{"id":188,"date":"2013-03-25T06:00:12","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T06:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gantercourses.net\/ecyclopedia\/?p=188"},"modified":"2013-12-24T07:13:04","modified_gmt":"2013-12-24T15:13:04","slug":"sidneys-siberia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gantercourses.net\/ecyclopedia\/2013\/03\/25\/sidneys-siberia\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney’s Siberia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sydney\u2019s Siberia<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0 Description<\/strong>: Sydney\u2019s Siberia by Jason Nelson is an interactive electronic literature piece. It starts as a single picture and then as you click, it zooms into a collection of many pictures, and then you can click to read one of the pictures from that collection. The neat thing about the piece is that it truly is never-ending. The reader can continue to click on the piece, and it will continue to zoom in to new groupings of pictures. Since the reader is actively involved, it makes this an ambient piece. There is a limited number of pictures to choose from, and eventually the reader will read through all of them, but there is still the option to continue clicking for as long as the reader wants to. It is also combinatorial because depending on which combination of pictures the reader decides to click on, the outcome will differ from a different set of choices. The pictures themselves seem to be a little bit random from one another, and they include words, sometimes only a few, and sometimes covering the whole box. It seems that the messages in the pictures is what this piece revolves around making the piece conceptual. The experience is ultimately infinite and is quite alluring by getting the reader to be tempted to just continue clicking.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Commentary<\/strong>:\u00a0 The first piece that relates to Jason Nelson\u2019s Sydney\u2019s Siberia is Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw by Donna Leishman. The reason these two pieces are related is because they are both interactive and ongoing. In both works, the reader continues to click for new things to show up, and they both are long processes. Although Leishman\u2019s piece does end eventually, it still has the same feeling of ongoing clicking and revealing. In this regard, they are both not ambient, because the reader is needed for the works to continue. Also, both pieces can be seen as conceptual: the meanings behind the texts and images are more important than the piece of literature itself. Another piece that Nelson\u2019s piece relates to is Self Portrait(s) [as Other(s)] by Talan Memmot. Both of these works are combinatorial, meaning that there are different possible outcomes with different combinations of images, and it plays a role in the composition of the piece. Memmot\u2019s piece does this with different facial features from various people, to make one face. Nelson does this by changing the combination of pictures depending on which section the reader decides to click on. Jim Andrews also uses this technique on his piece, The Club. He, like Memmot, uses faces, and he blends various faces together. This also relates to Sydney\u2019s Siberia in the way that it is infinite. It keeps going with many combinations until the reader no longer wants to watch it. A huge part of electronic literature is the idea of \u201cdoing\u201d the text rather than just reading it. A big fan of this concept is Jim Andrews, and one example is his piece Seattle Drift. By \u201cdoing\u201d the text, the reader actually had to be involved and has to click or do something for the piece of literature to play out. This is the same for Sydney\u2019s Siberia as well because if the reader did not get involved, then it would just remain on the same picture and not move or progress. This is the same for Leishman\u2019s Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw as well, so it is evident that it is a very important and popular part of electronic literature. So, Jason Nelson\u2019s Sydney\u2019s Siberia, even though strange, is still very relateable to other works in the electronic literature genre, and it fits in nicely.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Author Bio:<\/strong> Jason Nelson grew up in Oklahoma, but is currently living in Australia as a lecturer. He is known as a digital and hypermedia artist or poet and has over 30 digital pieces. He lectures on \u2018cyberstudies\u2019 and is best known for his interactive flash games. It is said that he gest mixed reviews for his work because it is strange and sometimes seen as chaotic or messy. Despite the mixed reviews, he has still won 4 awards for his work with digital art. He has won a Panliterary award, a Webbie (for the category of \u2018weird\u2019), a Biennale Internationale des po\u00e8tes en Val de Marne, and the 4th International prize Ciutat de Vinaros. Nelson\u2019s art comes from a variety of techniques, but he tends to focus on collages and interaction. (Secrettechnology).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/strong><\/p>\n

al., Katherine Hayles et. “Contents by Keyword.” October 2006. Electronic Literatire Collection. 19 March 2013 <collection.eliterature.org>.<\/p>\n

Nelson, Jason. “Jason Nelson.” 24 February 2013. Net Art\/Digital Poetry. 19 March 2013 <http:\/\/www.secrettechnoolgy.com>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sydney\u2019s Siberia \u00a0 Description: Sydney\u2019s Siberia by Jason Nelson is an interactive electronic literature piece. It starts as a single picture and then as you click, it zooms into a collection of many pictures, and then you can click to read one of the pictures from that collection. The neat thing about the piece is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_links_to":"","_links_to_type":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,19,42,6],"class_list":["post-188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ambient","tag-combinatorial","tag-conceptual","tag-interactive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gantercourses.net\/ecyclopedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gantercourses.net\/ecyclopedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gantercourses.net\/ecyclopedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gantercourses.net\/ecyclopedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gantercourses.net\/ecyclopedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/gantercourses.net\/ecyclopedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":634,"href":"https:\/\/gantercourses.net\/ecyclopedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions\/634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gantercourses.net\/ecyclopedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gantercourses.net\/ecyclopedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gantercourses.net\/ecyclopedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}