How can we use new media forms to correlate a poetic list of individual fragments in a non-narrative way?
The question was formed through our shared interest and passion to try and avoid our need to ‘storify’ (Weidle 2016, pg 122) and the pull of ‘literary linearity’ (Weidle 2016, pg 112). However, in the early stages of planning and brainstorming, that desire seemed possibly too broad, and we struggled to initially narrow it down to something we could execute.
After fleshing out the concept and question further, we as a group decided that Tumblr was the new media platform that suited our idea the best, and has equally facilitated and helped create some of the most successful aspects of our artefact, as well as the least successful aspects in my eyes. Allow me to elaborate.
The way Tumblr as a platform allows to connect pieces through tagging has made our artefact turn out even better than I could have imagined. Even in the early stages of our brainstorming, we really wanted to encourage the viewer to feel as if they had power in the choices they made whilst interacting with our work, whether that be indirectly through their scrolling in the preset relatively random layout (which after some helpful feedback in the pitching stage of our artefact expanded its column numbers, allowing for more power in choice through what your eyes chose to follow), but also through some more deliberate options of moving through the artefact, which is were the tagging came in. We wanted the viewer’s journey through the work to feel unique to them, and the tags allowed us to encourage the audience to explore the content in whatever way they felt compelled to. This process was inspired by Hannah Brasier’s Sometimes I See Palm Trees, in which Brasier groups these 6-second videos through tags, and allows the viewer to make their own choice on where to go next. However, unlike Sometimes I See Palm Trees, we wanted there to be an impassive way that promoted the affordances and traditions of new media content, and allow for (relatively) mindless scrolling, if the viewer chooses to do so.
Whilst I think the layout and tagging worked in our favour for the work, some of Tumblr’s presentation constraints hindered the overall flow of the artefact, leading to what I believe is our least successful aspects. Videos on Tumblr pages do not autoplay, which means a viewer might not engage with the video beyond the thumbnail, and miss content. Furthermore, portrait videos are not displayed like portrait images, and have ugly black bars to the side, severely shrinking the videos they harbour. Although once video’s start playing, they do loop and play alongside others, these presentation issues do hinder the flow of the artefact. Furthermore, we have had issues with the platform in the past flagging content as inappropriate when it was not, so there’s potential for complications in the future.
However, I think we ended up having a really incredible selection of diverse content, with plenty of pathways already within the exploration of tags, as well as when scrolling. We worked really hard to separate similar image ideas as much as we could, hoping that every full-frame of content was different and engaging. Like Manovich stated in his reading, we wanted our new media content to feel like a collection rather than a story (2001, pg 221), and I think the idea of longing, at least to me, is conveyed nicely through the ambiguity, and will hopefully allow a viewer to feel and engage with their emotions in their own ways through interacting with the over 80+ pieces of content available.
Overall, I’ve learnt that the process of making and engaging with new media and poetic lists media is so fluid, there is no rigid conformity to it. When we as a group set out to make our content and then later tag each other’s, there were only rough guidelines (no more than 10 seconds in length, 6 – 10 tags, etc), allowing for our creativity and emotions to guide the experience, which I think results in really open-ended results. Furthermore, my newfound understanding of the fluidity of the poetic list has had me noticing them throughout all types of media that I never would have expected to see them before this assignment (which is evident in how much I bring up the Charli XCX forever [music video]).
Furthermore, poetic lists are inclusive in that sense, as their openness allows for all different types of content. A poetic list can be narrative in nature, but also facilitates non-narrative works, which is something that traditional narrative structure doesn’t allow for. It allows for really inspiring and interesting work to be made, and I can’t wait to see how people interact with ours!
Reflection References
Brasier, H., 2018, Sometimes I See Palm Trees,
Manovich, L., 2001. ‘The Database’ in The Language of New Media. The MIT Press, Cambridge. pp. 218-243.
Weidle, F., 2016. Korsakow Perspective(s): Rethinking Documentary Knowledge in Digital Multilinear Environments. (Links to an external site.) VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture 5, 110–123.
XCX, C., 2020. Charli XCX – Forever [Official Video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbJE-KVZvTA