Remix Peer Review

I really loved watching all the presentations last week; it made me regret not being a film or art major and being able to have the chance to appreciate other peoples' creativity in an intimate communal (yes, it's a class, but it still felt at least somewhat communal) environment. I kicked myself after sitting back down from my own presentation and realizing that there were all sorts of things I had planned on saying and then forgot to under the projector light and in the "hot seat." Ah well.

There were several projects that struck me particularly--especially Bo's since he used lines from the text of my faith. Actually, I have to say that I felt really happy to see those lines up there on the screen, since not a lot of people have ever heard of my faith, and if they have, chances are it's some ignorant gossipy negative misinformation that they picked up (on the Internet).I guess that's why Bo's project made me feel so--um, accepted?--so happy; because without any preconceived notions, Bo took my faith's text with all the rest and sort of equalized everything.

BUT. The project I actually wanted to talk about here is Rose's project: "Strength and Weakness."

I think one of the things I liked most about it was its simplicity, which in fact allowed the detail and meaning of the piece to emerge more fluidly. I was surprised to find that while I had been so engrossed with making my project complex enough and interesting enough, Rose had succeeded in achieving these things with very little technical methods required. Had I once again gone overboard?

Well, that aside, I love the arrangement of Rose's words on each page of her site. Some pages seem to make a shape with her words, particularly the "devour" page, which begins with "a single act of good will" on the left, with words above and below moving to the right in a funnel or arrow and ending with "lonely." The movement makes sense here, I think.

I enjoyed trying to imagine what these sentence fragments were once a part of--what thoughts were they expressing? It's strange to think of all those diary entries shattered and strewn around on the web pages, forming new meanings and significance on their own, and as they exist with other fragments on the screen. I also enjoyed finding the links--looking for the one or few words that would channel me to the next collection of loosely-strung words and phrases. IEach page certainly reads like a poem, and what's great is that there isn't one set order in which to read the poems; each one can change every time depending on how I choose to read it.