On “The Illuminae Files” by Caroline Woods

The summary:

The Illuminae Files is a sci-fi book series by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff that consists of three books, which are Illuminae, Gemina, and Obsidio. The series follows a series of characters, with book one beginning with an attack on a small mining planet called Kerenza. Recently broken up teens Kady and Ezra find their ways onto two of the three spaceships that responded to the planet’s distress signal (Kady on the Hypatia and Ezra on the Alexander.) Unfortunately, a large corporation called BeiTech–the same people who delivered the attack on the planet in the first place–are now desperate to cover their tracks, and set a ship (the Lincoln) in pursuit of the rescue fleet to strike down all of the evidence and survivors. The nearest jump station to escape is six months away, with the Lincoln hot on their trail. Kady, desperate to reunite with her family and Ezra, hacks into the ships’ data in order to figure out what is truly happening. Meanwhile, Ezra has been conscripted into the military while aboard and is being trained to become a pilot. While on one of his missions, the artificial intelligence–AIDAN–cuts off contact from the pilots, only to find when they return that AIDAN has exploded the third ship of their fleet, the Copernicus, killing the thousands of refugees and crew onboard. The AI claims that there was a disease outbreak on the Copernicus, and in order to “protect” the crews of the other two ships, it made the executive decision to explode it. The remaining survivors from Copernicus are put into quarantine in Alexander’s airlocks. Immediately, the crew of the Alexander tries to shut AIDAN down, but they cannot do so without Kady and her computer skills. AIDAN, infuriated at those who are trying to shut it down, releases the quarantined members from the airlock, releasing the virus into the thousands of members of the Alexander. Kady hops aboard a pod to try to rescue Ezra from the Alexander, the two communicating over the web, and when she finally arrives at the ship, it is revealed that Ezra has been dead for several days and that AIDAN has been the one leading her here all along. The virus is actively overrunning the Alexander, those infected becoming violent and seeking out others to infect. AIDAN recruits Kady to protect it, and Kady agrees in exchange for the survivors of the ship to be allowed to flee to the Hypatia. Shortly after this, the Lincoln catches up with them, and with the help of AIDAN, the Lincoln and most of the Alexander are destroyed with a large bomb. Kady is the only survivor. When she arrives back at the Hypatia after several days alone in the pod, she realizes that Ezra is still alive after all, having been in quarantine on the Hypatia after a failed mission. They reunite. It’s joyous. It’s revealed that Kady still has a part of AIDAN’s data stored on her tablet, which she keeps a secret. Additionally, we find out that the insane leader of the BeiTech corporation is none other than Ezra’s mother, and we see that the entire novel has been a compilation of records that are being shown as a case against the corporation to show their corruption. And there is the end of the first book!

I won’t explain the second or third, because the second contains a set of new characters, and the third is a combination of all four characters (Kady and Ezra plus the two other, Nik and Hanna), but they do all follow this formatting and narrative.

Breakdown:

So, the golden question–is this collage?

 Visually, the novel itself is told through what is shown to be audio transcriptions of security camera footage, ship documentation, journal pages, chats, radio transcriptions, wiki pages, and pages that are taken from “AIDAN’s database” which appear as white letters on a black page that can take many different visual forms and images. Additionally, there’s things like censor bars, fake coffee stains, handwriting scribbled on posters, fake blood stains, computer text art, and stylized texting lingo. The combination of all of the different forms together makes this series incredibly eye-catching and fast-paced, and I found the use of spacing on the pages–with many having only a few words for emphasis as well as careful arrangements–made the story very tense.

While it very much seems to be a demonstration of collage, there are also complications with the intent behind its creation. In my opinion, it’s kind of a gray area.Google has this book listed as a “young adult space opera epistolary novel.” This book was written by two authors, but they both had the intention of writing these pieces and formatting them in order to tell their own original story. Is the fact that it takes the form of things such as “unipedia” articles and audio transcriptions and text messages enough to make it a form of collage?

Discussion Questions:

Do you think that something with all of the components created for the sole purpose of telling a unified story counts as true collage?

Do you think that this book could have been the same if it was told solely through twelve-point times new roman text on a blank white page, or is the meaning of this book intrinsically tied to the format that it’s in? Does that make something a collage?

Prompt:

Make a collage using emptiness as a key feature of the piece. This book plays a lot with line spacing, superimposed images, and sizing to create a lot of dramatic effect, and you could use any form of that general idea of manipulating space–whether it be textual or image-based–to create a piece.

Oops this is definitely more than 300 words oh well more talking time!

On “This Is Not A Novel” by Jamie Duke

This is Not a Novel by David Markson is an interesting read to say the least. No credits to be seen in the front or back of the book, and the collaged pieces of text aren’t obvious, many of them seem like they could have been written by the author. Credits are, instead, written directly into the text, often after the collaged line. Reviewers aren’t entirely sure what to make of it either, those who like it like it a lot and the rest seem to be pleasantly confused. There’s a sort of hesitance when it comes to praising it, but an equal amount of hesitance in criticism too.

Summary:

A relatively non-linear story that doesn’t seem to be a story at all, not in the traditional sense. Rather, it’s an amalgamation of historical facts and quotes from other writers. Linking them all is the subject of death and the presence of Writer— what the narrator refers to himself as. Writer, is tired of trying to make up stories and instead takes lines from other authors to try and put this book out. There’s no discernable plot or characters, instead the reader gets a vague sense that we are moving forward through a stream of consciousness. Household names rotate through this book, including Sappho, Georgia O’Keefe, Freud, Christopher Columbus and many others with particular emphasis on their deaths.

Analysis:

There is a general repeating pattern throughout the book, quotes from a famous figure, an interjection from Writer in the 3rd person, and then the cause of death for another figure. Markson does not always strictly adhere to this formula, but these three elements make up the majority, if not all, of the book.

“Writer is pretty much tempted to quit writing.”

“This morning I walked to the place where the streetcleaners dump the rubbish. My God, it was beautiful.
Says a van Gogh letter.”

“Writer is equally tired of inventing characters.”

“Goethe died of what began as a chest cold.
Emily Dickinson died of Bright’s disease.
And how dieth the wise man? As the fool”

“The legend that Pythagoras starved himself to death.
The legend that Diogenes committed suicide simply by holding his breath
Only against Death shall he call for aid in vain
Says Antigone chorus re man’s estate”

“Dante probably died of malaria.
Raphael died of an unsolved fever.
Or more probably from excessive bloodletting by his physicians”

“Dickens died of a paralytic stroke. At dinner.
Mozart died of renal failure from nephritis. Or of a streptococcal infection. Or of rheumatic fever. Or of a cerebral hemorrhage. Or of mercury poisoning. Or of arsenic poisoning. Or of exhaustion.
Or of possible miscalculated bloodletting, like Raphael.”

Writer clearly doesn’t take this book seriously, choosing to present on the subject of death and fading creativity with a flippant attitude. This most likely mirrors his own feelings on having to write. At this point in Writer’s career, he finds no joy in storytelling and so turns to poking fun at his situation via the death of writers. A little tongue in cheek humor that indicates that it’s all he has left to write about, at least, for the moment.

Personally, I use this as a model to remind myself that I’m allowed to write prose that’s funny or somewhat nonsensical. Most of the time, I write a lot of heavy, profound writing and while I enjoy it, sometimes I feel stuck in a box.

Discussion Questions:

1. Markson follows up some of his quotes with “says *insert name here* and doesn’t appear to properly cite or credit them elsewhere in this book. Is crediting in text enough?

• This book is both a reflection of the author’s true feelings on his work with a heavy pinch of satire. Does his message come across successfully or is undermined by the structure and the fact that most of it is not his own work?

Prompt:

Markson uses information about and quotes from real people, often popular historical figures, in his collage. Write a collage piece that uses information about or quotes from two or more historical figures. Information/quotes should be copied verbatim from whatever source you got them from.

On “Dragon” by Mar Bradley

What is it?

“Dragon” is a “found” poem composed entirely of screenshots of several different Wikipedia pages. It chronicles, as the title suggests, the life of a sort of “dragon,” straddling the line of literal and metaphorical as it contrasts the story of a more traditional and medieval dragon (with all its gold and sheep-eating) alongside that of the industrial revolution and mankind’s general development. As industry and humanity progress, in parallel to that dragon, we see more destruction of the world around it, as well as implied encroaching death for all. The poem is divided into four sections, marked at the start by the use of “Level I…Level II…” and so on; these section titles are drawn from the Wikipedia page “Long-term nuclear waste warning messages,” which details the plan to label old nuclear depository sites so that humans, thousands of years down the line, would know they are still dangerous. One approach to these warnings was to advise in four “levels” of increasing complexity, as are shown in the poem:

So—after a brief introduction—the poem follows the structure of this list, escalating; we start with level I, the Industrial Revolution, and the need for sacrifice to feed the dragon. Then level II is in reference to the power structures laid out & strengthened post-Industrial Revolution, in line with the general gluttony of dragons (analogous to the upper class pushing the aforementioned industry). Level III is about the ruling class further, particularly about their pursuit of some mythical “gold,” or unreachable end goal, but it also pulls back in touch more sense of the dragon—using references to the Holocene and passed-on fairy tales. Level IV then serves as a conclusion, establishing humanity at the point of an untouchable golden age, drawing together the mythological struggle of “then”—gold-hoarding dragons and sacrificial sheep—and now—significantly balder dragons and much more human sheep. The poem then ends with the final, somewhat obvious quote, “This article is about mass extinction,” just to drive the analogy home of how, as dragons went extinct, so will we, etc.

Is it effective? Maybe! / what i think is interesting about it

One of the most prominent things that makes this piece effective/interesting is its medium, subversion of that medium, and the context it’s consumed in. To me, the initial format has the most impact; Wikipedia has a very distinct style (the footnotes, hyperlinks, font, bolding, etc), and the author’s choice to preserve that format in the poem, via screenshots and minimal whiting out, sets up a sort of expectation for the reader. When we see that font, we expect an article, and to some extent that is followed through with; the poem, like a Wikipedia article, is divided into progressing sections preceded by a short definition, and it features many factual and well-organized statements. However, it reads, as said earlier, more like a myth—like a tale passed from mother to child, sharing the errors of the past (with some more unreality/mystical emphasis) so that people in the future don’t make the same mistakes—though, as the poem strives to make us realize, we already have. As well, I liked the use of the nuclear waste warnings, as they both serve the practical/ structural purpose of separating the sections, as well emphasize the poem’s themes of annihilation and humanity’s unnatural tendency towards mass extinction.

In that vein of structure use, I think the poet took advantage of the context they knew the poem would most likely be viewed in. Today’s presentation/this post aside, the most likely way you would encounter this poem would be on tumblr, within a digital space. This—in contrast to most other forms of art (excluding public installation with some exceptions)—means the author has a great deal more idea of their piece’s audience as well as the space it will be viewed in. In relation to the wiki structure, the strictly digital set-up/context misguides you further to believe it might be a genuine article or simple excerpt, then serves to emphasize the subversion. As well, on tumblr (as with any social media site) there is a certain amount of “common knowledge” or culture which translates specifically within that place and nowhere else. The use of the nuclear waste warnings again is an example of that, as they are a commonly used—though not per se popular—piece of text on the site. More personally, I connected reading this poem and noted the reference immediately because of this other tumblr post, which links those nuclear warnings with photos of rich people’s pools. Still, though, it has that contrast of modern with old, epic with Wikipedia pages, and I think that heightens both the meaning and the general intrigue of the poem, as stated earlier.

As a collage and a social media piece, I think it’s interesting to examine how it combines some uniquely internet phenomena into the shape of an older, generational warning. I don’t find it perfect, as at some points I find the metaphor reads too heavy or becomes a little too lost in the metaphorical prose sauce. But still, I believe it’s a good model of how to give weight to modern stories through the past and interweave seemingly unrelated things to form a greater impact—as is, it seems to be, the general goal of collage.

Discussion questions* + prompt

*questions are best answered after the rest of the presentation

 Q’s:

1. Is this poem—or any of the pieces shown today—as effective being presented as they would be if you were to find them on your own through social media?
2. What’s your general opinion on this type of collage, and what does it generally reflect about the people (primarily younger people) making it today?

Prompt:

Pick one mythical creature or general myth as your basis. Then, pick a modern-day element (event, person, pattern) to contrast/ weave together with the myth. Try to use pre-existing writing—maybe limit to four Wikipedia pages (two on your chosen element/ myth). If you’re having trouble getting started, work backward using this: https://wikiroulette.co/, and research whatever generates as a basis. 

On “Voyage of the Sable Venus” by Marlow Mejia

Robin Coste Lewis was born in Compton, California, but her family is from New Orleans. She attended NYU for creative writing. She then became a theologist at Harvard Divinity School. She has written, “To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness.” This book is a mesh of photography and poetry. She has also created a chapbook called “Inhabitants and visitors.” This book dives into the community of black residents living near Walden pond in Massachusetts.

As for the presentation today I will be talking about the Voyage of the Sable Venus also written by Robin Coste Lewis. Hardcovers of this collection were published in 2015 while paperbacks were published in 2017.

There is also a book called “The Voyage of the Sable Venus from Angola to the West Indies.” According to a google search, this novel talks about the trans-Atlantic slave trade, specifically surrounding those from the Caribbean.

The collection talks about how black slave women were cruelly depicted, given negative stereotypes, and humiliated.

But for today I will only be focusing on section 2, however, there are 3 sections in total. 10 pieces of work can be found in section two. Section two has an introduction where it tells the reader that Western art objects including black women in their narrative from 38,000 BCE to now will be used in the work. At the beginning of section 2, Miss Lewis makes a set of 7 rules to follow when making this collage.

1. if titles are taken from other pieces they cannot be adjusted.
2. Art engravings and photography are typically used to tell stories. She wants to use spoons, table legs, pans, etc
3. If any document was labeled as colored, or slave and then turned to African American, she turned it back
4. Miss Lewis included recent work from black women and black queer artists as well
5. sometimes museum descriptions are used instead of titles
6. she included creative work from “white work.” She includes the work of black artists who had their work labeled under white
7. last and not least, no title is repeated.

Section two includes a vast majority of work from the metropolitan museum of art. I am going to talk about one poem in particular. The piece is called “Catalog 1.” As for a quick summary this piece talks about statues and brings to light the injustices black women have faced in life. The artifacts mentioned in this piece may come from ancient Greece and or Rome.

So the piece starts with the sentence stem “statue of a woman.” It then goes on to describe statues of women found in a museum. These statutes specifically are mutilated and or destroyed. This could correlate to the oppression and mistreatment of the black community. One line, in particular, hit me it says “particularly broken young black girl.” It was tender to read this because, at a young age, all you should be focusing on is having playdates with your friends and what’s for dinner. But because of oppression and cruel treatment the truth and injustices of the world have been made known to them early.

The piece then goes on and lists objects like mirrors, pins, bowls, perfume vases, lamps, etc. I could imagine this is to give the reader a sense of what these individuals’ lives would be like if they were still here. They would be using bowls on a daily basis to plate food. And would enjoy the smell of perfume. But now all we can do is decorate the artifacts with the objects around them. Which is not the same.

The piece then lists animals. A lion and a crocodile are mentioned. In fact, the lion and the speaker in this section of the poem are at the same height, with the speaker kneeling. This could be a reference to dehumanization but also a strength because lions are mighty creatures. This is an analogy about individuals’ potential being squashed.

The poem then ends with the words relief repeated 4 times. One could assume this word fits because after having read the piece we are seeing and making an attempt to acknowledge the wrongs of the past. I would assume there is relief in being seen.

Discussion Questions:

Do we think people need the museums’ permission to steal artistic descriptions?

When only using the title of a piece, does the meaning in the original piece change during artistic transfer?

Prompt:

Find descriptions from gallery A and then art for gallery B and mix them together. You are allowed to add one sentence to the description to make the correlation more understandable.