Tariq

Mark Amerika’s How To Be An Internet Artist constitutes a differential text that perturbs the reader because of its rich collection of multiple non-consistent writings. There is no plot that runs over the whole e-book, but every section seems as if it is completely separate from the rest of the book. Through this style, Amerika implies that this is what people, who usually surf the internet, should expect to face. When a person surfs the internet, s/he moves from one site to another without a consistency of the topics or even the value of the information sometimes. The existence of “Post-Adolescence,” “Gertrude Stein,” and “Untitled” in the book proves the possibility that the internet user may come across pornography. Amerika’s electronic art book marks the beginning of new media art through introducing a multifaceted view of scenes, exploiting digital art scenes. The book tells about a variety of subjects, including interactive storytelling and net art.

In this e-book, the content does not match the title of the book whereas the reader discovers that s/he is reading about multiple issues. Notably, Amerika remixes many topics in the book. He wants to expose that these are the main issues and topics, which are easily reachable and exist in the public domain. In “Remixing The ‘I’,” he touches some of that issues and implies that this trend becomes the public’s concern, especially when writing stories about the disclosure of new sexual trends that accompany the digital age. In this section, Amerika does not want to include these topics in his writing to discuss them so his work seems seminal or vulgar, but exposing them in the e-book implies the degeneration that reached most websites through dealing with these topics and making them the main source of income. Another implied issue in Amerika’s style through writing this e-book is the exposure of the loss of literariness; some literary works lose their artistic purposes when they are reduced through digitalizing them for the sake of marketing online. That process degrades ethics and art and creates cheap and confusing literature ultimately.

Middle Passages consists of a new kind of differential texts in their forms and contents. Kamau Brathwaite sometimes uses the Jamaican Creole and that is what he calls “nation language.” So, this time, Brathwaite uses the spoken language in the Caribbean mixed with English in a way that the Caribbean identity and their nation language appear very clear in the work. A diversity of topics appears among the poems; he discusses war, conflict, history, politics, social commentaries, race, and ethnicity. In these texts, Brathwaite exploits the form and controls the content in order to achieve his intended purpose and deliver a clear message. He clearly challenges the way things are understood through the way he presents many topics, using a new form. Middle Passages texts are different from the previous ones that we have studied in a way that they convey messages that hold prominent issues whether social or political.

The use of the Caribbean languages, precisely the Jamaican Creole ​​in the writing and mixing it with English, confirms Brathwaite’s attempt to create a new national identity at least in literature, and that affirms the Caribbean identity. Then Brathwaite turns to the issues troubling him, the issues that carry with them the sense and worries of the nation and the nation’s aspirations towards a bright future. His poetry seems as if it is not written for the aesthetic taste, so the form is not his main concern. Moreover, the use of the English language symbolizes his interest in delivering his thoughts and inspirations globally; on the other hand, the use of the Caribbean language, not dialects, symbolizes addressing his nation in their own language in order to emphasize getting the message, believing that the real history of the Caribbean is in its language.

In fact, “over-clarifications” results in defamiliarization or “Making Strange”, so this artistic device increases difficulty, hinders comprehension, and impedes readings. For what reason, this makes a difference, a difference between the poetic speech and the ordinary speech. This is exactly what Goldsmith does in his texts. He estranges the texts and the forms through the excessive clarification and providing the minute details. This technique defamiliarizes the content, framing his speech to distinguish the poetic of his language from the practical one.

Goldsmith presents unusual kind of writing; for instance, what is unusual in Soliloquy is that what comes to a reader’s mind out of the title meaning exists actually in the content and the way he presents it. When someone conducts or performs a soliloquy alone with himself, he does not consider thoroughly the format of his language nor mincing his words because he is talking alone to no audience; he speaks about what he sees and what comes to his mind in a disorganized way because the flow of ideas is usually disorganized when contemplation.

So this is exactly what Goldsmith does when he employs such a language in his writing because soliloquy presupposes the idea that there are no listeners even though Goldsmith is aware that his work is written to be read. Traffic has the same style as well. His works record every movement that may accompany the text when writing it; he is alert to all minute details when writing the texts. Therefore, these two texts seem as if they do not make sense, but the reality, of course, is the opposite. The in-depth studier of postmodernism comes up with connections and sense from any nonsense. It is true that the texts challenge the reader; however, such kind of challenge opens horizons for multiple explanations and discussions.

What a striking experience to read digital literature! And what adds to this great experience is when the text represents postmodern premises. When I started looking at the required texts, I expected to find written text as usual, then I felt confused on how to approach them; however, I stared attempting to find the top of the thread to understand something. I think that the carpenter’s works are mixed with some kind of absurdity. No harm in that because we are reading texts of post-modernism, and this idea is one of the salient features of the writings in this period. The author represents meaningful but more meaningless actions, pictures, drawing, events, and finally words that call questioning the certainty of existential concepts such as truth, value, nothingness, emptiness or being in itself, but nothing left to chance. Certainly, these texts embody the idea of differential texts not only in their genre, but also in the meanings they carry for one single item.

For these texts, the first reading does not help much understanding of what is going on, but after perusal and scrutinizing the texts, graphics, lines, dots and fonts, I could find connection between the text and the intended meaning even though the meaning sometimes seems vague, and this vagueness led to the confusion at the beginning. Carpenter’s makes connection between the themes and the color she uses. For instance, in “The Cape”, she uses black and white color although the text was written in 2005. These two colors represent the time of the story; its events took place in the remote past. Another point is the motion of pictures. Since the words in any literary text, which composes the body of the plot and relates experiences, are absent in these works, a considerable portion is set for motion pictures to add more and precise details to the body of the work. They carry deep meanings and absolutely express themes.

In the performance, “Thread of the Voice” or “On myth,” Cecilia Vicuna started delivering her performance to the audience with a nice sound that carries a musical song, using the noise of the loops shells to add music to the song. But there is a question that carries an idea: does the sound matter? Vicuna appears as if she performs a soliloquy for herself, in which there is no sound, knowing that she addresses audience. The audience could not hear the important part of the performance about the central idea of the talk, which is myth. They could not hear that part because a problem in the microphone, and another reason is that she got sore throat; however, she declares that she was NOT going to repeat it. The audience has an excuse that they could not listen because she did not set the mike up well before she started speaking. Then she did not repeat what she said, so why did she perform to audience then? She agrees that “she perceives words in sounds” and “the word that we use now SOUND.” So, where is the sound? The audience missed the definition of myth, its origin, and two out of three contemporary mythical stories in South America. They missed Vicuna’s preferred myth and its story. Vicuna’s idea about not repeating the ideas that were conveyed through sound is because people may no longer care about myth nowadays, so she means that the audience need not to care about not hearing the sound that conveys words and language discussing myth. So did the audience miss nothing important? She mentions at the beginning, “Words are time”. Since time passes and is not repeated, she refuses to repeat her words about the first big part of the performance.