An eerie twist to a child’s matching game puts the reader in the minds and hearts of both the Alzheimer’s patient and his fading loved ones.

The four works in this issue “were chosen for their duality” and in her note from the editor, Khalilah Boone goes on to say:

Developed to entertain and make the reader think deeply, the creative works we’re presenting invite the reader to ponder the origins of scholarship, question definitions of human identity, reflect upon who we are as patients or relatives of the ill, and carefully ruminate on the nature of our cultural belonging.

The other works are by Eric Lemay, F.J Bergman and Nanette Wylde.

remixed for remixworx from R3/\/\1X\/\/0RX – selected works

technique thanks to this tutorial by carl schooff

source files

screenshot: R3/\\/\\1X\\/\\/0RX - selected works

remixworx launches a gallery page of selected works from 5+ years of remixing

R3/\/\1X\/\/0RX is a collaborative creative space for remixing digital art, digital poetry, spoken word, audio, text, animation and playable media. It’s a micro-community of recombinant artistic practice that I’ve been involved with since January 2007. The R3/\/\1X\/\/0RX blog is where the remixing takes place and WordPress, our chosen software, provides a great social platform for remote creative collaboration. But the front page only displays the latest handful of works so the vast mass of the creative project tends to be hidden in the archives. Our new gallery page opens out the remixworx collection in a browsable interface of thumbnails where you can see, at a glance, relationships between remixes and have access to the works at your fingertips.

Many thanks to Randy Adams, who initiated the R3/\/\1X\/\/0RX project in 2006, for pulling together the selected works page. It currently contains 183 pieces, which represents about one third of the total number of remix works on the blog.

R3/\/\1X\/\/0RX is always open to new members – you should be media savvy and experienced with online publishing software. If you would like to join, let me know. Also, you may find interesting, my personal perspective on remixing with R3/\/\1X\/\/0RX.

In this special issue of Studies in the Maternal, Kate Pullinger reviews Underbelly, which won the MaMSIE Digital Media Competition last year:

‘Underbelly’ is a highly original work that makes great use of the multimedia potential provided by computers. It blends text, sound effects, voiceover, archive drawings, and photographs to create a rich meditation on reproductive rights and dilemmas in both twenty-first century, and nineteenth century England.

I first met Christine Wilks when she was a student on a MA in Creative Writing and New Media that I helped run. She began working on ‘Underbelly’ for her MA thesis, and I’ve been fascinated to watch the work develop since that time. It was clear then that Christine was creating something extraordinary, an important work in the newly emerging field of digital fiction, one that shines a light on a little known part of the history of the mining industry, while illuminating a contemporary story of a woman artist at the same time.

Studies in the Maternal is an international, peer-reviewed, scholarly online journal. In addtition to the papers and reviews (listed below), this special issue also includes visual media art, on the theme of Maternal Subjectivities, Care and Labour, and Kate Pullinger writing about her novel, The Mistress of Nothing.

Papers:

• Stella Sandford What is Maternal Labour?
• Lucy Delap “For ever and ever”: Child-raising, domestic workers and emotional labour in twentieth century Britain
• Daniel Miller Getting THINGS Right: Mothers and Material Culture
• Rosie Cox Competitive mothering and delegated care: Class relationships in nanny and au pair employment
• Rachel Thomson Making motherhood work?

Reviews:

• Maria Papadima: Joan B Wolf, Is breast best?
• Laura Seymour: Rita Ann Higgins, Ireland is Changing Mother and Jackie Kay Fiere

remixed for remixworx from: Notes Noir + xmas card + StoneFaceSea

remixed for remixworx from: Shadow Capital + Occupy London calls Occupy Everywhere – D15

remixed for remixworx from: shadows of hats + Notes Noir
related to: mondrian money moon

source file: ShadowCapital-dk5_CS4.fla (2.2mb)

In an Arts & Entertainments feature in The Independent, Lisa Gee “explores the unbound possibilities of digital-era fiction” and announces the shortlist for the 2011 New Media Writing Prize. She asked a number of people working in digital writing and/or publishing to nominate their favourite works of digital literature and I’m delighted to say that Tim Wright and Jim Pope both recommended Underbelly, and Sue Thomas picked Fitting the Pattern. Here’s what they had to say in the accompanying video:

Tim Wright, digital writer/consultant, on Underbelly :

It’s a really interesting use of interactivity, Flash animation,  amazing sound and it’s a story about women miners but then also a thought piece about bearing children and motherhood and balancing work and home.

Dr James Pope, academic & judge/co-founder, New Media Writing Prize, on Underbelly :

I still maybe think it’s the best piece I’ve seen in terms of emotional connection to a piece of interactive work.

Sue Thomas, professor of new media, De Montfort University, on Fitting the Pattern:

It’s beautifully designed, but it also has very clever tools within it that you have to learn how to use before you can actually navigate the piece and read the story.

Here are the other recommended works:

• Inanimate Alice by Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph, recommended by Alison Norrington and novelist and games writer Naomi Alderman.
• Welcome to Pine Point by Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons, recommended by Sophie Rochester.
• The Golden Notebook Project recommended by Nico Macdonald, chair, Media Futures.
• Souciant magazine recommended by Keith Kahn-Harris, writer and academic.
• Kidmapped by Tim Wright,  recommended by Chris Meade.

New Media Writing Prize 2011 – shortlist

• He Said She Said – Alan Bigelow (USA)
• Loss of Grasp Serge Bouchardon (France)
• 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein David Clark  (Nova Scotia)
• Circle Caitlin Fisher (Ontario)
• Welcome to Pine Point - Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons (Vancouver)

Also announced yesterday on the New Media Writing Prize blog, the shortlist for the student prize:

Student Entries

• Chasing Pandora – Emily Devereux, Allyson Cikor, Trent Redmond, Mathew Vickery  (Alberta, Canada)
• 5 Haitis – Simon Kerr  (Nottingham)
• Maybe Make Some Change – Aaaron A. Reed  (Santa Cruz, California)
• Unravelled –   Spenser Wain, Zac Urness, Kollin Branicki  (Alberta, Canada)

Rememori is a degenerative memory game and playable poem that grapples with the effects of dementia on an intimate circle of characters.

Play-read or read-play, however you approach it and whoever you identify with, you’ll become entangled in a struggle for accurate recall, attention and the search for meaning. Inevitably, it’s a contrary game – there can be no winners.

I began creating Rememori about a year ago, when my father was in the later stages of Alzheimer’s Disease but still living at home, being cared for by my mother. I finished the work this weekend, coincidentally just as my father moved from a hospital ward into a Nursing Care Home. On the face of it, the main reason why it’s taken so long to make is because I took time out to work on other projects. During that period my father had a third massive stroke and the prognosis didn’t look good. So for a while, I think I was reluctant to return to the piece. I’m glad I did. There can be no happy endings in situations like these but, now that we have him settled in our preferred Care Home, there’s a sense of respite. I think the work reflects that, certainly in the later stages of the game.

Having said that, the work is a game – it’s not factual, it’s not autobiographical, but like all works of art, it’s fed by reflecting on one’s experience.

Modified image of brain: source thanks to Wellcome Library, London.