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Donna Leishman |
Jason Nelson |
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Donna, both you and Jason explore secrets in your work. Can you say more about how you decided to encode these secrets?Much of the emotional tension in my work comes from the relationship between secrets and the interactive experience. The user's sense that there are dark secrets lurking in the visual environment adds much to their desire to go on and explore. The actual encoding usually occurs both at a relatively easy to uncover level, i.e. with cues—thus letting the user know that there are secrets to be found, and at a deeper, more tricky level where the cues are very subtle. The latter usually requires significant persistence and careful observation.  |
Interview QuestionsBiographical BackgroundReception | Role of the ReaderInterfaceWork ProcessElectronic Literature CommunityFuture WorkSecretsSpace | StateConnect Digital | MaterialGamesPotentials of the FieldEssaysThe Artists on Each Other's WorkTalan Memmott's Commentary on Each ArtistLaunch the ArtworksDeviantLeishman SitePandemic RoomsNelson IndexBiographical InformationStephanie StricklandMajorie Coverley LuesebrinkDonna LeishmanJason NelsonTalan Memmott |
Jason, both you and Donna explore secrets in your work. Your new work Hermeticon aims to be an "incantation engine" with hypnotic power. Can you say more about how you made it?The process for creating this work is a fairly good base for how I often birth these creatures. While searching for an 80's music compilation, I came across a file of over 150 commercials. Kid stuff mostly, cereal, candy, toys. I've always been fascinated by the near religious power of the hook, the catchy song line of commercials, the jingle bait. So I toyed with isolating the song hook, not only in terms of melody, but intent, the meaning of the commercial. I wanted to find the sharp edge beneath the blood worms. While testing some of my cut clips, I accidentally opened multiple files at once. The cacophony was strangely spell-like, modern incantations repeating. I've also been researching Hermetic texts by 14th-15th century scientist/priests whose cosmology and understanding of molecular physics was alarmingly current. But often these priests would write about their ideas in chants and poetic texts. And the church regarded many as possessing evil magic, sacrilegious spells. So the two notions of hermetic texts and commercial hooks seemed perfectly disjointed and yet complementary.  From Conversation But I didn't want to simply have playable vid clips. I wanted the user, as in most of my work, to have a stake, to feel ownership. And certainly spells are malleable, meant to be combined and reformed to fit any purpose. A mouse driven interface seemed too slow and didn't allow for having multiple video clips play simultaneously. In addition, I eventually want to include spells comprised of key press combinations, so using all 36 numbers and letters seemed the best choice. |
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