Class: Internet Multimedia Art-section 001
Prof: Mark Cooley
Assignment:
Communicate with a person who you are close to (preferably
a person that you see (in the flesh) at least fairly commonly)
solely by means of electronic media for at least five days.
Document what is lost in this process in a web page or site.
Will and Morgan Bernard
OK. So the page you are about to view is my main project. If you're on this page that means you're curious as to the reasons I layed out the page the way I did. If you don't care, just stop reading, (scroll down and click the link or just click on that Oh so classy picture right above this) because this part will just be a whole lot of verbiage about my WHY. And so...... we begin.... The person I chose to do this project with was my good buddy, Will. Him and I spend most of our time outside of our classes with each other. And during most of that time, we confuse everyone around us. To everyone else it seems that we speak gibberish to one another, or maybe they think we're just insane. Either way, Will and I kind of live in our own little world when we're around each other. We speak to each other backwards. For example.... if we didnt hear each other correctly, what=tahw, (pronounced Taw). The layout of the IM is really random. I did this because of the fact that Will and I ARE completely random. We cannot follow one subject and see it through to the finish to save our lives. The pictures all have specific meanings for both Will and I. They really dont have any meaning for people who do not join in our rediculously odd interaction. The pictures of the brain pertain to the fact that Will once told me that he was God, and he created me. He decided to give me Jell-o pudding brains, and then he ate them. Well, I was sooooo upset about this that I demanded a new brain. And he did get me one, those pictures are the little stress ball brain Will gave me so I would be able to think when I needed to. Also the pictures of those parts of faces are the faces of my dolls of Jack and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Before Will and I ever met, last Halloween, he dressed as Jack, and I dressed as Sally. Its just one of those coincidences that make us laugh, so we now call each other Jack and Sally. The curly, wire thing is a slinky. We both fight over our slinkys when we're at each others homes, mainly my own. The weird alien plushie looking thing is a small Yoda doll. Yoda has always been my favorite chacter from Star Wars because he's just so bad-ass. Well, Will, kept talking about how much hes watched Star Wars (The big DORK!) And I hadnt watched hardly at all. So I really wanted to see Yoda kick some.... butt. Well, thats when he bought me my own Yoda. The background image is just an insane kaleidoscope of pictures of Will. Parts that we joke about all the time. His eyes, his freakishly wide mouth, any of his features that everyone makes fun of.
Also during this project, I kept trying to think about what was lost. I really just lose all my senses. It's just rediculous! Not the senses of the mind, mind you. But those five special senses which I depend on every day of my life when I interact with people: Touch; Taste; Sight; Hearing; Smell. I began to miss so many things without these senses. Things which, through the course of my interactions with any one person, I become enamoured with.
Sight: The hand gestures. That creepy eyebrow raising. The lip curling. So what do I do without this? I use my imagination. But it's like reading a book after you've seen the movie made from that book. You already have an idea of what everything looks like. But you cant see it. You've become dependent o what you've seen already. How can the mind, which is such a fickle thing already, concentrate to find the little details that are no longer there, but are only in your head? Then when you get the sight back, you can see that you were wrong, no matter what you thought of. You over-exaggerated. You didn't exaggerate enough. Then I just say....... "Dammit!"
Touch: Pinching, poking, biting, kicking, scratching, throwing, flipping. This interaction between Will and I is intensely physical. We spend most of our time acting like teen-aged brother and sister. We fight constantly. So the thing we miss out on then is just the physical pain of being around one another. But then again, we also miss out on that sweet exhaustion that occurs after and hour of beating up each other, while being egged on by my mother, Wendy, and my granddad, Leroy. Which leads to another sense.....
Hearing: Get 'er, boy! Kick his ass, Morgan. Shut up! Ouch..... There are also mny profanities throughout this whole ordeal. Then Will starts quoting Pirates of the Caribbean, or Resevoir Dogs, or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Then he laughs. A kind of a raspy laugh sometimes, when he is simply ammused, and then a loud booming laugh when he falls on the floor because something has happened that is just too funny for him to contain himself. Or, at other times still, we can sit there and laugh about one thing thats funny, and keep it going for an hour by bringing up other things that are funny and laughing at hhow much we're laughing at these minor things that are just not as funny really as they are to us at that moment. These are our "stoner" moments. We arent really stoned, mind you. Neither of us do that. Neither of us even like being around that kind of thing. Our laughing reminds me of Mary Poppins, when everyone gets stuck on the ceiling laughing. Just floating up there and having their afternoon tea.
Smell: Deoderant. One a bit flowery, like spring lilac or something silly like this. The other, kind of pungent. Not in a bad way, just stronger and more volitile than the first. Spearmint. Sweat. Not the B.O. kind of sweat, but the kind of sweat that is kind of sweet; and the difference between the sweat coming from wrestling around and the sweat from excitement or fear. I enjoy the latter of these. Like a wild animal, spurred on by the fear of a human to attack at once.
Taste: Tea, oreos, water, rare steak, pizza, chocolate milk, fruit....... Do these things all taste different to everyone who has ever tasted them? Must I desciribe the beauty of the taste of these things? I love food. Probably more than most people. And Im a glutton for things I think taste delicious. Yes I still have these things to taste wile chatting it up on IM, but its more lonely to me, at least it seems so. Somone who enjoys these cookies as much as I do. Someone else present who can sit and eat these little delicacies all day and then agree with me on how yummy they are.
These are the things I miss out on during a conversation through IM. And reading this now, it all seems so strange, so alien. But oh well..............
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!!won ti oD
!!oG
!!emit ym gnitsaw er'uoY
!!WON TI OD TSUJ
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