TO: Students of DIKULT 203
FR: Prof. KIB
RE: Our Collaborative Project, "My Outsourced Study Abroad"
Dear Students,
Please PRINT OUT THESE INSTRUCTIONS and bring them with you to class. :)
For class tomorrow, our first work session on our collaborative geolocative project, we will do
two main activities.
1. We'll refine the concept based on your reading and assessment of the Inspirations below.
2. We'll do our 1st of 2 photo shoots in small groups. This first photo shoot will be about
all the things on or near campus a student studying abroad does:
--arrive in new city
--wait in lines at University arranging ID and other paperwork
--get lost on campus & ask directions
--figure out where to hang out: who's like you?
--unpack in your new dorm or other housing
--get confused by Norwegian language signs
--learn about local places UiB students go
--add your own ideas!
Prepare for activity #1, refining concept in tomorrow's class, by reading and thinking about the
following e-lit works, all from our assigned course readings.
NOTE: I am likely to give a short quiz at the beginning of class. Use
questions I pose below as your study guide. Be ready to answer them.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Inspriations. Plan to spend about 3 hours reading & thinking.
Love this! A fake 6-week trip to Asia told in FB posts.
Psychogeography, check out especially the dérive.
Mem-Eraze by Rob Wittig and Mark C. Marino [a Netprov]
The Colonization of Memory (set in Bergen!) [a locative story]
L.A. Flood by Mark C. Marino and LAinundación collective [a locative story]
Rob Wittig invented "Netprov": an improvised story told in social media on the Web. He
frequently partners with Mark C. Marino to plan and write them. Together they've developed the
form significantly since Rob's first Netprov "Grace, Wit and Charm" in May 2011.
Mark C. Marino is creative director of one of the most written-about and influential locative
stories, L.A. Flood.
A locative Netprov. Let's do it!
Note of The Colonization of Memory that its main feature is its mechanic. It's a game. Do its
game-like qualities yield a good story? When does it work well; when doesn't it? If you play it
in situ, does the experience change at all?
Note of Mem-Eraze has a wonderful premise with a beautiful, jokey visual rhetoric. The
narrative is plotted with a large cast of characters. Do the dramas between characters pull you
into the story or not? Is it involving or too complex? Pick a few image/caption combos you think
are artful. What makes them good?
Note L.A. Flood is epic: it's about the fall of a great city. It is rambling & desultory. The
characters don't talk to each other. There's no specific beginning, middle and end. Read/listen to
at least 10 lexia. Identify 2 lexia that you like & be prepared to describe why. Identify 2 lexia
you don't like and be prepared to describe why.
I. Stories told via Maps
We're making a map-based story. Our class is electronic literature, and we'll want to draw upon
key concepts we've studied about interactivity, performance, time-based art, remix and coherence.
Recall the e-lit works we put on the board yesterday and how they set the context for this locative
work we'll build together.
Hidden USC, made by my Communication (not e-lit) students 2 years ago, is referential. It has a
concept -- a campus tour for those who couldn't get to USC -- but it's not a story space.
Now look at L.A. Flood. This is a story space.
Sometimes LA Flood is also the setting for a Netprov, a 3-day real-time enactment in Twitter of a
flood devastating L.A. It has fooled people into thinking the flood is real, but hoax isn't the point.
It's that time-based art, its momentum, sweeps you along into the story world. I've had the
experience of playing it and losing my sense of location. Driving around the city, I found myself
checking for flood waters. The propulsive force of the Netprov takes up space in your head and
bleeds into "real" life. LAF narratives, by contrast, are static. They don't interrupt my ordinary
life. When I read it, particularly outdoors in L.A., I have to suspend my disbelief: the almost
constant bright sun and many other embodied cues jettison me out of the fiction. But I like it a lot
because I love the double-consciousness borne of being in both places at once.
II. What is a Story?
Remember: all story needs conflict or novelty. The story of contentment is boring. Example:
You on the phone with your mom.
MOM: "how was your day?"
YOU: "Oh, fine."
Conflict or novelty are exciting.
MOM: "how was your day?"
YOU: "I got locked in a classroom!"
YOU: "I bumped into Kezia our neighbor from 1997."
Why is this exciting?
MOM: "Locked in a classroom?! How'd you get out?"
MOM: "Good heavens! What's she doing in Bergen?"
"Conflict" sparks the next action. "Novelty" prompts mom to ask another question. Think about
the moments in your life you wanted something but couldn't get it, or did something and regretted
it. I'm walking out the door but I can't find my keys. I promised my son I'd play video games
with him but it's bed time. Conflicts prompt action.
Plot & action move us through stories. How to create a plot points that move
readers through MY OUTSOURCED STUDY ABROAD but is also open
enough for people to find "real" moments in it?
III. Next Steps
We shoot images of "student abroad" experiences in Bergen. Our friends in
Duluth will use these images as the basis of their abroad experience.
We'll write our own abroad experiences as captions to the images of Duluth
our friends there shoot for us.
Story Premise: Universities are slashing budgets for study abroad. Students now are encouraged
to use the awesome power of the Internet to study abroad from the comfort of one's own home!
We, the students in Bergen, will study in Duluth, Minnesota.
The students in Duluth will study in Bergen.
IV. Proposed Procedure (by Rob Wittig, with some editing, annotation, dates by Kathi)
Part One
Creating a Crowdsourced Timeline/Newsfeed of My Study Abroad
Platform: Tumblr
Step 1: Photo Expedition (Thursday 23 Oct & over weekend: set time with
your group before you leave class 23 Oct.)
Go on a photo expedition in your city (in teams of 3?), capturing 30 photos of the
kind that would be taken by a study abroad student. You will end up posting your
10 best images to our share MiSide folder.
PHOTO RULES
1. Photos may contain images of students, but in order that anyone can use the
images to build their own virtual study abroad experience IMAGES CONTAIN NO
RECOGNIZABLE FACES.
2. No pictures of people drinking alcohol or using drugs.
PHOTO TIPS FROM ROB
There are many ways to shoot interesting people images with no faces — from
behind, wearing hoodies or hats, heads and faces just outside of the frame on
the top or sides, close-ups of hands. Shoot from above, from below, from very
close up, from very far away. Shoot over someone’s shoulder to see what they
are seeing. Shoot one person in the extreme foreground and another person in
the far background. Think like a filmmaker! NO BORING IMAGES!
Shoot 30 images and pick the 10 best ones.
Step 2: Post the Photos to MiSide (weekend)
--We'll select the best "abroad" images for our Duluth pals and post them to Tumblr.
Step 3: Build a Tumblr (Monday; due in class Tuesday 28 Oct)
--We'll each build one for our own "study abroad" experience, and
--We'll build one for the entire project (to which the Duluth students will also add.) Bring
yr awesome css skillz!
Step 4: Create Your Own Personal Virtual Study Abroad Timeline/Newsfeed
(done after Duluth students add their images)
Find 15 images from the other city on Tumblr and add a caption to each of them
describing what happened to you (and possibly your new Norwegian or American
friends) when you visited this place. These pictures form your basic personal
study abroad timeline.
Part Two
Virtual Treasure Hunt / Psychogeographic Expedition / My Favorite Place
on My Study Abroad Trip
Platform: Google Maps
Step 1: Identify the field of play in each city — they areas that teams of
students can get to during the week
Step 2: Find Intriguing Locations
Students use Google maps and Google street view to identify 9 locations in the
other city that they are curious about.
Step 3: Ask Questions About the Other City
For each of the 9 locations in Duluth, students (in teams?) put a pin in a Google
map and ask three questions leading to a sense of:
"WHAT I DISCOVERED IN THE CITY"
a) A question about the PLACE itself, to be answered by photos and text.
--“What is down that alley?”
--“How many people are on the street at this hour?”
--“What posters are up on the walls right now?”
--“What kind of objects are lying on the ground?”
--“What is the most surprising thing you can see here?”
b) A question about some aspect of the INNER, EMOTIONAL LIFE of students,
the kinds of things that would come up in a deep conversation with students from
the host country IN THIS PARTICULAR PLACE, to be answered by text:
--“Is it easy to make new friends in this town? How do you do it?”
--“What’s it like to be gay/lesbian in this city?”
--“How big a problem is alcohol and drug use among students here?”
--“What do people who are interested in each other do on a first date here?”
c) a PHOTO REQUEST for a posed photo — no faces visible, of course — that
creates a memorable moment of fun with new friends, to be answered
by a photo or photos:
“Remember when we danced the waltz on the sidewalk?
“Remember when we talked all night in the park and watched the sunrise
together?”
“Remember when we were making jokes and eating ice cream and laughing
here?”
Step 4: Answer questions about your city by doing a Photo Expedition and
Writing
Go (in teams of 3) three places place on the Google map identified by the
students from abroad. This means there will be multiple answers to the same
questions.
Take a few basic photos to document what is there better than the Google street
view.
Answer the photo questions by taking photos (no faces!).
Later, answer the writing questions.
Put the answers into Google Maps.
WE LAUNCH 4 NOVEMBER!
That's our proposal for now. We'll plug in more dates after we start
building!