Project 3 — Composing & Design Guide
» The Project is a series of web pages (4 minimum), a “screen self-portrait” using fragments arranged by links (associative/creative organization).
The content — combination of text and multimedia (primarily) — should convey distinct/various dimensions of personal digital identity experience. Use a variety of materials and references (“readymade”) selected/sampled 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)
- *note* these are not the 4 pages! (these are sources for material to compose the “portrait”)
» Multimodal design, digital rhetoric applied:
- draw upon (“sample from”) each database for materials toward the “composite sketch“
— specific references of personal significance plus 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.
Site Organization and Design Criteria
First, create new Site for Project:
- Wix.com (recommended)
- Weebly
- Google Sites
- WordPress pages
- (others? Jimdo? Moonfruit?)
Arrange (structure/sequence) pages thoughtfully:
- create & link multiple pages for sections/fragments of portrait, organized & hyperlinked — required — to convey “Self-Portrait” experience.
- When using time-based media (audio / video clips): try to embed whenever possible (e.g., edited mp3, video, media-player clip).
- Revise & Edit “for publication”
(i.e. copy-edit, “proofread” for correct prose; revise for efficient style — all text purposeful!)
- As Wix.com states, “To stay organized, make a simple sketch of your desired website structure.”
Media Required: two types (minimum), plus at least one original/created form
- Use unique effects or respective techniques to compose in creative & aesthetic mode (Participatory Culture + Network Rhetoric)
- Images required, including at least one original or manipulated (edited, “phởtoshopped”; collage/composite; effects, etc)
— suggested resource/tool: Pixlr.com
- * Original Multimedia Form Required: can be edited/stylized, if not your own media (image/video/audio); you do not need to include media of yourself!
→ Use combination of both your personal media (images) and found material
- Other forms: audio (songs, ambient sounds); video (media clips, found footage, screen recording); animation (GIFs), illustrations, reference materials (e.g. documents, charts, graphs).
—suggested resource: Internet Archive -
Presenting your experience: use cultural forms and social languages (multiple), which convey aspects/dimensions of your experienced digital identity (visual, verbal, and quantitative in Rettberg’s terms)—both “invisible”/“visible” and “public”/“private.” (not your social media accounts)
- Purposefully choose media forms / genres suitable for this type of expression, considering our method &
- the project goals; select from your “personal database” materials (like in blog warm-up)
- — example cultural forms helpful to model: comedy (parody videos, memes); remix/mash-up (music); games
- Expectation for digital authoring: attempt to implement the expressive techniques of this cultural form within your multimedia composition.
- Aesthetic authoring: leave personal meaning implicit within fragments; do not explain until Poetics document.
- Try to perform or compose the idea(s), the experiential dimensions of digital identity: composite effect, in portrait (elements do not need to relate or “make sense” obviously; the relation is you!)
- Include instances of interactivity & time-based media (duration) effectively; attempt to evoke “mood of thought” for ScreenSelf (networked identity).
- 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).
- Purposefully choose media forms / genres suitable for this type of expression, considering our method &
- Use multiple media, text/fragments, expressive formatting, and links within all pages.
- Employ a variety of styles and modes, as “hybrid discourse” (critical + creative modes).
- Organize any text as fragments—including quotes, references, story
» Composition guide for Text/Writing:
— stylistic help for “digital storytelling” composing (any pages; be sure to include at least one instance–but the entire project is not a story)- 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 ‘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)
—All quotes from Internet Invention (Gregory L. Ulmer, 2003)
- 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)
» Advanced Notes on Composition Logic (poetics + praxis)
- you are leaving yourself out explicitly, as author—not composing in “first-person singular present-tense direct” academic discourse. Instead, compose a self-portrait as composite figure, expressing your experienced digital identity (in various dimensions) using sampled “personal database” elements meaningful to you (“readymade” references, signifiers, gestures, stories, characters, settings, concrete details). All these materials evoke a mood and personal connection (affective) that links and explores the subjective dimensions of experience, not necessarily visible/legible by technology (devices, media, interfaces).
- One approach for composing, via culture form: consider 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 composition performs its idea, even if not readily understood or meaningful.
Another way of understanding your “voice” in the composite portrait: think in terms of your “signature,” “fingerprints,” “ear” — your sensibility and perspective (“personality?”), used compose the project by selecting, arranging, and sometimes modifying all components of the portrait. - Expectation for digital authoring, multiple modes: attempt to implement expressive effects, besides illustrating (i.e. don’t just document/show); for instance, abstract/evocative or simulating effects, using the aesthetic mode (in electracy, play and personal affect with media forms used).
- Leave implicit; explain approach & rationale in Poetics.