Biography:
J.R. Carpenter is a Canadian map maker, and author of electronic literature. She has been making works using the internet since 1993, and they have been shown around the world. Her essays, poems and short fiction have been read on CBC radio as well as being translated into several languages including Spanish and Italian. She received her PhD at the University of Arts London and the University College Falmouth and she currently resides in South Devon, England. This information and more can be found on her website, here.
Description:
The background of Notes of the Voyage of Owl and Girl by J. R. Carpenter is something like an old fashioned map, light brown in colour, with numbers and lines outlining boating routes. In the top left corner of the page is the written work, in blue typeface over top of an image of open water. The story tells a tale of Girl and Owl, trying to chart a route through the water. The route changes, along with other descriptive words while being read. It’s as if Carpenter is taking the reader on a journey and they are getting lost right along with Owl and Girl.
Analysis:
For the most part, Notes of the Voyage of Owl and Girl includes stationary text; something that majority of society is accustomed to. Notes of the Voyage of Owl and Girl is mainly text based, and easier to follow than some of the other animated works in this genre. DAKOTA by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, is similar in being mainly text based, and though the words are quickly flashing on the screen, the reader still gets a sense of story, rather than Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw by Donna Leishman, the reader has a chance of getting stuck or not realizing what story is trying to be conveyed. Transitioning from regular text novels to e-lit can be a jarring experience, and Notes of the Voyage of Owl and Girl would be a good introductory piece. On occasion, specific words change, making the meaning of the story being read different, and some are hyperlinked to their Wikipedia page. Looking into one of the words that changed, Frisland, i found that this was a fictional place, made up by confused map-makers in the mid 1500s and I made the connection to a similar theme in John Green’s novel, Paper Towns. In his book, Margo Roth Speigelman is fascinated with the notion of what are called paper towns. Map makers, would put a fictional town on a map to see if other map makers were just copying, rather than making their own. Other places the work mentions are Thule, and The Northwest Passage. Thule was used in classical European maps and is generally assumed to be what we call Norway. The Northwest Passage is a route along the upper part of North America, through the Arctic Ocean. Many explorers got lost, or died, while trying to find this passage, so it is a good fit for the piece. .
Works Cited
Carpenter, J. R. Notes of the Voyage of Owl and Girl. Web. March 19, 2013.
Green, John. Paper Towns. New York: Dutton Juvenile. 2008. print.
Leishman, Donna. Deviant:The Possession of Christian Shaw. web. January 31, 2013.
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries. DAKOTA. web. January 11, 2013
Frisland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisland
The Northwest Passage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage