Novel Experience & Expression » fragment

Resonance Assemblage

Gary Hink — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:15:51 +0000

M 07-Dec Due: Final Project — “Resonance Assemblage” (checkpoint)

Workshop / “Studio” class

“Stage 1″ Checkpoint instructions here.

W 09-Dec (no class)

Due: Final Project — (9pm finalized / online)

Overall guidelines here

[See post to watch Flash video]

“Stage 1″ Project Checkpoint due M 07-Dec (class time) — required

Note: must be online, “in progress,” by class time to avoid penalty
(late / point deduction from final project).

Content: 6-8 entries (”posts”) minimum (of 16-20 total).
— reminder: entries are fragments (100-200 words); see below for more.

“Research” is complete; definite/revised topic/issue; sources and “materials” selected.

List sources on “Materials” page:

Literary: 2 from Part II novels; (4 req’d total)*
Scholarly: 1 min. from research; (2 required total)
Culture: 2 min. (distinct from “Literary” sources; 4 min. total)
Multimedia: 2 min. (10 total, including 1 non-image e.g. video, audio, animation, etc.)

— * Note: any material from a novel is sufficient: quote, phrase, description, figure/image, character, setting, references/allusions, style/”voice” (?), narration technique (?)….

— Prospective materials: list any sources not used yet but anticipate including in entries; also might list any items seeking but not found thus far.

——–

Layout : Blog reformatted (see instructions below — click here).

Static home page created.

“Entries” page created.

Required Pages created (see below; content incomplete)

New title (creative / applicable, re: “critical expressionism” of your project)

New “theme” (blog template)

Categories and Tags (create, relative to topic)

All old entries categorized (and tagged? optional);
e.g. “research,” “response,” “reading journal”

Widgets: “Categories” and “Tag Cloud” (minimum / req’d)

——–

Required Pages:

Home
About
Entries (or “Posts”)
Materials
Poetics
Reflection

——–

Multimedia

— Be sure to embed at least one image and/or audio/video clip (even if you change/delete them later).
— Use from Web or your own (upload to Wordpress)

Instructions:
Embedding Images
Video Instructions (for YouTube; cf. Google, Vimeo, etc. on page)
Adding Audio Instructions
Google Maps

Note: We’ll want to troubleshoot practical issues about this during Monday’s workshop; please attend/arrive with specific technical questions/issues.

——–

Content

6-8 entries (”posts”) minimum.

— reminder: entries are fragments (100-200 words).

Flexible / hybrid poetics: might be single topic/vignette (for emphasis); or, juxtaposition of diverse elements, e.g. text and image from different paradigm levels.

Note: strongly discourage using images for “representation” (illustration, depiction, etc), as this is not expressive (but logical). Instead, use expressive images guided by intuition (associative and affective logic), without “obvious” (explicit, rational) connection…

Paradigm (one example from each dimension, for Monday):

Personal
Disciplinary (historical / scientific)
Cultural
Original Narrative

Interface: one example (from any of three paradigm dimensions)

Expressive Figure: one example (from any of three paradigm dimensions)

Manipulated image : one example

“Ready-made” or “Bricolage” Method of using images: “re-fashion” / “re-purpose” visually, by using any image program like Photoshop; including free software online:

Pixlr
Phoenix
Picnik
Wordle (?)

——–

Blog Format / Layout Instructions

Creating Pages

1) Dashboard -> Pages -> Add New
2) “Add New Page” -> Title / compose -> Publish

*3) Create a new page that will become your home/front page.
*4) Create a new page titled “Entries” or “Posts”

A) Convert blog to static home page.

1) Dashboard -> Settings -> Reading.
2) Front page displays -> choose “A static page.”
3) Select Front page (from drop-down menu).
4) Select Posts page (from drop-down menu).

B) New Theme & Title

Change Theme to one expressive of experience/affect.

1) Dashboard –> Appearance –> Themes

Change title: re-name your blog with an apt title for your project.

1) Dashboard -> Settings -> Blog Title & Tagline

C) Enable “Tag cloud” & “Categories” widget

1) Dashboard –> Appearance–> Widgets

* To tag and categorize entries

1) Dashboard -> Posts -> Edit Posts
2) Select post to Edit -> Add/type tags (right column) -> Click “Add” Button.
3) “Categories” -> Choose/create (right column)
*4) Click “Update” (right column) to save (not updated, otherwise).

W.A.S.T.E.

Gary Hink — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:11:01 +0000

“The next story I wrote was The Crying of Lot 49,
which was marketed as a ‘novel,’ and in which I seem
to have forgotten most of what I thought I’d learned up until then.”

– Thomas Pynchon, Slow Learner, 1984.

M 16-Nov Pynchon: The Crying of Lot 49 (through Chapter 3) Pynchon Wiki: Annotations (Laura Navia & Audrey Bannon)

W 18-Nov Crying of Lot 49 (Chp. 4-5) (Anna Bernstein)

F 20-Nov Crying of Lot 49 (Chapter 6) *plus* Lot 49 Short Film (Maria Tamayo)

M 23-Nov Due: Response 6

Resp 6: Narrative Interface and Crying of Lot 49

Part I: Creative Writing Entry; 400-500 words; due M 23-Nov ( 1:55pm)

Part II: Analysis of Classmate’s Entry; ~200 words; due M 23-Nov ( 11:59pm)

Review assignment criteria below; — also remember extra credit opportunity…
note: read prompt closely — three main instructions.

Part I Prompt

Creative writing entry; structural role: put yourself in Oedipa’s position, “detective” seeking “the Truth” of…(?) (Note: can be composed in first- or third-person perspective).

Key task: express one specific affect of this experience, indirectly through vignettes with original narratives and Pynchon’s figures.

e.g. uncertainty, disorientation, “groundless,” lack of reference, hopelessness, disinheritance, disposession, lack of agency, “undocumented person,” persona non grata, in vino veritas…

* not “paranoia,” “schizophrenic,” etc. (psychiatric diagnoses)

Composition method (all required):

Compose several (3 min.) vignettes (brief narrative fragments), with each of the following three components, in the style of Pynchon — “faithful” (accurate) to each type of discourse.
(Clarification notes below / here.)

In your entry, use:

1) original narrative (fragment/s)
within Oedipa’s 1960s social network (diegetic characters, settings, “rules,” etc);
you are Oedipa, (inter-)acting within her situation in “seeking” but not “finding” truth — of?
(Choose one “target/goal,” as motivated by a question: “what is ___?”) Describe how you would proceed, as if you were Oedipa, but withhold “reaching goal” — remember, narrative has constituent and supplementary events (review notes/Abbott).

Notes below (click here)

2) historical reference (factual details, event, etc.) — specific, from Pynchon (essential to research)

Notes below (click here)

3) an “interface,” from:

myth/belief
science/reason (including history)
or your disciplinary knowledge, set within novel’s context
(N.B. Pynchon was first an engineering major at Cornell)

Exceptions:
muted post-horn; circuit-board; “Bordando el Manto Terrestre” (painting)

More notes below (click here)

Note: none of these three are “allegories” or “symbolic” of the others, and one does not “explain” other(s); rather, expression through resonance between them.
– we’re composing an “assemblage” or network of narratives and figures; result is not a homogeneous composite product…

Composition mode = Indirection:

Remember, Experience of Lethe = “secret” (Blanchot), concealed; never appears, unlike truth as “illuminated” or “unconcealed” (Aletheia).

“The philosophical genealogy of divination begins with Heraclitus declaring that the oracle at Delphi does not reveal or conceal, but intimates.” — Ulmer

Part II: Analysis of Classmate’s Entry; ~200 words; due M 23-Nov ( 11:59pm)

Choose one classmate’s entry to analyze;
ASAP, post a comment on their blog, for equal distribution (i.e. everyone’s should be read, without duplicate readings) — even if to let them know you’ll post your analysis later.

On your blog (required, so I can include as part of Response 6):

in a paragraph (~200 words), describe the affect that you intuit from your reading, and how the author expresses it; on the latter, discuss their poetics, specifically techniques and unconventional (”novel”?) discourse.
Feel free also to describe the extent to which the entry demonstrates the aesthetic apparatus of expression (or either mode of judgment, for that matter: belief/myth or reason/science; review chart).

Algebra of Need

Gary Hink — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:58:17 +0000

“The face of ‘evil’ is always the face of total need. A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope. Beyond a certain frequency need knows absolutely no limit or control.
In the words of total need: ‘Wouldn’t you?‘ Yes you would” (201).

– Burroughs, “Testimony Concerning a Sickness” (1960)

M 28-Sep      Burroughs: Naked Lunch
                       (“Deposition” pp. 199-205; “And Start West” to “Ordinary Men & Women” pp. 3-101)
                       (James Jacob & Phil Cafaro)

”Burroughs’ Cut-up Method”

W 30-Sep Naked Lunch (“Islam Inc” through “The Examination” pp. 101-65) (Anna Bernstein)

F 02-Oct Naked Lunch (”…Pantopon Rose?” through end, pp. 165-96; plus “Post Script” pp. 207-10)
(Eric Roe & Paige Miller)