‘Mirror-reflection implies the vanquishing of separateness. Its inherent movement is towards fusion. The self and its reflected image are of course literally separate. But the agency of reflection is a mode of appropriation, of illusionistically erasing the difference between subject and object.’

My mum died when I was young. Sometimes I read her horoscope, she was a water sign, Pisces, and it’s my rising sign too. March is the month of Pisces and I just moved house. My tarot told me that physically pulling up my roots would draw me closer to familial relationships. Tarot talks of uniting the internal and external selves but in this digital age I think there is a third self – the digital self. It’s not just how we present ourselves to ourselves or in the real world but also online too.

What if I died and all my friends could go through my computer? I have a disorganised desktop and haven’t curated any of the folders – they could read/see anything, in any order, no beginning, middle, or end. The Database as memory and legacy.

I’m a video artist and I’m the centre of my own work – the video camera is a mirror, reflecting me in motion on the monitor. Manovich mentions Rosalind Krauss’ essay Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism when discussing how film privileges narrative but video art doesn’t. (Manovich 2001, p.234) Krauss discusses the artist ‘as a body entered between the parenthesis of camera and monitor.’ (Krauss 1976, p.61) I can relate to that feeling of ‘self-encapsulation’ (Kraus 1976, p53) through the process of my computer artworks. (Instagram/ video art/ digital collage)

Beyond that, when I look at myself (reflected in mirror or video), it’s not just me who I see. If I had a dollar for every time someone said I looked like my mum, I would be a very rich woman.

Krauss, R 1976, ‘Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism,’ in John Hanhardt, ed. Video Culture. Rochester: Visual Studies Workshop

Manovich, L 2001, ‘The database.’ In The language of new media. Cambridge, USA: The MIT Press, pp. 218-243.

Sherlock: The Network is an application, available on iOS or Android, that allows the user to participate in a case much like one depicted in the TV series. Is it a game? Not quite. I’d call it more of a digital marketing tool. It extends the world of the story but does not directly contribute to it, if we were to watch the show exclusively we would not be missing elements by not using this application.

We’re allowed to click through as we please but the story is intended to unravel in the same way not subject to what the audience members do. (Murray 1997, p.127) We don’t have agency in this space and normally we do not expect agency in narrative (Murray 1997, p.126) but in this case, I think we do anticipate that sense, that we might get to play around the world as Sherlock does, at our own free will. Instead it’s a list of clues found by Sherlock and Dr Watson and we play arcade games to ride the train to the locations they’ve suggested.

Sherlock: The Network is not a ‘digital labyrinth,’ (Murray 1997, p.132) it takes from traditional modes of story – linearity, single solution, obstacles and goals. It’s a money-making low-brow regurgitation of the show itself. I don’t think Deleuze would’ve digged it.

Murray, J (1997), ‘Chapter 5: Agency’ in Hamlet on the Holodeck. Cambridge, USA: The MIT Press

The short story has been a medium of little interest to me. In our classroom we talk of the complications creatives face when engaging with structure, that the parameters hinder their ability to truly express themselves. My belief is that that this approach is somewhat naive, I consider story structure to be important in developing ideas from their nascent beginnings to a polished piece of craftsmanship.

The Matthews reading is over a hundred years old and he is very specific about his concept of the short story – it must consist of ‘one action, in one place, on one day’ (1901, p.16) and that this story medium is not one to explore love (1901, p.18) Our philosophies do not align about these notions – in the case of the short story I don’t believe that ‘the medium is the message.’ (McLuhan 1964, p.7)

The short story is made up of elements discussed in ‘The Substance of Story’ by McKee – simply put, the protagonist with a conscious desire puts their life at risk (2007, p.138). For we as storytellers ‘not only create stories as metaphors for life, we create them as metaphors for a meaningful life – and to live meaningfully is to be at perpetual risk’ (2007, p. 149) But who the protagonist is, what their desire is and how much they’re willing to risk their lives is all up to the storyteller! (YOU!)

McKee, R 2007, ‘The Substance of Story’ in Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting, New York, USA: Harper Collins, pp. 135-154.

Matthews, B 1901, The Philosophy of the Short-story, New York: Longmans, Green, and Co.