So my project is going to be centered around the use and function of racial identity. I am going to do the creative project. My project will take the form of a story much like Michael Joyce’s “Afternoon” and the little story (“Yours for the Telling” by Raymond Queneau) at the bottom of the pages of the Oulipo chapter. The “creator/reader” will choose certain scenarios and characters (including race and gender) for the story in the same way that “Afternoon” was done. When this happens, the story is meant to continue based on the characters chosen. If the “creator/reader” does not like the story, then they have the option to change it. Instead of a boring old story however, this story will be based on stereotypes about the certain people and races that are chosen. The reader should slowly understand that no matter what situation or character they choose, they will be bombarded with stereotypes.
The point is for the reader to question the use of race on the internet by understanding how some people might correlate a specific race with specific stereotypes. When it is already so difficult, or actually impossible, to tell if someone is using their real identity online, is there really a need to give VR game users, or any other media form, the option of choosing race? I will be using future readings to help prove my opinion. I will be using the articles “Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet” by Lisa Nakamura, “Who Am We?” by Sherry Turkle, and “Language, Identity, and the Internet” by Mark Warschauer. I am also considering using Cameron Bailey’s “Virtual Skin: Articulating Race in Cyberspace. I am a little afraid that I might have too much too talk about to fit into 5 pages.
If anyone thinks that there is more to be discussed, or that I should try a different approach to the story then your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Your project really sounds like a good idea. However, it does sound as though you're trying to take on a lot for your 5-page critical analysis.
In what ways can you narrow your paper? How can you make it more relevant to your project? Is there a specific argument that you're trying to make about racial stereotypes, and the attempt to overcome them? I'm excited to read this Oulipo!
It's true that you've got a lot to discuss in 5 pages, but the most important thing for you to focus on is going to be the main project itself, which the 5-page appendix will then begin to theorize, thinking through the lens of the readings you mention about why you made the choices you did in designing the project, and what the effects of those choices were. If you need more space to say everything you want to say, you can always take it -- 5 pages is a minimum, not a limit. For the moment, though, you should focus on the main project: what is the story you want to tell? How will the reader's choices really affect the progress of the story? What kinds of tools will you use in the creation of the project? I'll look forward to seeing where you go with this...
I like this. I find it very interesting how so many of us are taking the hypertext as the form of our project, and then injecting our personal interests to determine the content, whether it's photography, filmmaking, poetry, personal narratives, or race studies. You've figured out the moral before writing the story here, but I expect this will turn out very nicely. It also wouldn't be too hard to have another choice be 'unknown,' in which the user doesn't know his/her own race in the story, but the story follows down one of the set tracks as if a certain race had been chosen. If you plan on using HTML, this is definitely a technical possibility. This might add interesting implications...
I believe it was Crazy Enough who posted to have a character with an unknown race, with one as a reader not knowing the character's race, but instead of making believe that this character has defined his/her race, try to place the character who is questioning his/her race; a character whose parents are biracial and trying to implement what the stereotypes are. And, how is it that you are going to go about the "real identity" and race issue? Race plays a significant factor in identity, but it isn't the ONLY factor; so, how is this going to define the "real identity" that you are defining with the stereotypes that you will be writing? If this isn't coherent, do ask questions.
"Let's just say I was testing the bounds of reality. I was curious to see what would happen. That's all it was: just curiosity." -Jim Morrison, 1969.
Cool. It's definitely interesting to flesh out the different ways that the group of people who use the internet feel about identity by examining the ways that they re-create it in the virtual world. I can't wait to see what you conclude about how new media either reinforces or deconstructs any kind of assumptions of superiority/inferiority of races and genders; I'm kinda not sure how the issue breaks down myself.