Assemblage Composing Guide
» The Project is a series of web pages, “screen self-portrait” arranged as fragments with links (associative/creative organization).
The content — combination of text and multimedia — should be a variety of materials from all 4 “personal databases”:
- Autobiography (family history, personal experience)
- Discipline (school, major, career field)
- Community (group membership, participation, social activity)
- Entertainment (pop culture, mass media, digital/Web/Internet)
» Assemblage design, multimodal rhetoric applied:
- draw upon (“sample from”) each database for materials toward the “composite sketch“
— concrete details (people, characters, places, items) in media (images) and in language** Use the discourse unique / respective to each, at the level of language and mode (for instance humor or play in entertainment: films, games, Web content; phrases/references in family & social communication)
-
— remember: any / all of your personal databases are available to compose the “self-portrait” of your experiencing networked media ecology: Internet public sphere, community imagined / felt.
Site Organization and Design Criteria
First, create new Page for Project
- If using WordPress: then create & link sub-pages for sections/fragments of project (organized & hyperlinked — required — to simulate cultural form/inteface).
- If using external site/host (e.g. Wix) — clearly post on your blog the link/s & any documents (e.g., story script, materials/sources).
» include the script (“treatment”) on a page, for workshop (draft / work-in-progress) and credit toward assignment criteria (e.g. words/length, effort, rhetorical awareness).- Note: text of “materials” must be posted on WordPress blog in order to be counted toward requirements
- When using time-based media (audio / video clips):
» try to embed whenever possible (e.g., edited mp3, video, media-player clip);
- As Wix.com states, “To stay organized, make a simple sketch of your desired website structure.”
- Revise & Edit “for publication”
(i.e. copy-edit, “proofread” for correct prose; revise for efficient style — all text purposeful!)
- Media Required: two types (minimum)
- Images required, including at least one original or manipulated (edited, “photoshopped”).
— suggest: Pixlr.com
— see more applications in list below
* Original Multimedia Form Not Required
→ Use combination of your media (images) and found materials - Other media forms: audio (songs, ambient sounds); video (media clips, found footage, screen recording); animation (GIFs), illustrations, reference materials (e.g. documents, charts, graphs).
- Images required, including at least one original or manipulated (edited, “photoshopped”).
- Attempt, apply, emulate specific techniques from cultural forms — as “Relay” for composing in creative & aesthetic mode.
(leave implicit within fragments; then identify directly on Poetics page)
- Mediating experience: use cultural form as interface (simulated / emulated), guide for composing.
- Purposefully choose a media form / genre suitable for this type of expression, considering our method & the project goals; select from database research (Relays, Popcycle).
— examples we’ve discussed: comedy (parody videos, memes); remix/mash-up (music); others? - Expectation for digital authoring: attempt to implement the expressive techniques of this cultural form within your multimedia composition.
- Leave this technique implicit (perform the idea); explain your approach & rationale in Poetics section/discussion.
Include instances of interactivity & time-based media (duration) effectively; attempt to evoke “mood of thought” of each database or part of the networked public sphere.
→ Protip: Disperse fragments & media forms (hypertext layout); carefully consider function/effect of embedded objects (media players, images), applying thoughtful digital rhetoric or “poetics of authoring” (balancing the “frequencies” or levels of each discourse).
- Use multiple media, expressive formatting, and links within entries.
- Employ a variety of styles and modes, as “hybrid discourse” (critical + creative modes).
- Organize text as “fragments”:
» Composition guide from Ulmer Internet Invention
(stylistic help for “digital storytelling” in relation to media composing):- Anecdote: “The anecdote is an oral form originally, and is useful for locating sensory details of the home environment that evoke the atmosphere of the place.” (p.90)
- “Although anecdotes may be highly crafted, for our purposes they do not have to have any ‘point’ other than they they represent a scene or situation that remained in your memory.” (p. 92)
- Micro Narrative
“Situation: establish the key details of a situation (the terms of a relationship). The relationship may be between or among people, or of a person with a place, thing, or event. You may or may not be directly involved with the scene, but it should be ‘nonfiction’ in that the scene is based on an actual memory (without worrying about the accuracy of the memory).” (p.92)
“Image: locate and develop some feature of the scene into an image that comments indirectly or figuratively on the scene, in a way that brings out your present understanding of the past situation.” (p.93)
- “The micro narrative gives you some practice with narrative form itself—the structure that is guiding the overall development of the project. The ‘micro’ dimension enacts the haiku principle of brevity, and avoids ‘confession’ since there is so little space for elaboration.
It also helps break down blocks such as the false split (for our purposes) between truth and fiction.”
“The micro is a very short story that evokes the feeling of the domestic scene; what counts is not necessarily any one incident…but the feeling suggested by the story as image.” (p.94)
- Anecdote: “The anecdote is an oral form originally, and is useful for locating sensory details of the home environment that evoke the atmosphere of the place.” (p.90)
» Notes on Composition Logic (poetics + praxis)
- you are leaving yourself out explicitly, not composing in “first-person singular present-tense direct” discourse, in favor of expressing the community situation with “database” elements (“readymade” stories, characters, settings, concrete details). Remember, the DJ, Film Director, or Game Designer is responsible for the arrangement—focalization, juxtapositions, organization, potential action—while remaining absent, in terms of voice (articulation).
The other way of understanding your “voice” is in terms of “signature,” “fingerprints,” “ear” — your sensibility and perspective (“personality?”), use to compose the project.
- Expectation for digital authoring: attempt to implement the expressive techniques of this cultural form within your multimedia & multimodal composition.
- Leave implicit; explain approach & rationale in Poetics.
- The goal is to quilt an assemblage of heterogeneous elements without filtering to a homogeneous “final product”–the consistency or coherence should appear organically rather than artificially imposed (e.g. reductive / binary logic of filtering and argument). Multiple voices & stories should appear in a new form of expression, for which you are responsible (as the only “link” between unrelated elements).
The key task is not to assert your opinion or interpretation or account; rather, to present (perform) the atmosphere and dynamic situation within which you are situated and participate.
→ recommended applications/sites for media work
(others? please add suggestions in comments!)
» Embedding Media into WordPress pages: Instructions
— images: using WP Media Library (recommended); from Web, from Instgram
—streaming audio: Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Spotify + Rdio players, more
— streaming video: YouTube, Vimeo, Internet Archive, more
— other: Tweets, Facebook posts, slideshows, more (see WordPress.com pages)
» Image Editing:
Pixlr
** Pixlr Grabber (extension) — image capture
GIMP (all operating systems)
Photoscape
Pixelmator (Mac OS only)
Photoshop Express — Web & App (mobile + tablet)
Aviary app (Android & iOS)
Creating your own GIFs:
→ suggestion: save GIF file & upload to your WP Media Library
» Screen capture & recording for video:
SnagIt (Chrome Extension)
Screenr
EZVid * recommended
CamStudio
Jing Project — capture & annotate screen images (and short videos)
» Experimental Work by Past Students
Note these are presented only as examples of different arrangement approaches (hypertext, non-linear, assemblage)
Your project need not resemble these — and should not especially in terms of content
(student work for several different courses and assignments!)
» Google Doc — Sign-in required to view (use Identikey)
http://prezi.com/jrpxe4f98uaa/project-1-sam-ashmore/
I really liked this example. I feel as though he/she did a great job representing her social media experience rather than just aspects about herself. I especially thought her use of memes was effective in demonstrating her points.