Grafik Dynamo

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Grafik Dynamo
Author Kate Armstrong , Michael Tippett
Country Canada
Language English
Genre internet art , electronic literature
PublisherTurbulence
Publication date
2005

Grafik Dynamo is an online artwork and work of electronic literature by Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett, commissioned by the arts organization Turbulence and published in 2005. Grafik Dynamo creates a constantly changing three-frame graphic comic strip by combining speech bubbles and text frames with text written by Armstrong with images that are pulled in from user posts to LiveJournal and Flickr.

Contents

About the work

The work is published on a website, and presents the reader/view with a comic strip where the words and images are constantly changing. The reader has no opportunity to interact with the work other than the initial launch. Images and words are pulled in from multiple sources, including Live Journal, Flickr, and news sites. [1] Serge Bouchardon describes the work as a "constantly changing mock graphic novel". [2]

Grafik Dynamo was commissioned by Turbulence, a project of the American nonprofit organization New Radio and Performing Arts that commissioned works of internet art and electronic literature. It was also exhibited at The Prairie Gallery in Alberta, Canada in 2008. [3]

Reception

In an essay analysing the work, literary critic Joseph Tabbi argues that Grafik Dynamo is evidence that narrative and literary works produced for electronic media are incompatible, yet his analysis is detailed and explores the literary qualities of Grafik Dynamo at length. [4]

Serge Bouchardon frames the work as subversive, because it "undermines the reading principles of printed written material" by its constant change. It looks like a conventional comic strip, a genre the reader knows is usually carefully composed and to have a coherent narrative. However, this comic is quite different. The relationship between speech bubbles and images, or between each of the three frames in the comic, is "haphazard and inconsistent, and any narrative coherence is pure coincidence." [5]

Related Research Articles

A graphic novel is a long-form work of sequential art. The term graphic novel is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comics scholars and industry professionals. It is, at least in the United States, typically distinct from the term comic book, which is generally used for comics periodicals and trade paperbacks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comics</span> Creative work in which pictures and text convey information

Comics is a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically takes the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate dialogue, narration, sound effects, or other information. There is no consensus among theorists and historians on a definition of comics; some emphasize the combination of images and text, some sequentiality or other image relations, and others historical aspects such as mass reproduction or the use of recurring characters. Cartooning and other forms of illustration are the most common image-making means in comics; Photo comics is a form that uses photographic images. Common forms include comic strips, editorial and gag cartoons, and comic books. Since the late 20th century, bound volumes such as graphic novels, comic albums, and tankōbon have become increasingly common, along with webcomics as well as scientific/medical comics.

Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links that provide a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text to the next, and in this fashion arranges a story from a deeper pool of potential stories. Its spirit can also be seen in interactive fiction.

Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature where digital capabilities such as interactivity, multimodality or algorithmic text generation are used aesthetically. Works of electronic literature are usually intended to be read on digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones. They cannot be easily printed, or cannot be printed at all, because elements crucial to the work cannot be carried over onto a printed version.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to fiction:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Tippett (businessman)</span>

Michael Tippett is a Canadian entrepreneur, columnist and educator.

Kate Armstrong is a Canadian artist, writer and curator with a history of projects focusing on experimental literary practices, networks and public space.

Comics studies is an academic field that focuses on comics and sequential art. Although comics and graphic novels have been generally dismissed as less relevant pop culture texts, scholars in fields such as semiotics, aesthetics, sociology, composition studies and cultural studies are now re-considering comics and graphic novels as complex texts deserving of serious scholarly study.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Radio and Performing Arts</span> American nonprofit organization

New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (NRPA), and its satellite project Turbulence.org, was an American organization that commissioned and archived new and experimental radio art, sound art, net art and mixed reality art. It was founded in 1981 by Helen Thorington. In 2003, NRPA opened an office in Boston, Massachusetts. The organization closed in December 2017.

Comics has developed specialized terminology. Several attempts have been made to formalize and define the terminology of comics by authors such as Will Eisner, Scott McCloud, R. C. Harvey and Dylan Horrocks. Much of the terminology in English is under dispute, so this page will list and describe the most common terms used in comics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strip photography</span> Type of photographic technique

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">María Mencía</span>

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Amaranth Borsuk is an American poet and educator known for her experiments with textual materiality and digital poetry. She is currently an associate professor at the University of Washington Bothell's School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, where she teaches undergraduate courses on poetry, philology, and experimental writing. She also serves as the Chair of the school's M.F.A. program in Creative Writing, which she co-chaired from 2018 to 2022.

<i>These Waves of Girls</i> 2001 hypermedia novella by Caitlin Fisher

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Böhmische Dörfer is a digital poem by Alexandra Saemmer about the forced evacuation of the Sudeten Germans during the winter of 1945, also known as the Brno death march.

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Alexandra Saemmer is a French professor known for social semiotic research focusing on electronic literature and digital media and for her literary works, in particular digital poetry and narratives created for social media.

Caitlin Fisher is a Canadian media artist, poet, writer, and Professor of Cinema and Media Arts at York University in Toronto where she also directs the Immersive Storytelling Lab and the Augmented Reality Lab. Fisher is also a Co-founder of York’s Future Cinema Lab, former Fulbright and Canada Research Chair and an international award-winning digital storyteller. Creator of some of the world’s first AR poetry and long-from VR narratives. Fisher is also known for the 2001 hypermedia novel These Waves of Girls, and for her work creating content and software for augmented reality.

References

  1. "Grafik Dynamo - Electronic Literature Directory". directory.eliterature.org. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
  2. Bouchardon, Serge (11 June 2011). "Digital literature and the Digital". Journal of Writing in Creative Practice. 4 (1): 65–78. doi:10.1386/jwcp.4.1.65_1. ISSN   1753-5190.
  3. Grigar, Dene (2012). "Grafik Dynamo by Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett, with essay by Joseph Tabbi. The Prairie Gallery, Alberta, Canada, 2010. 48 pp., illus. ISBN 978-0-9780646-2-4". Leonardo. 45 (2): 177–178. doi:10.1162/leon_r_00294. ISSN   0024-094X.
  4. Tabbi, Joseph (2008). "Graphic Sublime: On the Art and Designwriting of Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett". Digital Humanities Quarterly . 6 (2).
  5. Bouchardon, Serge (11 June 2011). "Digital literature and the Digital". Journal of Writing in Creative Practice. 4 (1): 65–78. doi:10.1386/jwcp.4.1.65_1. ISSN   1753-5190.