Reading our course content thus far really has me stuck on the questions of what, exactly, are language and technology.  A particular text that has especially provoked this strain of thinking for me is Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl.  One of the dictionary definitions of technology reads, “machinery and equipment developed from the application of scientific knowledge,” and when considering Jackson’s work in terms of this definition, it becomes reasonable to see her hypertext novel as a kind of “machinery,” or, in other words, as a “technology” in itself.

By choosing a digital, hypertext format for her novel, Jackson gives her readers a certain amount of freedom to choose how they access the text.  The novel is “rewritten,” (or at least reconfigured each time it is read.)  This constant rewriting or reconfiguring of the text is consistent with how Jackson herself patches together Mary Shelley’s original work of Frankenstein with the stories of the female monster (who Victor created for his original monster, but destroyed) and with the stories of the various, deceased women whose body parts are used in PWG to reinvent the female monster.

In her article”Stitch Bitch: the patchwork girl”, Jackson makes a number of compelling statements about hypertext, however one particular point that caught my attention is when she states:

“I noticed in school that I could argue anything. I might find myself delivering conclusions I disagreed with because I had built such an irresistable machine for persuasion. The trick was to allow the reader only one way to read it, and to make the going smooth. To seal the machine, keep out grit. Such a machine can only do two things: convince or break down. Thought is made of leaps, but rhetoric conducts you across the gaps by a cute cobbled path, full of grey phrases like “therefore,” “extrapolating from,” “as we have seen,” giving you something to look at so you don’t look at the nothing on the side of the path.”

Here, Shelley herself seems to suggest that language is a kind of technology by referring to the arguments she herself used to build as “irresistible machine[s] for persuasion.”  Her notion that the kind of “machine” built from this kind of reasoning can only convince someone of something or completely fail  also tempts us to consider that there is a third option, which she describes as looking at the “nothing.”

Jackson later describes hypertext as “show[ing] the gamble that thought is.  She also views it as a medium that welcomes “criticism” and “refusal.”  One of the most interesting things she says about writing hypertext, however, is that any author of it must consider the fact that his or her reader may choose to stop reading at any point.  She then concludes that “the choice to go do something else might be the best outcome of a text.”

Jackson’s work (specifically PWG) seems to be a call to action to her readers; she constantly invites them to reconfigure and reinvent stories, and she sees writing as a communal, transient act through which stories should constantly be transformed and re-told.  If we re-visit the traditional definition of technology as “machinery or equipment developed from the application of scientific knowledge” in conjunction with Jackson’s “Stitch bitch,” is it indeed easy to see PWG, hypertext, and writing itself as a kind of ever-developing technology that is based on a constant application of knowledge.  In Jackson’s hypertext, however, this knowledge comes from entering into a constant, written conversation that allows the reader to become the author and vice versa.  Like stories, reader/author roles are not permanent within these kinds of texts.  They are not only developed, but they are constantly developing.

Our class discussion on Patchwork Girl and the supplemental readings for that week got me thinking a great deal about scar tissue, ugliness, the self, monstrosity, desire, and beauty. It is clear from both the structure of the hypertext and Jackson’s lecture on it that unity, linearity and wholeness partake of a tyrannical lie that she wants to reveal as such and to overturn. And this is ideal for her because unity necessarily means uniformity, which in turn necessarily excises those parts of the self or existence that do not or cannot conform to whatever image of unity is upheld as the ideal, and it also overlooks the scars (marks of joining) that make any kind of conglomeration possible; for Jackson, this excision and denial are the monstrous acts rather than deviations from wholeness more traditionally ascribed to the monstrous. But what do we make of the fact that “it was her scars that seemed to pain her the most”? Her scars, the signs on her body that both testify to the accomplishment of some kind of unity of parts and to the fact that the “wholeness” of her body is, in reality, a patchwork. We have been shown the lie of unity, but the scars that mark our bodies still leave us longing for beauty; they are painful because they force us to recognize our patchwork monstrosity, which seems to trap us in an eternal horror at oneself. At worst, we are like Victor who violently rejects this, and at best, we can accept this condition as Mary does (though even she remains uncomfortable with it, even as she comes to terms with it). Another scene that speaks to this dynamic is that in which patchwork girl is falling apart in the tub, and Elsie joins her there amidst her disintegrating parts. The juxtaposition of this grotesque image with the tenderness of Elsie’s gesture is supremely interesting to me. It seems here that Elsie, even more than Mary Shelley, is able to truly love and embrace patchwork girl in all of her fragmented monstrosity, but this love is not able to make any of that monstrosity whole or beautiful… Elsie enters the grotesque and the ugly, stays there and truly loves it, but beauty is not generated from this. PWG, who is so ashamed of her scars is never able to see herself as beautiful, no matter how much Mary or Elsie embrace and accept her patchwork nature. It leaves me wondering… is it possible to truly love oneself or to love an other if one adopts the view of the fragmented self that Jackson (and all contemporary theory) proposes? What does that look like? It seems to me that the position that regards the self as, in its essence, a fragmented entity (because, in any case, this is still, at bottom, an essentialist argument; albeit one that is organized around the principle of fragmentation and diversity rather than unity and sameness), has still to answer: what beauty does this generate? What does this build? What does it mean to love such an entity? I do not mean to suggest a return to a completely Arnoldian view of the self, literature, world, etc. As we know, this is rife with deep problems that many scholars have explicated at length. However, I would be interested to see where the pendulum will settle between these two extremes, because they both, to me, seem to lack a great deal. I’m unwilling to give up the possibility of a unified self, just as much as I am unwilling to deny its fragmentation.

I think Jackson gets close to responding to this dilemma in her article “Stitch Bitch,” when she explains, “I don’t want to lose the self, only to strip it of its claim to naturalness, its compulsion to protect its boundaries, its obsession with wholeness and its fear of infection. I would like to invent a new kind of self which […] changes directions easily, sheds parts and assimilates new ones. Desire rather than identity is its compositional principle. […] The banished body [or we could say “the self” just as easily] is permeable, it is entered by the world via the senses and can only roughly define its boundaries.” What’s interesting here, is that even though they are roughly defined, in any case, boundaries do exist, and boundaries suggest a wholeness. But Jackson’s notion of permeable borders is an interesting one because it allows for some level of coherence (even if the most basic) while at the same time openness to “change,” “infection,” and assimilation of new parts that can generate something new… It’s a notion of the self that is trying to get away from the sterility of monolithic notions of identity and is motivated instead by “desire” for novelty, for what is other-than the self.

There are still many ideas and questions to sort through for me here, and I think I still need to articulate the ones I’ve written here more clearly, but it’s my first stab, and I’d be interested to know what you all think of these issues!

Just had an idea thinking about our work from the previous week between the draft, 1818 and 1831 editions of Frankenstein… What if we did something with the parts of the Frankenstein text that were shed or recreated in its various stages, and “resurrect” them to construct a new body in our redoing of PG. Maybe that’s not the best way of putting it… Those changes we observed are testimony of the multiplicity and malleability of text… of text as a location of change and moving parts. What if those “abjected” pieces came back to haunt and interrupt our new PG narrative?

I was sick last week too so I hope I am not completely missing the point in this post!

Maybe we could have a section that would serve as a map of the project, a sort of itinerary or outline that would organize the digital project. It could work as a form of introduction, a tool to to guide the reader/user and orientate his approach of the project.

Significantly, SJ’s PG represents a digital explosion of parts, pages, images, text… and I could not think of any way to push her project further. But maybe this “map” section could be a way to suture PG back together, and, as such, pirate or “hack” her work.

– But this may be what the ‘Graveyard’ section is supposed to do with the Media Archeology? I am a little confused about what it means.

Moreover, I think we should absolutely devote one of the sections to a literary analysis of the text PG, along with one of its form (not to seem too retrograde). This is why I think the pedagogical/critical reading section part suggested in Neil’s email is a great idea. Unfortunately I was not here to attend the presentation either but judging from the questions and points the presenters sent us last week, it seemed really good and raised crucial points. So jumping from their presentation might be a very creative and productive way to build this section. I think it would be essential to incorporate a part like this in order to provide further explanations and help the user’s reading/experience. It seems like it maybe a nice way to combine both digital work and literary/close-reading work that English students are familiar with and enjoy doing. It may be a way to illustrate or represent our own position in this class, our duality, and our in-between-ness. It could be interesting to use the annotating tool we (Team 1831) experienced with during our reading of Frankenstein.

About the narrative part, do you mean that we should rewrite/complete Shelley Jackson’s and/or Mary Shelley’s story? Because I think it is a wonderful idea and I would like to support Maura-Kate’s suggestion on that topic (about pirating PG and allowing readers/users to contribute to the narrative). It may be a way for our class to appropriate the myth of Frankenstein and advance it, to make our own contribution? Perhaps imagining Mary Shelley’s reaction’s to PG? Or envisioning Mary Shelley herself as the PG?

Finally, I think Colin’s idea about adopting a post-gender position as well is really interesting. And maybe we could also bring in Herculine Barbin into the discussion of the male/female/other/monster categories (or former categories)? (it is the story of a French hermaphrodite during the 19^th century).

So, it was no secret that I was infatuated with Kyle’s presentation on Prezi the other day. Every time Prezi moved to a new frame, it appeared to create the illusion of a 3-D model that I thought was incredibly interesting. For our PWG project, instead of a two dimensional frame presentation like Storyscape or Twine, would there be a way to access a more in-depth story generating model in 3-D? By applying virtual depth to the project, we could create a three dimensional network that would sort of resemble a world or galaxy of our pirated version, which would add a updated feel to the Storyscape model but also allow for a more accessible system of frame networking, if we were to allow for people outside our group to add their own stories or help with the creation of our “monster” story.

I do believe we should consider rewriting the story aspect of Patchwork Girl to complicate it further. One of the ways I think we should “edit” the texts is by admitting that we are a collective of authors. So, something akin to:

Jumping off of our conversation from last Wednesday, the two sections of our Patchwork Girl project that i would be most interested in developing are the “Story” and “quilt” sections.

I think that the idea of a journal (which was mentioned in an earlier post) would be a really beneficial way to approach the story section (or at least part of it) and would be an interesting form to write in, since we would indeed have to make decisions about whose voice(s) to use and about which stories we want to tell, and to what end.  It would allow us to continue, intertwine, and/or retell narratives that we have already been presented with in a unique way.

I am most intrigued by the idea of the “quilt” section for its potential to extend our critical discussion of “ownership,” especially as it relates to today’s digital works that are more widely and instantly accessible than their print predecessors.  Although it would be interesting to interweave quotations from Shelley Jackson (about wanting piratical readers) and Eastgate (about its proprietary control, perhaps even citations of lawsuits it has filed,) I think we could modernize this discussion a take it a step further by incorporating some modern authors, critics, etc. who are concerned with digital ownership of the text (and who have written articles about it in the past couple of years.)  Incorporating some recently scholarly work into our project could make a conversation about PWG itself and about other digital texts more inviting for current and future scholars.

In thinking particularly about the story section, I thought we could possibly take from Scott McLeod’s comics that allow the viewer to view the story in varying layers of detail by clicking how many frames s/he wanted to read (see here http://scottmccloud.com/1-webcomics/carl/3a/03.html) I think this could work especially well with the story line section, but that it could be used for the other sections as well. It may require us to fill in more detail and write our own parts of narrative in the graveyard/body section.

Also, I was thinking that the way Twine is set up, it still upholds the notion of linearity even if it introduces choice, because in any case you can only ever choose one direction to move. What about being able to choose more than one direction? This would manifest an experience of multiplicity in the reader that I think could be interesting. Is there anyway to get Twine to help us open more than one frame? In the story section, for example, a reader may choose to read the “monster” storyline alongside the “mistress” storyline instead of only choosing one and then (if s/he wanted) going back to read the other one. Also, what if you could read these storylines alongside Mary’s Journal and have three windows open? What would reading be like if a viewer could open all the frames at once? Or if s/he left the frames open as s/he moved through the hypertext?

Finally, and I kind of already began to mention this above, in the spirit of true pirating, what if there was a feature of Patchwork Girl 2.0 that allowed viewers not only to choose which direction(s) they wanted to take but also contribute to constructing the narrative? For example, viewers add their own details to the life-stories of the individuals whose bodyparts make up the female creature, or they add/extend the events that take place in the story section, they add journal entries of Mary while she was creating the monster, for example, or from the interim between her creation and her reencounter with her, or after the creature leaves (or does the creature leave? Mary only thinks that she will… a viewer-writer could change this). Or what about creating a journal by the female creature? Which opens up the further question of who is writing and from which part of the body? Viewer-writers could imagine/contribute all these possibilities.

Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself here, but I think these are ideas that we could at least talk about in class and see if we could incorporate in any way, within the limits of the software we will use/can find.

I’m interested in what Denis and Kyle discuss in their posts, as far as our class project on Frankenstein and PWG. So, I would like to propose that we produce a product like PWG that re-tells Frankenstein and PWG specifically in terms of the creator/created dynamic. I’m very interested in how creation seems to be at the center of these two products, and how the content of each reflects a literal creation in the forming of the very thing reflecting the act of creation (the texts). If we do it this way, we can address the problems of access in regard to PWG, especially given Jackson’s apparent want for freedom of her creation. Not only will this promote the point of our project (in my opinion) but it will also reflect the “problem” of controlling or “caging” a creation/creature once it has been released into the world. Furthermore, I would like to include the “quilt” aspect within our project. In both of the texts the creations are made from a number of different sources, as are the texts themselves – Jackson’s quote about many authors and ghost writing comes into play here.

Overall I would like to produce a text that reflects and complicates the notion of the creator and the creation when it comes to the act of creation itself (How many people are involved? What were the literal and figurative influences?) and the role of control the creator has versus the control over the creation.

“I had made her, writing deep into the night by candlelight, until the tiny black letters blurred into stitches and I began to feel that I was sewing a great quilt, as the old women in town do night after night, looking dolefully out their windows from time to time toward the light in my own window and imagining my sins while their thighs tremble under the heavy body of the quilt heaped across their laps, and their strokes grow quicker than machinery and tight enough to score deep creases in the cloth. I have looked with reciprocal coolness their way, not wondering what stories joined the fragments in their workbaskets”

I may have chosen the worst possible day to get sick.  Hopefully this post won’t be too-terribly useless, as I missed the PG class.  However, I am VERY curious about the writing aspects of both PG and Frankenstein.  PG seems to be absolutely dripping with images of writing and creating, but in a very strange, and perhaps more obvious, way compared to Frankenstein.  In both cases, the concept of writing as creation (Walton, for example) seem to be incredibly important.  Particularly in the above quotation, the concept of writing, and “thighs tremble” (perhaps a nod to childbirth?) hints to creation through authorship.  I am not entirely sure what to make of it as of yet, but I believe there is a lot to be made from the authors, as creators of works focusing primarily on creation, in conversation.  Because of this, professor Fraistat’s offering of “an as yet to be articulated “Reference” section that would provide a bibliography for the various citations used in the text as well as including other relevant sources” could be very useful, perhaps, in examining what can be read from the citations present from both a literary and authoritative standpoint as the pieces work in conversation with one another.