Fun da mentals : Rhetorical Devices for Electronic Literature
Drowning in the Distance: Tone and meaning within images

Explanation and Exploration
Exercise

Experiment: On Your Own

Student works {None yet}

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Explanation and Exploration

Images can form the basis of a work's navigational structure. This sets the tone for the work and highlights the image as it bestows a central form and function to the image. This can be used to:

Exercise: Drowning in the Distance

Create an electronic literature piece using any tool that connects the corresponding image in the three image sets to the words (that is, connect image 1a, 2a, and 3a, to text a; image 1b, 2b, and 3b to text b; and image 1c, 2c, and 3c to text c).

a

We reached out to the distance but nothing came through. All of us stretching to find what lay beyond the beyond. Yet we could travel no further.

 

b

The water rose beyond our levels of comprehension. There was nowhere for it to go, and so it pooled there, gathering, holding in without a ripple. We waited forever, but it would not evaporate.

c

What brought us to this fate? The sounds of daily living drowned out our cries. The world continued on, even after we knew it had been shattered.


 

1alamp over Crown Point, looking out at the Columbia River, Vancouver WA US
1bCommunications manhole in water fountain at Vancour Washington US
1cFountain at Farragut North Station, Washington DC US

 

2aTree roots, Gray's Harbor Washington, US.
2b
2cBlue spruce and lupines, Estes Park, Colorado US
3aRefugees
3bhttp://scatt.bilegrip.com/v6n2.htm Renee Nowytarger
3chttp://media.canada.com/reuters/olusworld_iptc/2008-04-17t075647z_01_nootr_rtridsp_2_international-olympics-torch-india-dc.jpg
Photos 3a, 3b, and 3c are by Renee Nowytarger

 

Experiment On Your Own

Try some writing exercises on your own to experiment with images and meaning. Look at graphic design tutorials such as the one at about.com.

Solitaire

  1. Find two images
  2. Write for 10 minutes nonstop, with your thoughts based on the first image.

    Put this image and text out of the way.
  3. Write for 10 minutes nonstop on the second image.

    Now look at these two images and their corresponding text at the same time.
  4. Switch images. What happens to the meaning of your writing?

Team sports

  1. Have each person bring an image.
  2. Write for 10 minutes nonstop with your thoughts based on the image you brought.
  3. Clip your writing to the back of the image where the next person can not read it.
  4. Switch images
  5. Write for 10 minutes nonstop with your thoughts based on the new image--but do not read the original text.
  6. Clip your writing to the back of this image with the other person's writing.
  7. Switch images
  8. Write for 10 minutes nonstop with your thoughts based on the new image--but do not read the other texts.
  9. Switch images.
  10. Read all of the texts based on this image. How do the texts influence the image?
  11. Get your original image back. Read the new texts. How do these different views influence your view of your image?
  12. Switching texts and not images. How do these texts influence your view of your image?

Further exploration

  • Exchange: Share Your Creations

    Share your work in person
    Perform your piece in front of an audience--show your images (as a slide behind you in a large group or as a picture in front of you for a few readers) and have different readers read the texts in different voices.

    Share your work online

    Create a video or take a picture or render your creation to be read on a computer (use any tool you can). We'd love to show your work--either send it or send a URL for your work here to be a part of this site so others can see how you worked with links.

     


    We'd love to show your work--either send it or send a URL for your work here to be a part of this site.

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