Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw by Donna Leishman

     I completely misunderstood this piece while interacting with it. When I went through it the second time to take a screenshot, I found other sections that I did not find the first time. At first, I believed it was about a girl with a terrible relationship with her family who had a type of mental disorder she was dealing with. The piece was extremely dark and a bit disturbing. It is interactive and had no real order to go in. Once a certain section of the piece was completed, another part of the piece would pop up or the scene would change.
     The setting was a landscape with various buildings. One seemed to be a hotel with the sign, "Blue Lagoon" on top of it. There was a church in the distance, trees that would shake and drop objects out of them, and a big (what appeared to be) television or movie screen taking up about 1/3 of the piece at the top right corner. On almost every section, there would be flowers or a tree that when touched with the mouse, would bloom or shake it's leaves.
     The main character, Christian Shaw, could be found hiding behind buildings or trees. When the piece focused on her we found out strange things. She had a book which had a few pages describing who she was, like a diary. Then the pages all had a huge square cut out of them as if to hide things in the journal. Her journal had insects taped on the pages and when the mouse touched them, they would run away. When the screen showed Christian Shaw, she was often spaced out, staring at things. She could also be seen flying, vomiting, bent at odd angles, and sleeping.
     In one scene, she is at a doctor's office with her father, while another she is naked with marks all over her body. When the mouse touched certain parts of the screen, a creature would appearing next to her, it's arms outstretched as if connected to Christian.

     After finishing the interactive piece, the viewer has the ability to read the text explanation. The interactive piece is not meant to be understood completely or even at all. The explanation discusses a young girl, Christian Shaw, who was said to be possessed by a demon. She exhibited many of the characteristics of the accounts of the Salem Witch Trials which were four years before Shaw's accounts were documented. The report was anonymous but in them it states that Shaw would often move things towards her without touching them, she could fly across rooms, she would often be in a trance-like state, she would vomit up strange objects, and her body would bend at strange angles. The screenshot I've included shows the interactive section of the work where Shaw is vomiting up strange objects. There was another creature that was all white and when the mouse touched him, he split open to reveal his red, pulsing insides. A small gray creature appears and crawls out of the hole down his middle. I am still confused as to what part of the story this signified.
   I greatly enjoyed this piece because it seemed to be a modern description of this demonic possession from the late 1600's. It was confusing and disturbing, especially with the music that accompanied many of the more creepy images that appeared. While I think it was smart to have the text accompany the interactive piece, I find works like this are more effective when they are less confusing. Perhaps there should have been more journal entry type sections where the viewer could understand a bit of the intended story.

To view the piece by Donna Leishman click here:

Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw

Ekphrastic Poetry/Fiction

I found this image on the internet and it made me think about the image of a muse. I imagined the musician as a muse playing in someone's head.

     I believe in listening more often than you write. In allowing a song to cripple you, breaking apart everything you thought you knew about your own musical taste and stitching yourself back together with a completely new view of the world.

     I believe in controlled chaos. In using every single instrument at your disposal to create a cacophony only you can hear the beauty in. In blending every different genre in just three minutes, allowing every nerve ending to get chilled.

     I believe in headphones on the bus to drown out the inane chatter and silence while you walk to enjoy the music in everything organic. In approaching every new song with an open-mind and ignoring the gut reaction to be critical.

     So please, bring me to my knees every time a song manifests itself before my eyes. Allow it to shatter my senses and leave only ice creeping its way up my spine. Visit me in my waking hours instead of my dreams, where as I gain consciousness you quickly flee. Leaving me with only a whisper of song or phrase in my head. Allow me to appreciate the words and measures you’ve already brought me. Give me strength to harness every bit of chaos into perfect consonant cacophony. 

Response to "The Dreamlife of Letters" by Brian Kim Stefans

     I think Stefans' "The Dreamlife of Letters" is one of the most original online poems I have ever experienced. I am a huge fan of Poetry, especially spoken word. Though I probably did not understand the full meaning of this work, I found it very interesting.
     I felt that this poem was making a statement on sexuality and gender. Words such as "gender", "sex", and "phallic" were used multiple times. The poem starts out going by letter, and it does this somewhat consistently throughout, but it makes exceptions. For example, during the "s" words, gender came up multiple times.
     Also, when the word "gender" was the main focus, the words bent and moved across the screen. Perhaps this is a statement on the flexibility of sexuality and the spectrum of gender and gender roles.
     On the screenshot below, you can see that this poem can be very confusing and disorienting. I found that I struggled to understand if Stefans was attempting to make phrases or just nonsensical words. Perhaps that was the point of the poem. If it is a statement on gender or sexuality, then maybe the viewer is supposed to be confused. Just like gender and sexuality isn't completely understood, "The Dreamlife of Letters" is not completely understood. I think it was a definite stylistic decision to make this poem a bit confusing, but if I had done an online poem in this format, I would've put some phrases down, to give the reader something to definitely understand every so often.
     Overall, I really enjoyed this poem, even though it is not the way I would present my own written work.

Here is a link to the poem:
Dreamlife of Letters