Blog #9

Little Red Riding Hood:
First told by Charles Perrault in 1697, the story was first read as a french story named "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge." Supposedly, someone had written the story before Perrault however, it was never recorded.  

RedRidingHood

By: Donna Leishman

Background of story: 
In December of 2000 Donna Leishman created an interactive flash retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood, publishing it on her site. Although the bases of the story remains the same (Red find wolf in grandma's bed etc.) there are some dark visuals that gives the reader a sense of darkness when interacting with the flash. (Notice how Leishman did not call the story Little Red Ridinghood, but instead RedRidingHood.) The interactive Red Riding Hood started off as a project for her academic study. Although she does not explain much about her work, she does explain the in-depth thinking the story will stimulate. The story of Red Riding Hood has its own twists and turns, making sure to keep the reader on their toes. 

Theoretical ideas: 

The author wanted to highlight some points that surround her thesis and it is up to the reader to figure them out. She wanted to try out "some mental gymnastics" by developing daring texts, visually enjoyable images, the reader being able to immediately identify the characters, and lastly the author wanted the reader to feel an equal tug between reading and interacting with the flash.

Thesis: Does the search for a link and clicking ruin the point of the narrative itself?

The page opens up with jazzy background music as a pair of sinister eyes emerge from a red colored background and the word "Red" appearing in black. The pair of eyes exposes a girl's face, giving the reader a clue of the theme of the story. The girl does not look very friendly and in fact looks a bit scary- almost like one of the characters from the cartoon Invader Zim. I also noticed that the page caption says "They are Evil." I will be completely honest, i was hesitant to continue with Leiman's work; I thought my computer was going to catch a bug or something. The intro is short- I clicked on the title and when I began to get impatient I clicked on "skip." The next page didn't give me any directions so I clicked on anything that I thought would take me to the story, which was the book hovering in a comment bubble. 

Another page opened up with a woman and a black stripped arrow glowing, with a different type of background music. This is the part I began to get confused. I didn't know which page was the story. I went back to the page that I was previously, and the girl from that page had her eyes closed, very freaky.

I soon figured out that the second page was where the story was going to be told. The text starts off somewhat different from the original ittle red riding hood by saying "Once upon a not so far away..." Clicking on the text, I was than brought to an image of buildings. I scanned my mouse around the entire image and I found one link which than showed Red (the creepy girl at the beginning) and her mother (the woman who popped up when the second page opened up.) As the mother gives Red the basket I notice a picture in the background moving, which of course is the next link. 

As Red is walking through the so called "forest" the wolf pops up behind her but she thinks nothing of it. At one point she stops in a field of flowers and somehow is sprayed with magical sleeping pollen  When she falls, the reader has two choices giving the reader a chance to decide Red's fate. At first I thought that If i chose to wake her up, I would read a little bit more. However, I soon discovered that this was the only moment where I was able to decide Red's fate and both choices would take me quickly towards the end. The end of Red's story was a bit confusing to me. I think that the she ate the wolf instead of the wolf eating her. 

One of the interesting concepts of this flash is that the reader is able to interact- some my be hesitant like I was but nevertheless, with patience the reader will be able to get through it. 

According to Aurelea Manhood "Readers must integrate the images, sounds, and movements in Leishman’s piece with all that they think they know about Little Red Riding Hood in order to achieve visual and narrative closure as they work through RedRidingHood. For the novice reader of electronic literature, these interpretative maneuvers must be learned: This experience with electronic literature forced me to become a more in-depth reader and to not only focus on text [. . .] but also on music and images” (Manhood)

Roberto Simanowksi describes RedRidingHood as a “hybridization of a traditional fairy-tale narrative: the wolf pre-existing as a picture in her diary, as a dealer at the ‘flesh market,’ an angel which does not stop to rescue her." Also states "Donna Leishman's Red Riding Hood is not in any event from the past and her defiant face if the mother holds out the basket, reveals all the trouble she has in her young life already.The accompanying guitar tones sing about her own song. Red Riding Hood is still going on, but her running is defiant. This person is, because there is no doubt, not only on the way to a problem, it has already got one." (Simanowksi)


http://www.hyperrhiz.net/hyperrhiz06/24-artist-statements/77-dissonance-in-multi-semiotic-landscapes

Red Riding Hood Reflection

Project II

Pain is Weakness Leaving the Body, is an original villanelle poem of mine. It speaks about pain metaphorically coursing through a person's veins. 

The reader must simply press the right arrow button on the bottom of the presentation. Please turn on your volume- not loud- and take your time reading the poem! Enjoy!