'What The Water Gave Me': Woolf and Water.

I came across this post from my old e-portfolio, which I created for my MA in English last year. I felt that its sentiment was appropriate to my own adaptation to the world of Digital Humanities. Woolf adapts water in the same way to fit her writing style. This can be seen in nearly every single major work which she has written. However this piece focuses on a slightly dryer piece of writing by Woolf, set in the English countryside. The work that I am writing about is of course Between The Acts. DH challenges the traditional written identity in the same way that Woolf uses water to mock the traditional novel format. Obviously, this movement challenges a whole lot more than that, but in terms of my own area of interest this fits the bill nicely.

Image courtesy of http://saltysbrainflash.blogspot.ie

Virginia Woolf's writing has had a lengthy relationship with water, or what could be labelled as ocean imagery. This post will examine the significance of water in relation to Woolf's work.

The title of this piece is taken from a 'Florence and The Machine' song of the same name, written by Florence Welch. Welch has surveyed the significance of water to Woolf. She cites Woolf's work as one of the main influences for this song.

What the Water Gave Me- Performed by Florence and The Machine.

"The ocean seems to me to be natures great overwhelmer. ...... "It's about water in all forms and all bodies. It's about a lot of things; Virginia Woolf creeps into it, and of course Frida Kahlo, whose painfully beautiful painting gave me the title." ( Florence Welch, Digital Spy)

The water can be analysed as a powerhouse for influence. Perhaps what the water gave to Woolf was an outlet for a new form of the novel. Many of Woolf's allusions to water or to the beach profess a change or a loss within the realm of the novel. She can be argued as adapting the novel to Modernism, in the way that water adapts to its surroundings.

Woolf clearly toys with this idea in her final novel Between the Acts. She mocks the 'traditional' novel form, which she suggests provides outdated and unimaginative representations of society. This is visible in William Dodge's observation of Isa and Giles' relationship, which was "as people say in novels 'strained' "(Between the Acts, 973).

The water of Woolf's work is all encompassing. It seems to engulf the majority of her writing, whether the setting is London, as in Mrs Dalloway, or the beach in Cornwall from Jacob's childhood in Jacob's Room. "The waves" in the water of Jacob's Room "showed that uneasiness, like something alive, restive, expecting the whip" (Jacob's Room, 13).  One could argue that this uneasiness centers around both the character and the form employed in the novel.

"It,(Jacob's Room), was Immediately hailed as a radically innovative text that broke with tradition and established the groundwork for a new kind of fiction: in its nonlinear modernity it was likened to a portfolio rather than a novel" (Francesca Kazan, 701).

Obviously this post cannot examine all of the references to water in Woolf's substantial collection of writing. However, from what has been discussed thus far, the water can be viewed as the creative process, which changes with the mood of her work, much like water does in reality, when it is disturbed or there is a change in the weather. It acts as a signifier for Woolf's uneasiness with what she was creating, yet at other times it provides a joyous sense of achievement with the unification of her ideal for a new type of fiction.

Therefore, 'what the water gave' Virginia Woolf was a podium upon which to calculate a distinct form of writing.The water of Virginia Woolf's writing offers an analogy for the struggle to create something new. When the "wave has broken", Woolf worries that something new may not be allowed to form. This is seen in Between the Acts, her last work.

"Dispersed are we, Isabella followed her humming. All is over. The wave has broken. Left us stranded, high and dry"(Between the Acts, 968-9).

Conceivably, the water was Woolf's attempt to open her work up to criticism, about the changing shape of its writing. There is a fearful voice inherent in the water imagery of whether Woolf has succeeded in changing the mould of fiction, or whether her work is drowning in its own failure.

   

 

Frida Kahlo: 'What the Water Gave Me'

As I progress in my MA in Digital Humanities, I am beginning to realise that if I am to achieve something from this degree it has to come from the marriage of my own interests with this movement. As I struggle to create an idea for my thesis, I have increasingly turned to my old favourites, such as Woolf and Djuna Barnes, to garner some inspiration. They created new landscapes of literature in the Modernist period which I am attempting to undertake in Digital Humanities. Ultimately, I want my thesis to be a representation of the creation of a new embodiment of writing, in quite the same way that these authors did in their own time.

Works Cited

Corner, Lewis. "Florence and the Machine debut new track: What the Water Gave me." Digital Spy. Hachette fillipaci Media. 31 Jan. 2012. http://www.digitalspy.ie/music/news/a336706/florence--the-machine-debut-new-track-what-the-water-gave-me-video.html. Web.

Kazan,Francesca. "Description and the Pictorial in Jacob's Room." ELH, 55:3 (1988). 701-719.  http://0-www.jstor.org.library.ucc.ie/stable/2873190. Web.

Woolf, Virginia. The Selected Works of Virginia Woolf. London: Wordsworth Editions Ltd, 2007. Print.

Reality Stretched: Identity versus the Digital World

This post is a response to reading the chapter 'Collaborative Selves, Collaborative Worlds: Identity in the Information Age' by Sherry Turkle, taken from the book Electronic Collaboration in the Humanities.

This chapter blends discussions of psychoanalytics, with which I am familiar from Modernist and Postmodernist debates, and role-playing virtual games. It simultaneously handles the debates concerning surface and depth of identities in an online world. One could also refer to these in 'techy' terms as front end and back end identities.

An area which caused me some concern was the apparent lack of discussion in this chapter on actual collaboration. All of the examples given, concerning both 'Case' and 'Shakespeare' lacked an apparent group element. Therefore the chapter became slightly confused in linking its discussions of identity back to the many, other than the multiplicity of identities theory. I felt that Turkle got slightly lost in conveying the ideas of the MUD and telling the story of Case, letting the main focus of collaborative work fall flat. While I understood that this chapter is probably an introductory, 'setting the scene', piece of writing, I did not think that its message jelled fully with the overarching themes of this book.

I found the metaphor for Windows to be of great use in visualising the multiple self that Turkle was arguing for. The notion that every window open on our desktop conveys a separate identity rang quite true to me and I'm sure for many. For example, on numerous occasions, I will have various academic windows open, speaking in my scholarly voice, while at the same time I will have my personal Facebook open to speak to my friends, in my 'casual' voice. The fusion of technology and identity is at the core of what Digital Humanities if trying to assemble. Julia Fraser conceives that:

 Digital humanities as a whole has revealed precisely how interwoven and mutually consequential 'technical' and 'disciplinary' standards often are (Collaborative Research in the Digital Humanities, 68).

This piece reminded me of the struggle within DH, to merge the identity of the humanities, with the imposing egos of both technology and the regulation of scholarship.

The emotional connection of Case to his MUD character Mairead is something which I can identify with, although on a smaller scale than gender dynamics. As I have mentioned in a previous post, my last foray into gaming was playing the Sims 1,2 and 3. These were probably the only games that I played thoroughly enough to comment on. I agreed with Turkle's example because I did have slight emotional reactions to my own gaming experiences. The Sims has a similar concept in that you can play as a completely different persona to your true self. I felt proud when my Sim got a promotion in their job, or had a child, mainly because I had progressed in my gaming abilities.

Arguably, these types of gaming can act as a method of escapism, in the sense that the player usually acts out   something which they are unable or unwilling to attain in their own life at that moment.
This conjures the question of whether digital identity is in danger of becoming miskewed?
It also begs the question of whether digital identity can be taken as seriously as our own identity,which is proven on our passports?

The Digital Multiplicity of Personas serves to fuel the debate on facing up to reality.

Works Cited

Deegan, Marilyn, Willard McCarty. Collaborative Research in the Digital Humanities: A Volume in Honour of Harold Short. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2012. Print.

Deforming For Reforming

To many, Las Meninas represents one of the most dynamic, multi-layered and complex examples of artwork. It has received so much attention, that it has garnered recreations by the likes of Picasso most famously. However, I am not interested in discussing fine art in this post. I am interested in how the transmission of this work in its different forms ties into what digital humanities represents.

It struck me while examining Picasso's interpretation of Las Meninas, the 1656 painting by Diego Velazquez, that at the root of what digital humanities represents to me is the deconstruction or disassembling of the image, the text, the sound, etc., in order to reform the core of humanities frameworks.

                                                  (The original Velazquez Las Meninas)

In essence what this transmutes is a type of deforming in order for reforming these categories. This is not to say that the original form is destroyed, rather it is rediscovered in a new arena. The core values have not changed, just the transmission of the idea. Many may call this remediation, but I am not entirely convinced of this words application yet in terms of digital humanities aims. I do not think that the original item, such as the text, needs remedying by digital means. I believe that this process serves to translate the book or the artwork into a more interactive format. I also believe that this extends the reach of these previously physical constructs.

 (The Picasso Version)

You may ask what does this have to do with the aforementioned paintings? The answer to this, I propose, is that they are essentially just different versions of the same concept. They have both developed out of creativity, just different versions of this creative process. Picasso has deformed Velazquez's original painting in order to reform it in a modernist context. Conceivably, we have moved into a digitally saturated context, therefore these concepts have moved with that in the same way. This process not only shows the translation of a form through history, but it symbolises the constant re-invention of space using the digital.

At the centre of this is the reformation of an idea, for its further development. So that Velazquez and Picasso's versions, in digital form are allowed to take on new dimensions:

These reconfigurations conjure notions of the dreaded plagiarism for many. However 'the anxiety of influence', as Bloom puts it best, does not take into account the disassembling of one idea in order to reform this idea in another mode. Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating plagiarism, I just believe that it's definition is not clearly dealt with in terms of some elements of DH thus far. If this was the case, would we not all be guilty of plagiarism in some form, by re-instating physical works on the web, with our name attached to the coding? While discussing Bloom's most famous work, Robert McCrum from The Guardian, argues that "influence is unavoidable, and not all of it is bad".

It is my opinion that DH thrives on influence, but it recreates this in a digital context. To conclude this post, I would like to pose the question, Is the Humanities undergoing a digital reformation? Answers in the comments.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1973. Print. 

McCrum, Robert. "Harold Bloom's Influence Still Holds Sway", The Guardian. 25 May 2011. Web Article. www.guardian.co.uk

Picasso, Pablo. Las Meninas. Barcelona: Museu Picasso, 1957. Image.

Velazquez, Diego. Las Meninas. Madrid: Museo Del Prado, 1656. Image.

Dabbling in Digital Humanities

This blog post will discuss the challenges which face us when we attempt to both define Digital Humanities, and dabble in this emerging field.
The inspiration for this stems from the first class of my MA in Digital Arts and Humanities, in which we discussed The Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0, among other works.

Although this Manifesto of sorts was quite spliced together and lacking a central focus, it was interesting to observe the many different voices which can create such a work. There is an obvious element of resistance and controversy evident in the labeling and defining of the field of Digital Humanities. Even in this Manifesto, the meaning of 'DH' becomes quite skewed due to the reluctance of many aspects of its construction to properly define its mission. As a novice within this area, I find it quite strange that there is such a compelling resistance to explaining the nature of what Digital Humanities stands for and wishes to achieve.

In terms of its layout, the Manifesto appears to be quite archaic in its use of images scattered incoherently throughout the text. However, it does provide a fusion between visionary and textual elements, which is an area that Digital Humanities is heavily associated with. In this sense the piece stays true to the merging of worlds using digital means, however they could have put more effort into sourcing better images. It struck me as a very reflective piece of literature. Every time I read it I was reminded of the various Modernist and Postmodernist Manifesto's which emerged in the twentieth century. For example Ezra Pound's Imagism Manifesto,  A Few Dont's by an Imagiste, which strikes me as just as vague and incoherent as this piece. Pound describes the image as "that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time" (Manifesto, 356). His work assembles the same sort of definition without defining at the start of the Manifesto, which aids no one.

A piece within the Manifesto which I found 'perspective changing' was the arguments made about Wikipedia. The authors provides an interesting take on Wikipedia, which sees it advocated as "the most siginificant Web 2.0 creation to harness a mass audience in knowledge production and dissemination"(The Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0, 6). This was quite a different take upon a database which throughout my time in University has been demonized. However, it highlighted the fact that Wikipedia is in fact an important community of reference, which is managed by everyone for everyone. Regardless of the fact that this site can oftentimes harbor factually inaccurate information, it is none the less a significant example of the power of contribution and co-ordination which Digital Humanities strives for.

Looking at some of the other pieces we discussed in class, I found Pedro Hernandez-Ramos's debates upon private and public spaces for blogging to be quite a beneficial analogy for the difficult task of extracting useful information from a mass of useless overtly personal blog spaces on the internet. "A complementary goal was to encourage students to see both blogs and discussion forums as valid and effective tools for professional development and lifelong learning" (Ramos, 3).  It is my opinion that the blog is lacking validation as an important arena for up to date research. Ramos's context makes clear that work that appears to be in a private spectrum, such as the blog, can be just as valuable for research purposes and other professional usage. This piece adds to the call for the validation of the blog as a legitimate tool for research, which can provide peer review and critique at a fast pace.

The article by Paula M. Krebs entitled Next Time, Fail Better was something that I could really relate to as a former Masters student in the English literature faculty. Krebs's article addresses the taboo within the Humanities of the negative connotations of failure. This is very much frowned upon amongst peers, whereas in faculties such as Computer Science and Science in general, failure is a normal part of the process of learning. I think I will try to adopt Krebs's approach this year to some degree throughout this MA in Digital Arts and Humanities. This piece also discussed the notion of "workshopping as a pedagogy" which I thought fit quite aptly into the concept of the digital sphere (Krebs). Take for instance the comments which are attached to this piece. This in itself is a workshop, in which the 'Fail better' piece is assessed and new items are contributed by both strangers, and I'm sure, peers of Krebs. The internet can be shown from this piece to be opening up into its very own tool for teaching and learning within every field.

I'll end this piece with a quote from Jerome McGann, which argues that we need "to reform the text through computer assistance to provide new insights" (A Companion to Digital Humanities, np). This is what I strive to do as I begin to dabble in digital humanities. I hope that my knowledge of the space of the text, which I have gathered through my studies of English and History, can be transformed into new progressive models through the use of digital tools.I am particularly interested in the transformation of the solid archive of the library into a digital archive, which can be accessed all over the world, without the issue of trawling through limited archival catalogues contained within the physical library to gain limited resources for research. Rather, research needs to expand, by making information available in a direct and speedy manner.

So this video is slightly cheesy and quite brief, however kitkatkale makes some useful arguments as a fellow dabbler in digital humanities.

Works Cited

Caws, Mary Ann. Manifesto: A Century of Isms. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. Print. 

Schriebman, Susan, et al. A Companion to Digital Humanities. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. Print.