A number of years ago, I read a book lent to me by a friend that won me over in its first sentence: "Watch your step". I think of that in reference to this picture: don't go spilling over the edge and don't get too spun about in what you're looking at. The past can be treacherous if we live in it. But, ever once in a while, if you unobtrusively look back in the rear view mirror you will see your yourself every step of the way.
This text is a retrospective as elaborated in this color in a few of the pages to come. When peered at holistically, this portfolio of work for an English class during my last semester of college is a discussion about what writing in a new media is. It includes a Genre Analysis that embodies Hypertext Theory. It analyzes a kind of new media writing (I chose the text produced for iTunes to provide music reviews), written in an attempt to re-organize linearity and provide links to other websites so that the reader may choose their own adventure. There is a Blog Analysis, in which Urban Dictionary is examined to reveal how we give meaning to words, A Digital Story, in which text takes a back seat to moving pictures and spoken word. There is also an Editorial about how new media can be embraced to promote the arts, where this is being done (locally!) and where this could be done in order to allow the arts to flourish. And finally there is a Blog, responding to various texts and concepts about New Media Writing.
Metaphorically speaking, this portfolio is a rear view mirror through which I have captured and documented space and time in a new media. I get flooded with images of setting suns and roads paved with heat waves when I think of the rear view mirror. But photographs from youth and the art projects your mom saved are useful images for this metaphor as well. The rear view mirror can be grand and it can be dopey. It can be captivating, mind-blowing and neutral. It can make you feel uncomfortable and maybe a little embarrassed. But you're there every step of the way.
It is through the lens of the rear-view mirror that I look at my portfolio. You probably won't see quite what I see, but all the same I encourage you to use the lens of the rear-view mirror so that your understanding of writing in a new media will grow as mine did through each assignment. If anything, I hope that this portfolio for you is a translation of the progression of ability and allows you to see how I grappled with a new subject matter arising in the Wild, Wild West of the Internet. For now this kind of writing is a territorial expansion, but eventually, when you look through the rear-view mirror, it will be part of writing's own evolution as other media's and other genres unfold to take its place.
This text is a retrospective as elaborated in this color in a few of the pages to come. When peered at holistically, this portfolio of work for an English class during my last semester of college is a discussion about what writing in a new media is. It includes a Genre Analysis that embodies Hypertext Theory. It analyzes a kind of new media writing (I chose the text produced for iTunes to provide music reviews), written in an attempt to re-organize linearity and provide links to other websites so that the reader may choose their own adventure. There is a Blog Analysis, in which Urban Dictionary is examined to reveal how we give meaning to words, A Digital Story, in which text takes a back seat to moving pictures and spoken word. There is also an Editorial about how new media can be embraced to promote the arts, where this is being done (locally!) and where this could be done in order to allow the arts to flourish. And finally there is a Blog, responding to various texts and concepts about New Media Writing.
Metaphorically speaking, this portfolio is a rear view mirror through which I have captured and documented space and time in a new media. I get flooded with images of setting suns and roads paved with heat waves when I think of the rear view mirror. But photographs from youth and the art projects your mom saved are useful images for this metaphor as well. The rear view mirror can be grand and it can be dopey. It can be captivating, mind-blowing and neutral. It can make you feel uncomfortable and maybe a little embarrassed. But you're there every step of the way.
It is through the lens of the rear-view mirror that I look at my portfolio. You probably won't see quite what I see, but all the same I encourage you to use the lens of the rear-view mirror so that your understanding of writing in a new media will grow as mine did through each assignment. If anything, I hope that this portfolio for you is a translation of the progression of ability and allows you to see how I grappled with a new subject matter arising in the Wild, Wild West of the Internet. For now this kind of writing is a territorial expansion, but eventually, when you look through the rear-view mirror, it will be part of writing's own evolution as other media's and other genres unfold to take its place.