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New Media, New Narrative

 

David Crawford

 

Featuring: John Cabral, Mouchette, and Mumbleboy
new media is one of many terms -- including interactive media and multimedia -- that are used to refer to works existing in a digital format... —Source: Wired Style
narrative \Nar"ra*tive\, n. That which is narrated; the recital of a story; a continuous account of the particulars of an event or transaction; a story... —Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary


John Cabral is a game designer who creates animated environments with characters that pull a 24 hour shift. Mouchette is a 12-year-old from Amsterdam, engaging her fans in an international call-and-response centered around mortality. Mumbleboy is a master of montage in the animated short, his euphoric segues reeling with the capricious synergy of a fever dream. The work of these three artists may seem whimsical but there is nothing left to chance about their formal tactics. All share a concern with time-based structure, and to varying degrees, storytelling. Following this introduction is an interview with each artist conducted via e-mail in June, 2001 as well as links to selected works.


The most significant overlap between their work is in the nature of its immediacy. Although the worlds they create are time-based and therefore rooted in the structure and history of the dramatic and musical arts, there's a painterly sense about all the work in its ability to be apprehended immediately on a surface level. This hybrid quality -- the works' capacity to be read at various temporal depths -- is what makes it so flexible and powerful within the online environment. The immediacy of the work and the speed with which its underlying models can be apprehended is also central to its capacity to sustain multiple viewings. This enables users to make successive investments deeper layers, with the initial layer being the lynchpin.


Within the greater context of media, new media is unique in many ways. Among the most significant, being its compressed and repetitive temporal qualities. In the 21st Century we are accustomed to channel surfing the television, scanning stations on the radio, and rifling through collections of CDs and DVDs with a speed that would seem schizophrenic to any society predating ours. However, the way we use new media is by far the most frenetic. Rather than spending a prolonged period of time on a Web site and then never returning (as is customary in regard to the way many watch movies), our Web use tends to be brief and repetitive. It would be outside the scope of this essay to address this phenomenon at length, suffice to say that there are many contributing factors, not the least of which being the sheer number of sites available and their ephemeral nature in general.


Despite their unique strategies, the work of all three artists makes itself available for apprehension with lightning speed. Not being merely a matter of fast download, but also a factor of the degree to which they communicate their basic assumptions and the underlying models on which their work is based within a matter of seconds. In other words, you're already immersed within their narrative construct by the time the first page has finished loading. This is where many instances of new media art fall short, in that they assume a level of immersion on the part of the user that is undeserved. For those who've ever walked out of a movie, you probably gave the film at least thirty minutes before leaving the theater. Within the context of new media, to say that this grace period has been compressed to thirty seconds would be a liberal estimate.


Is this grounds for being cynical about the nature of the medium and its potential to be anything but a research tool or shopping mall, marketing platform or delivery mechanism for pornography? Perhaps, but whether we like it or not, the new media driven "information superhighway" (with new media speeding along it) is without question, the great paradigm of the late 20th and early 21st Century. In less than 10 years, this phenomenon has produced repercussions in every aspect of our culture and society. It has changed the way we interact with each other as well as the way we think as individuals. As such, I find it inspiring to see artists who have chosen to make their home in a terrain which many consider hostile to the point of being infertile and others consider so perverse that they choose to see it as being outside the context of what can be considered to be art.

 

John Cabral

from Ground Zero, 2001


In informal conversations with John Cabral, he's referred to the plot of "Ground Zero" as being mundane. I'd like to be able to argue with him about this, but have the handicap of never having seen the whole project. You're undoubtedly asking yourself why I'm writing about a piece that I haven't seen in its entirety. Well, the punch line is that in order to experience all of "Ground Zero," one would have to watch the comings and goings of its characters for no less than 24 hours. The good news -- for those who don't expect to have such a large block of time available -- is that through repeated visits, the project tells a story through an accretion of events. To this end, Cabral's strategy is straightforward but relentless: map an animated story to the actual hours, minutes, and seconds of an entire day and night, and then repeat ad nauseam. Being an extraordinary digital craftsperson, the elegance of his tactics are only exceeded by their scale.


In what could be read as a tip of the hat to Warhol's "Empire," (an 8 hour film of the Empire State Building) Cabral's vision takes on a poignantly comedic quality via the absurdity of its scale. Also bearing a relationship to the popular game entitled "The Sims," "Ground Zero" makes visible the real-time, interactive apparatus wrapping itself around us like a cybernetic python. Before dismissing this as a conspiratorial rant, consider the boom of reality-based television as well as the recent appearance of both immersive gaming and immersive promotions (immersive meaning that the enterprise offers a level of personalized interaction that manifests itself in as many media channels as it can reach you in). For example, a friend recently told me that he started receiving phone calls at home after having opted into a promotion for the upcoming release of Spielberg's, "A.I."
The world of online gaming is flourishing with the most successful titles (EverQuest, Ultima Online, and Sim City) drawing tens of thousands to participate at any given time of day or night. Meanwhile, in Cabral's "Ground Zero," a story is mapped to a real-time clock, with the clock actually becoming a central character in the story. Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether we see the stories' villainous hunter "Fatso" shoot "Ratzo" (the rat/protagonist) or whether we meet the otherworldly "Voodoo Queen" in the darkness of the night. Instead, what matters is the authenticity of Cabral's model. He has created a world in which we can find realism in the omnipotence of the clock. It doesn't matter so much "what" is happening as it does "when." Regardless of whether the plot is mundane, the narrative of "Ground Zero" is endless and epic, and embodies a structure seeming to prefigure many things on the horizon.

 

Mouchette
Flesh and Blood

from Flesh and Blood, 1998

 


If John Cabral's question is "When?", Mouchette's mantra would be "Who?". Named after the main character of a Bresson film of the same name, Mouchette (or "little fly", for non-French speakers) has been buzzing around the Web for well over three years now without seeming to age a bit. Perhaps she's just been so busy making new work that she hasn't had time to update the HTML on her homepage listing her current age as "nearly 13 years old." I'm sure that if dear, overworked Mouchette had a nickel for every e-mail she's received inquiring as to whether she might be lying about her age, she would be able to treat us all to an evening of fun at an amusement park (something her namesake does in the film). In any case, visitors to her site are likely to feel giddy just the same. She'll make you giggle and cringe and if you're the sort who gets easily spooked, you might want to have a friend hold your hand along the way.


Mouchette is as relentless as Cabral in the singularity of her line of questioning, one revolving around identity and authorship. Seducing her audience with entrance into the secret world of a young girl, Mouchette traps visitors like "little flies" in a Web of questions about online identity. While we're deluged with sensational stories on television related to the use of false identities in "cyberspace," Mouchette makes her home there addressing the issue with an air of humanism and humor that puts the evening news to shame. Depending upon the depth of one's belief in Mouchette, visitors will enter this roleplaying game from different angles, being propelled accordingly down a myriad of equally engaging paths. Ultimately, as with any good literature, the story becomes so fully realized in our imagination that any additional information could only detract from it.


Personally, I find the character of "Mouchette" recreated anew for me with each visit. As I learn more about her and spend more time pondering her character(s), the site begins to feel haunted like a room whose contents you've imagined, but never seen by the light of day. Users are invited to participate in this morbid drama when asked for opinions concerning deceased animals once held dear by Mouchette or for help with the details of a possible suicide by the artist. The intimacy of these exchanges is palpable and reflects the apotheosis of a continuum running from film through the medium of video and finally into new media. With each leap in technology, there is a corresponding increase in the material level of intimacy between viewer and medium, propelled by an evolution in interface. Film is epic, video is narcissistic, and new media can be downright spooky.


Mumbleboy
Pamplemousse 1

from Pamplemousse 1, 2000


Part animation, part free-association and part alien transmission, Mumbleboy has been thrilling and confounding his audience for years. When I asked him about narrative, Mumbleboy was hesitant to apply the term to his work. However, it's exactly this ambiguity towards storytelling and his occasional flirtation with it that makes his work fascinating from a narrative standpoint. While most of his sequences last less than five minutes and feature seemingly random segues from one (often striking) illustration to another, there are themes that appear and reappear across his body of work. As a body of work, Mumbleboy's animations offer us an alternative vision of what narrative might be within the multi-tasking, meta-environment of the Web. One could even interpret his pieces as distilled Web-browsing sessions, with chance, irony, and humor all making cameo appearances.


Mumbleboy's signature technique is a fluid and bizarre style of digital montage. Looking at one of his animations is like being inside a food processor calibrated to lyrically synthesize the contents of his visual cortex. Mumbleboy's animations reflect the surface of a reality where images of invented characters co-exist with those from pop culture in a way which seems to embody the visual freneticism of Times Square. From a formal standpoint, the whimsical structure of his work and the experimental narratives within it are strengthened by his commitment to a flat, two-dimensional world. These fertile conditions not only provide a wealth of geometric raw material that can be liquefied, morphed and married by the hand of this master animator, but also suggest a critical position that sees flatness as realism.


I've heard a few artists make interesting comments about the subject of flatness and realism over the last couple of years. The first was by painter and theorist, Peter Halley. At a lecture given at the Massachusetts College of Art, he suggested that the urban spaces we inhabit are actually two-dimensional. His comments have stayed with me and consistently rung as true in a way that I'm incapable of explaining to a degree that would do them justice. The other instance where the congruence of flatness and realism was suggested to me was in a conversation with none other than John Cabral. He asserted that the realism of the Simpson's was heightened, if not enabled by their existence in two dimensions. I can only hope that someday Mr. Halley will write something explaining an episode which finds Homer crossing over into a "Tron-like," 3D world of wireframe models and endlessly receding grids.

 

John Cabral
John Cabral

What is your name?
John Cabral.

What is your age?
30.

What is your nationality?
American.

Do you have any favorite writers?
William Faulkner, Ign∑cio de Loyola Brand?o.

Do you have any favorite movies?
Das Boot, The Wizard of Oz, La Jet»e, Underground.

When, how, and why did you become involved in the internet?
In 1995, a friend gave me an old computer with a modem. I was in college and signed up for a free shell account with Lynx, I started using the Web primarily for documenting my drawings, writings, etc.

Has your perspective on the internet changed significantly over the last five years?
Yes and no. I have similar ideas about it, but now concentrate on some more than others. I used to think everything should be viewable in a browser, but don't care anymore.

What do you see your work coming out of and where do you see it going?
Traditional children stories >> into game design.

Can you comment on the ratio of words to imagery to sound in your work?
Sounds are more important than words because words are too descriptive.

What are the unique characteristics of narrative on the Web?
Live action, short narratives, real-time data, and distribution.

How many hours a day (on average) do you spend on a computer?
10.

When do you do your best work (time of day)?
In the morning.

Do you have any significant collaborators?
Not in the past, but I'm currently collaborating with people.


Mouchette
Mouchette

What is your name?
Mouchette.

What is your age?
Not yet 13.

What is your occupation?
Being a person on the internet.

What is your nationality?
French.

Where do you live?
Amsterdam, or so it says on my site.

How do you see this place influencing your work?
It influences the readers mostly.

When, how, and why did you become involved in the internet?
Once upon a time, there was a Mouchette on PMC MOO... There also has been a character on MediaMOO (MIT) called Lalie who had 2 robot dolls called Echolalie and Glossolalie. They all still exist there (@join Mouchette on PMC MOO or @join Lalie on MediaMOO) but nobody keeps them alive. If there had been a public for text-only interactive worlds like MOOs, there would never have been a Mouchette on the Web.

Has your perspective on the internet changed significantly over the last five years?
Being just a little piece of the internet I have no perspective on it. I change with it, like a drop of water in the sea changes with the sea.

What do you see your work coming out of and where do you see it going?
It comes from a set of theoretical questions about language within the field of visual arts:
1) A concern with the linguistic notion of "speech acts."
2) Modes of address in the public space using a written form.
It goes towards a new definition of identity related to a new social form of communication.

Do you have any favorite writers?
Raymond Roussel, Georges Perec, Raymond Queneau and all the OULIPO writers.

Do you have any favorite movies?
"Mouchette" by Robert Bresson, and all other Bresson movies.

Do you think your work tells stories? If not, do you think fans find stories in your work anyway?
I do not tell stories, the fans find them in my work. If the work is good each fan attributes me a different story.

To what extent has your work been shaped by contributions from your fans?
To a very big extent. In fact, it's completely shaped by the fans' contributions. But that's something only the fans can tell. Since I'm one of the fans, I know what I'm talking about.

Can you comment on the ratio of words to imagery to sound in your work?
Text goes first. Pictures and sounds are merely a sort of decor, something that supports or triggers the verbal exchange between me and the text contributors to the site.

What are the unique characteristics of narrative on the Web?
1) The notion of fiction and non-fiction are being re-defined. I am just as real (non-fiction) as ........ [fill in here anybody who has a homepage or a Web site to promote their personality] or maybe they are all Web characters like me.
2) Web users, readers may fill in a part in the story. That part can be integrated inside the story by the main author. Authorship is being shared, although not in an equal way.

How many hours a day (on average) do you spend on a computer?
Too many to dare mention...

When do you do your best work (time of day)?
What time do you mean: GMT? EDT? PDT? UTC?

Do you have any significant collaborators?
Right now the PHP programmer is very significant to the creation. The PHP programs determine how I receive, edit and react to the users' contributions to my Web site.



Mumbleboy
Mumbleboy

What is your name?
Kinya Hanada.

What is your occupation?
Web animator & illustrator.

What is your nationality?
Japanese.

Where do you live?
NYC.

How do you see this place influencing your work?
I am not sure if there's very much direct influence from living here, but it does offer access to a lot of culture, so in that way, I can find more things that I might be influenced by.

When, how, and why did you become involved in the internet?
I suppose it was probably around '93, '94. I had a naive notion about cyberspace from reading books like "Neuromancer" and I thought it was going to be some sort of a futuristic experience. I quickly realized it wasn't like that, but also realized it was so easy to publish on the net. Being a person who always liked to make things (stuff) and show to people, it became very important to me to be able to show my work without going through any barriers.

Has your perspective on the internet changed significantly over the last five years?
No, but I feel that other people have. I don't "surf" around as much as I used to, but I feel like people used to be more care-free about putting stuff out there. In general, it seems some of the enthusiasm has died out and people are very careful about how they present themselves.

What do you see your work coming out of and where do you see it going?
I don't really know where it's going. It's not a pre-meditated thing I'm doing and if I knew, I don't know that I would be willing to put in the work.

Do you have any favorite writers?
My favorite writer is Genichiro Takahashi. He hasn't been published in English except for an excerpt from his novel in a book called "Monkey Brain Sushi."

Do you have any favorite movies?
Brazil. At least it used to be. (I) haven't seen it in a while. I fear it might have become dated.

Do you think your work tells stories? If not, do you think fans find stories in your work anyway?
I don't make my work with any story in mind really. If there's stories in them it's probably because we try to look for stories in motion pictures. I think that's good if viewers see stories, it's probably a lot more creative viewing than watching something with a very obvious plot line.

To what extent has your work been shaped by contributions from your fans?
Maybe not so much directly, but it is always good to have feedback for your work. It keeps you going. Sometimes comments can trigger ideas for more work. For example, when I made "Buttery Donuts," there were no donuts in the animation and I got an e-mail that said, "where the hell are the donuts?," so I thought I should make my next piece with donuts in them and that was "Pamplemousse."

How many hours a day (on average) do you spend on a computer?
I've never counted. Maybe 8-9 hours? I try and not waste my time on the computer. If I'm stuck or if I'm just wasting time, I'll do something else and come back to the computer when I've come up with an idea to work out.

When do you do your best work (time of day)?
Late at night.

Do you have any significant collaborators?
Eric Mast a.k.a. E*Rock. He does most of the sounds for my animations.


 

This article was first published in www.turbulence.org. Reprint by permission of D.Crawford.

 

David Crawford (b. 1970, Riverside, CA) studied film, video, and new media at the Massachusetts College of Art and received a BFA in 1997. In 2000, his "Light of Speed" project was a finalist for the SFMOMA Webby Prize for Excellence in Online Art. In 2003, Crawford's "Stop Motion Studies" project received an Artport Gate Page Commission from the Whitney Museum of American Art and an Award of Distinction in the Net Vision category at the Prix Ars Electronica. In 2004, he received an MSc from Chalmers University of Technology and became an Assistant Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

 

 

 

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