Missing Pieces

From Richard Lanham's book.

"Linear prose can only say one thing at a time" (83).
"Such figures [puns]--though to my knowledge, no one has ever thought to construe them this way--strive for greater productivity" (83).
"We need to use the human brain more efficiently. We need to find new shapes for traditional arguments and shapes for new kinds of arguments" (115).

While I won't disagree with anything Lanham says here--how could I?--I want to question his attitude toward this emerging change in text. Throughout these first three chapters, Lanham takes a fairly positive view, calling this transition to an information economy "progress" at one point in the introduction. His vision isn't necessarily utopian, but this text is celebratory: We are moving forward toward greater human (cognitive) achievement. Go us.

Even as we do so, as the above quotes show, we necessarily align ourselves with an ideology of productivity and personal gain. It may be the Anabaptist in me that shrinks back at this: as we rush toward some greater understanding and the mass of human knowledge reaches some critical point, are we really doing any good in the world? What is it we are striving for? What happens when we get there?
And what about all of those people who cannot react quickly enough, either from lack of physical ability, or lack of education? The flow of information is not as free and egalitarian as Lanham would like us to believe; the world of stuff permeates everything, including our access to the world of information (which in turn, limits our access to stuff...). While greater efficiency and large changes in attitude toward text might make sense and be a boon to educated middle class (and upward) people, the vast majority, the Masses, feel only information overload, not improved communication. And from what I've seen of information science in public schools, the utopian vision of a pure economy of attention is not only unreachable, but it ignores the day to day struggles of the lower classes and categorizes them as either nonexistant or unimportant to our sense of the "general" human condition.
Again, I find myself thinking of Levinas: How does the economics of attention allow us to afford any attention at all to the Other?


Giant Gerbil Ball (Reply from Morgan Reitmeyer)

What could an immersive book look like? Lanham has talked about the movement away from interactive texts and back towards traditional texts (only they’re on a computer screen). He also talks about the way that books, at least for those of us who really adore reading, are an immersive reality all to themselves. I have always shied from ebooks for many of the reasons that Lanham mentions: they are not mobile, there is nothing to touch and write on, I feel left out of the text and am interrupted by scrolling or button pushing. I just never found a love for them, and would rather read something that is on paper—yet I am able to spend hours online flipping back and forth through pages of information. How can this be? The way I read a novel or article is of course very different then the way I read online. Online I am generally skimming to the paragraph that feels like it hold some nugget of truth, or I am reading for brief information (recipe, factoid…). It seems that the texts online don’t quite take it far enough. How would it be different if I could be in the text? And how would it be if my actions actually changed the text? I was desperately looking for this wonderful thesis that one of the MFAs at Colorado State University made while I was just starting. She had a site where how you moved and selected text (which faded in and out and was hauntingly cool) changed the story that would appear and/or evolve. It was one of the most effective online creative texts that invited you into the process. Also, I am curious about the way it would be if, as we read/interacted with a book, we were in a virtual world of the text… I haven’t fleshed out what this would look like, and it might be part of my 3D library mind map of love, but this giant gerbil ball might be part of it.
Submitted by Morgan R. on Tue, 2007-02-20 10:06.

In the text, out of your apartment (reply from amylea)
Submitted by Amylea on Tue, 2007-02-20 10:56.
One of the romanticized notions of "reading" is the ability to escape to another world (perhaps a gerbil ball). Has anyone read the Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde? The main character actually does go inside the text. There is a central Library of all books ever written, and all their permutations, and there is a policing body known as Jurisfiction that monitors all fictional worlds to make sure the plots are maintained. Excellent literary theory masquerading as novels.
But E-books (or, as the Next books posit, Book 2.0) don't even come close to this. Sad As an avid fanfic reader, I have been known to read online texts just as I read novels...but it is still very hard to do. My attention wanders to the advertisements, the links, the awards, the stylized fanart banners. One cannot curl up with a laptop, particularly when one must have it plugged in. Sad Maybe smaller will be better? I don't own a PalmPilot or BlackBerry...yet.

Can't wait till we can just download stories into our heads and watch them play out in a controlled hallucination. Fun! Cool

Later post:
VizRhet = design elements
I went flipping through our design book for fun--how bizzaro. I learned pagination by the sink or swim method. No textbook, no instructions; just Amylea, a jaded former Journalism professor, and an old Mac running Adobe PageMaker 4.0. I learned design organically, coming to realize (after the oscilating fan was thrown at me) that I needed to think about things like Grey Scale and Gutters as tools of manipulation, as audience control. In other words, the rhetoric of a newspaper is less in the copy than it is in the white space, hierarchy, serifs, and cropping. And in how I choose to arrange them. Editors-in-chief might look like they have the power, but people like me get to direct attention and give order. All thanks to a mouse and some well-placed shading.

Seeing these things explained so clearly in our book feels like someone explaining how to write the letter B again. I wonder if I would have done as well as a layout editor if someone had explained it to me, however. What I do now when faced with a blank Adobe page is more like a Blink moment: it's instinctive, pre-conscious, and wicked fun.
Submitted by Amylea on Tue, 2007-01-23 09:25.

How it began...
Fanvids, or why I'm in this class

I know we're supposed to be at an early stage here, but I've been working on this awhile...

Given the ease of video editing software and the proliferation of web-based forums on which to post amateur productions, it's not surprising that fanvids have become a favorite tool for fans of television and film to create new arguments about their reading of the original text. "Fanvids" have the potential to return control of the text to the reader by giving the creator the power of suture. By analyzing vids from two different fandoms, I hope to tease out what it is these amateur auteurs know about visual rhetoric and how they choose to either accept or ignore Hollywood film conventions in order to make their arguments. Specifically, I will look at the argument for a romantic relationship between Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy (of Harry Potter) and the argument for a romantic relationship between Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson (Stargate: SG-1).

I plan on usnig Henry Jenkins' Textual Poaching and Laura Mulvey's work on suture as my starting points, but I'm open to just about any framework to help me sort through all this data.
Submitted by Amylea on Thu, 2007-01-25 10:42.

Replies:
David Blakesley on Thu, 2007-02-01 06:32.

There are lots of interesting issues swirling around the topic of FanVids, so looking at them from the standpoint of visual rhetoric should prove very interesting.

Not too long ago, I did some work related to a sample essay in The Thomson Handbook on the subject of FanFic, so I have a few additional resources to suggest (in addition to the sources you've already mentioned--Jenkins, Mulvey--and particular FanVids). These focus on Tolkein FanFiction primarily, but they still might be helpful (I hope).

Bacon-Smith, Camille. Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1992.
Chonin, Neva. "Love Between Men Is a Powerful Thing in Lord of the Rings." 15 Jan. 2002. SFGate.com. 11 Aug. 2002. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/01/15/neva...

FanFiction.net. 2006. .

Godawful Fan Fiction. 2006. 17 February 2006. http://www.godawful.net/mb/

Jenkins, Henry. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge, 1992. See his website/blog: http://www.henryjenkins.org/ and this useful discussion: http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/09/how_to_watch_a_fanvid.html

Rice, Anne. “Important Message from Anne on ‘Fan Fiction.’" 2000. 17 February 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20000511150950/www.annerice.com/scoop.htm

Schulz, Nancy. "The E-Files." Washington Post 29 Apr. 2001: G1.

Smol, Anna. “‘Oh . . . Oh . . . Frodo!’: Readings of Male Intimacy in The Lord of The Rings.” Modern Fiction Studies 50.4 (2004): 949-79.

Here's a Star Trek FanVid hosted at Salon:
http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/misc/2006/09/13/kirk_spock/index.html

It would be interesting to do a FanVid on FanVids. . . .

Finally, check out Atom Films:
http://www.atomfilms.com/home.jsp

Fandom exploding
Reply: Submitted by Amylea on Thu, 2007-02-01 10:43.

I've read some of these (and quite a few others...); some of the Buffy studies have nice essays on feminism, female fans, and the gaze.

Recently a Buffy site added "BadFic" as a genre. The fics are chock full o' cliches, bad dialogue, and even worse plot elements. Fans seem fond of creating new "genres"--"angst" and "Revenge" are two that come to mind. But is "Bad" really a genre? Or maybe it is only a genre for fan based texts?

Fanvids
Reply: Submitted by Ryan on Thu, 2007-01-25 10:49.

Amy, aren't you going to explore the Kirk/Spock love affair? This sounds really interesting, as current technology has allowed amateurs to alter the narratives of their favorite stories. I am also interested in the point where technology comes far enough for amateurs to expand the stories of their favorite cultural products instead of just re-editing existing footage. I wonder if computers will ever allow the seamless reuse or expansion of special effects and filmmaking to let fans create footage beyond that which is poached. Just a thought - the project itself sounds very interesting.

Slashing the Captain
Reply: Submitted by Amylea on Thu, 2007-01-25 10:53.

Ryan,

The K/S slash has such a long history to it...and the fans are mostly adults who don't have time to edit fanvids. Sadly.
I think.


Later in the semester:

Desire and FanVids

After Eye and Brain we already knew that what we see is always already an interpretation--the gaps get filled in, past experience dictates our emotional responses, conventions give shape to the shapeless. But Elkins takes this one step further to argue that there is an element of desire that underpins all of these interpretive reactions. We desire to possess the things we see and, in turn, see the things we desire to possess (Elkins 31).

Which got me thinking about my project (mais oui!). Most fanvids create relationships that don't exist: Hermione/Snape (Harry/Snape...anyone/Snape), Daniel/Jack, Ed/Roy (of Fullmetal Alchemist)...Kirk/Spock. For these fans, simply writing a world in which these relationships exist is not enough--although fics usually accompany vids. They desire to make manifest a relationship and are now able to do so with photorealistic quality. No more cheesy fanarts or recreations in Paint--thanks to some strategic cuts, overuse of slo-mo, and the sometimes inappropriate fade, fans can make what they want to see appear to be real.
And this comes to be acceptable based on where thes vids appear: Like the film Elkins saw in two different locations, fanvids can appear rather cheesy if viewed next to the original video, or quite artistic when viewed from a fan's own webpage steeped in the fandom (ever see a Harry Potter themed fan site? Oh, the backgrounds!). Some would argue they're cheesy either way, but those comments usually come from those who have no desire to see that particular relationship played out. Or, The Few Non-Fans that exist. Somewhere.
Submitted by Amylea on Tue, 2007-02-27 10:54.

Reply: Submitted by Morgan R. on Tue, 2007-02-27 10:56.
Amy, could you post a few links to some of the Fan Vids... I admit that I have never experienced one....Mad Morgan Rackem (aka Morgan Reitmeyer)

Some Slash Vids...brace yourself
Reply: Submitted by Amylea on Tue, 2007-02-27 11:09.

Harry/Snape (aka "Snarry")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzkwx2D-tt0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3xDxDGucEk

Daniel/Jack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnF-_kLnQBg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrQrKbT7f0I
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These videos kind of hurt me
Reply: Submitted by Morgan R. on Thu, 2007-03-01 10:48.
These videos kind of hurt me somehow... I don't know why. Harry and Snape most especially...Mad Morgan Rackem (aka Morgan Reitmeyer)

Fan Trauma
Reply: Submitted by Amylea on Thu, 2007-03-01 10:51.

There is a kind of trauma or violence I feel when I watch these that I don't feel in fanfic. It's not that I can feel the edited cuts so much as the perversion of images I know so well puts things off balance. I start to feel bad for the characters, because I see them being manipulated--although, they are no more manipulated by the fans than they are by the Hollywood producers/directors/editors who put them in the original composition.

Even Later in the semester:
Clarification: FanVids

While I can find quite a bit of information on fanfiction and fan communities in general, very little has been written about fanvids, apart from Machinema. Because I am not so much interested in the community-driven aspects of fanvids, however, these articles will not comprise the majority of my research.

I could also cite Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (and probably will), but again, authenticity and authority are not my main concern. Because I want to figure out what it is fans-auteurs know about visual rhetoric, what conventions they mainly rely on, and what genres they most heavily draw on, I will most likely have to rely on film theory.

What is complicating this project is the musical element: Fanvids don't just rely on Hollywood conventions, but on music video conventions. I'm not sure where to go looking for research on this, but I'll start with the cultural studies journals. I'm not sure yet whether there are different genres of fanvids based on genres of music videos (or genres of music), but the ones I've seen all seem to fit within the same romance-filled, teen-angst genre. This may be, however, because I am looking at arguments for "unconventional pairings" (Hermione/Snape and Daniel/Jack), which are based on unfulfilled desire. There are so few fanvids for "canon" or established relationships that I'm starting to think that "angst" just might be the key emotion of the genre.
Submitted by Amylea on Thu, 2007-02-08 10:57.

Fascinating
Reply: Submitted by magnoliafan on Thu, 2007-03-01 10:48.

This sounds like a really fascinating project. I think that a good place to go would be popular culture conference programs, because the ones I've been to seem to be invested in the kinds of questions you're asking.
L-Train (Lars)

Visual Genres
Reply: Submitted by David Blakesley on Thu, 2007-03-01 09:31.

Amylea:

One possible trajectory would be to look at a variety of "prototypical" fanvids to see if there has emerged a visual style that amounts to a genre--a socialized response to a situation--using film and images. I think you're right that the genre will be influenced by music video, perhaps even the roving camera technique it initiated and that became a staple of shows like NYPD Blue and other TV shows.
To what extent to these (re)presentations violate traditional video genres like realism? What sort of mixing/mash-ups might they employ? Your goal could be to establish just what techniques do seem common and (even) what role technologies (and video editing software) have in determining them.

Some of Amy's replies to others:
Submitted by Amylea on Tue, 2007-01-23 10:58.

I'd like to put Levinas and Burke in a (parlor) room and let them hash this one out: Burke seems to suggest that rhetoric can be ethical, because it encourages us to identify with the Other. Levinas, as Mark says, considers any attempt to change the Other to be unethical. "Reading" the "Face" would be a violence for Levinas. But if we're all doing this unconsciously anyway, is it really unethical, since ethics involves choice?

Lovely Levinas
Reply: Submitted by mark p on Thu, 2007-01-25 10:40.

I don't really remember too much about what Levinas had to say about unconscious behaviors, but you do pose an excellent question concerning this. Yes, ethics always involves choice. But Levinas also refuses to work in clear good/evil, right/wrong dualities. Choosing to not be ethical is not evil or wrong, it is simply further away from the good. Therefore, I wonder if choosing to not explore the subconscious reactions to reading the face would not be a matter of unethical, just a slide further away from the ethical good. But then, if they're subconscious, how can you consciously choose to explore them? I wonder if that makes a difference? Maybe I just felt like typing the word "Levinasian." Yeah, that's probably it.

Unconscious Levinasian
Reply: Submitted by Amylea on Thu, 2007-01-25 10:51.

Isn't it "The Good"?
What I remember about Levinasian ethics is that we are to be in a perpetual state of putting the Other before ourselves. The only evil for Lev-baby is the "betrayal" that comes with self-interest. I don't think Levi would fault us for our unconscious behaviors, as long as we consciously acknowledged the humanity(Being) of the Other...which we do through encountering the suffering and the Face...which tends to be visual....whether or not it's rhetorical is another question, I suppose?

Ethics
Reply: Submitted by Ryan on Tue, 2007-01-23 10:51.

This is very interesting, because I don't know anything about Levinas and would like to. Therefore, please take my comments with a grain of salt. There are certainly ethical implications in the idea of reading faces, as the seven seconds in the Bronx chapter indicates. However, the work of Gladwell complicates the idea that we cannot play on emotions that others are not conscious of, because Blink suggests that emotions can be communicated without either party being conscious of them (using conscious in a loose sense meaning "aware.") You write "However, in a Levinasian sense, it would be unethical to read the face of someone else and use the emotional cues found there to persuade them before they have any conscious awareness of their own emotional state." However, if I am think slicing the face, I may also not have any consciousness of the emotion I just read, even though I am reacting to it. Furthermore, the chapter suggests that people may express emotions that they are not conscious of. This seems to complicate Levinas' ethical standards, though I do like them as an ideal.

Other blogging moments:
Barry and Persuading the Rhetorician

Let's assume for a moment that we all have normal amygdala.

Assuming that our first response has been channeled through the thalamo-amygdala system--a gut reaction, an "emotional" moment (I don't like the word emotion for this), then the most effective rhetoric is that which takes advantage of this system. If we could know what images/sensory input evoke which reactions, we could create a text working to persuade based just on those. No logos needed.

I've always wondered how it is that smart people--rhetoricians, for example--are still able to be persuaded, even when we know they're being persuaded, and can articulate rhetorical elements at work. And yet I still want to see Movie X, or I think that car is really sweet. What must be at work is this gut reaction, this emotional response that is stronger than logic.

Thoughts?
Submitted by Amylea on Thu, 2007-01-25 11:13.

Does Pathos Come First?
Reply: Submitted by David Blakesley on Tue, 2007-02-06 07:17.

Good questions, Amylea. All things being equal, I think there is this tendency for pathos to outshine the other appeals. However, the rhetorical moment extends over time and space, so it's not the only appeal that gets through, and the "well-educated trout" knows how to differentiate types of interpretations because it can be dangerous to always give in to the first impression. That does happen often, though, that's for sure.

It's important not to discount it, as some people do, valuing instead the purely logical appeal. I think they always work in concert (or should) and that one without the other is a recipe for failure (from the rhetorician's side).

There's the likelihood also that the event itself "teaches" us to react to its eventfulness. We monitor our reactions as we read (or view) and those reactions in turn have affect in their own right. It's also interesting to think of how unrelated aspects of context change the effects of appeals. (One thing in one context might mean/affect quite differently in another.)