe Flash platform in the creation of this electronic literature. We were inspired by other electronic literature in the use of this platform, such as The Dreamlife of Letters and Star Wars, One Letter at a Time, both created by Brian Kim Stefans. We liked the word introduction used in The Dreamlife of Letters and the fresh edge offered by the Star Wars piece. We decided to mimic these literature pieces through the use of flashy entrances that at some points are borderline invasive. Due to this design choice, the level of interactivity employed in ‘All A-Twitter over Nothing’ is minimal. This is suitable for our concept of ‘nothing’ because individuals cannot really do much about nothing. The individual or audience viewing this piece is left with two choices: watch or do no watch. This is typical of literature that utilizes the Adobe Flash platform.

The literature we used for our e-lit is both borrowed and original. Much of the literature is sourced from Twitter, some from unknown and innocent tweeters and some are original tweets entered by members of Team Twitterpated. The tweets of innocent bystanders were gathered by Kristin, Shannon, and Sheila. Kristin and Sheila created much of the dialogue of our electronic literature through their own tweets; either centered around nothing or on the word ‘nothing’. Examples of such pieces are, “What do u do when there is nothing to do?” “Oh, you know, nothing” and tweets as outlandish as, “Oh the satisfaction of popping a zit!” The combination of tweets come together to show the audience what Twitter is really about, which truly is a lot of pieces of nothing.

Team Twitterpated collectively agreed to include the ideas of Shakespeare in our literature as well, with quotes from King Lear and Much Ado About Nothing. King Lear is frustrated with Cordelia, who provides “nothing” as an answer to King Lear’s inquiry. King Lear states that, “Nothing will come of nothing”, a statement that serves as a dramatic point in our literatures definition of ‘nothing’. The title of Much Ado About Nothing can be interpreted as ‘a lot of trouble over nothing’. The central theme of this play is making something out of nothing, with many of the characters influencing others to fall in love through manipulation. Our literature asks the readers, “What’s this all about anyway? Isn’t it all just much ado about nothing?” While it is clear to Team Twitterpated what the benefits of Twitter are, we encourage the audience to question that for themselves.

Another borrowed piece of literature employed within our Electronic literature comes from Lance Winslow, who wrote an article titled “If Something Comes of Nothing; Then Nothing Can Be Redefined”. This article induces critical and philosophical thinking with statements such as, “Of course if we know nothing will become something then nothing is really a pre-something and it is not nothing at all. Therefore nothing cannot be nowhere, it can only be in an unlabeled place and first we need to find where nothing exists, if indeed it exists at all” (Winslow).

Sheila collected much of the borrowed literature while Kristin organized many of the tweets to make them useful. The material for our electronic literature was then distributed to Josh and Zack who worked together to create a design. They then split the assignment in half so that each of them was actively designing. Team Twitterpated successfully and collectively created the masterpiece that can be found at the following link:

www.zwoffdesign.com/elit

References:

Bushman, Jay. "The Good Captain" THE FISHER: a diary of the Loose-Fish Project.
2007-2008. 29 Apr 2009 .

Winslow, Lance "If Something Comes of Nothing; Then Nothing Can Be Redefined." If Something Comes of Nothing; Then Nothing Can Be Redefined. 24 Feb. 2007. EzineArticles.com. 29 Apr 2009 .

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