I’ve invented a new form of storytelling

After considerable consideration, I have finalized the plans for a new form of storytelling that is inspired off of Web 2.0 and influenced by LonelyGirl15. I haven’t checked if it has already been invented, and I haven’t given it a name of any sort, but it’s there now. For convenience’s sake, I will call it netfiction for now.

Netfiction is like an epistolary novel in that it is not presented in a clear, linear stream. The story is presented through various media on the internet – social networking profiles, YouTube videos, blogs, e-mail messages, perhaps even forums and such (although I’m not sure if forums would allow a fictional story to take place on a place for real people).

Unlike the original lonelygirl15, however, netfiction does not attempt to convince the viewer that the story occurring is real, much like an epistolary novel will not try to convince that the letters and newspaper articles in the novel are real. Hence, we have what is a new form of storytelling, that takes the Internet as its medium of expression.

The Home Page

There will be one homepage for a work of netfiction, that provides a synopsis of the plot, as well as links to blogs, profiles, videos – all the content of the work, in general. It will serve as something of a contents page and book cover for netfiction.

It will also have a RSS feed to allow users to be updated on new content constantly. This feed will be an aggregation of all of the blog feeds, YouTube channel feeds etc.

If the netfiction is really long, the home page will also help users in knowing who’s who and how the story’s progressing, and most importantly, the home page will help new viewers get accustomed to this new mode of fiction.

Dynamic

Netfiction will be very dynamic, to simulate a sense of reality. Blog posts will be erratic, irregular; videos shaky and unprofessional and so on. Characters will comment on current events happening in the real world; in fact, they may even be affected by these. Since netfiction may occur in real-time, you never know where the story will go next.

It can also be seen as a form of elaborate role-play, with “actors” taking the roles of characters and weaving them to their whim. While in my original concept, there will be a pre-written story (and perhaps a script) and a director, it may also work to take a role-play approach and have the story go as it wills.

Users also interact with these characters in real-time, although this is a choice upto the author. An open netfiction can very closely simulate reality, by having the mass audience comment on the characters and events unfolding; or the author can choose to make comments and “public” input entirely a part of the story.

Actors would definitely be needed for the Flickr photos and YouTube videos though, so it would be very difficult to make a netfiction that involves multiple characters all alone. Unless of course, using netfiction devices (see what I did there?) like explaining that our characters don’t have speedy internet connections, or digital cameras, or are from China and are banned access to Flickr or something.

That’s all I have in mind right now, and pretty much all I think of for this format. I’m not planning on publishing anything yet, and have no real story ideas. If anyone does, contact me and we’ll see if we can make art history.

Un Chien Andalou

So I got around to watching Un Chien Andalou, the directorial debut of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. It’s considered to be a surrealist masterpiece, and I expected nothing less from the likes of Buñuel, whose infamous L’Âge d’Or I have yet to sample.

Buñuel himself declared that the movie, being a purely surrealist one, has absolutely no rational explanation, and instead, relies wholly on subconcious imagery and free association. And true enough, no logical storyline can be interpreted from the 16-minute film.

Still, the film is open to interpretation, in fact, a very wide range of interpretation. There is some use of symbolism, such as the cutting of the unnamed woman’s eye in conjunction with the moon being covered by clouds, or the groping man having “ants in his hands” before witnessing a woman struck by a car and groping the aforementioned unnamed woman.

And at the same time, the movie relishes its paradoxes, with random time and space changes reminiscent of dreams. And oddly enough, it is this intermingling of realism with paradoxes that generates a sense of shock and surrealism in the movie.

The movie is less of a fulfilling or satisfying sort and more of an experience that you will think about later – in your subconcious.

The Road to Success

Your grandma can do it

Original Pic

Ultimate Dinner

Tasty

Ballad of The Rider – Part I

He rode on through the pale moonlight,
Accompanied by his horse
His boy battered and his heart torn,
This night, it cannot last long.

He rode amongst the men, his friends,
Or so did he them call,
He rode slower than the rest of them,
He had a destiny, he said.
His mind raced faster than the rest of them,
This night is cold for me, only now

He was the rider of the dark,
The knowing man who knew no light,
“It soon shall touch upon my brow,
And then those fools, they will surmise.
Ride into the brightened dawn,
I shall be the one to be furthest of all.”

Sand in his eyes, a shiver in his spine.
The rider knew no peace.
His safety torn, one false gleam
Of hope had he but seen.

And his heart had grown so bitter now,
That he cast it all away-
No friends are these fools of mine,
This light that I shall face shall be new.

He threw away all his miseries,
A new world of light was awaiting him,
The illumination of this sun,
It bathed him a holy stream.
And he regretted the night that he now so missed,
And the world of darkness he had lived in,
The world that was once a dream,
Now seen for its reality.

The sun’s brutal rays on him,
The rider made his way,
His mind ever so dizzy now,
His fear of darkness cost his freedom.

The world of light was terrifying,
And the shadows of the past
Kept him awake in his sleep,
Would it have been a better future?

The rider crawled unto the sand,
His horse had died miles ago,
He surely had come close to his dream,
But was it really worth all this?

The darkness, the cold was so charming,
The rider felt the sandstorm coming,
And he lamented on what he had now become
And his dreams now thrown further,
The darkness gone farther,
And the shadows more sinister.

Steal This Film II

Just finished watching Steal This Film II and I really liked it, the documentary style is slick and well-polished. It concentrates a lot more on the more ideological and philosophical ideas of internet piracy (or rather, BitTorrent in specific) than the last movie, which talked about The Pirate Bay.

I really like how the film is presented, and the ideas it introduces, that the world will eventually look at information exchange the way it was meant to be – free. People will give and take information without the greed of earning money from it. It also traces a great route of information exchange through the ages, including say, the “evil” printing press.

I’m interested in the next film from The League of Noble Peers, titled “The Oil of the 21st Century”, which appears to further the cause of the anti-copyright movements going on.

I’m seeding the movie right now, and probably for quite a while.

The Weight of Feathers

This is the most creative thing I’ve seen all day:

The weight of feathers, 2005

12 x 55 x 34 cm

Acid-free 115 gsm paper and glue

Large papercut installations

Phidias Showing The Freize of The Parthenon

A friend showed me this painting – I think it’s great. According to said friend, it does an excellent and original job of describing history. It isn’t Jesus’ crucifixion or a king, but a humble artist displaying the height of creativity and art of his age. Plus, the colours and details on the painting are brilliant. I like how there is so much detail on everything in the painting – the folds of the garments, the hodge-podge floorwork, the wood everywhere.

“Phidias Showing The Freize of The Parthenon” by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema at Flickr

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