Thursday, February 18, 2010

Section 3 - Writerly Text & Timcode

Sometimes when you watch a movie for a second or third time you notice things you may not have noticed the first time. People have told me they feel similarly when reading books (but I hardly read things a first time so don't really know). Is this proof of the writerly experience, where we as unique individuals shape our own unique interpretations of the same given information?

Timecode provides a wonderful opportunity for unique experiences, allowing the viewers to decide which window to focus on, using only audio levels to try to dictate which window may be the main focus at any given time. Patchwork girl also offered the possibility for its readers to have unique results in terms of what they notice and in terms of what order they notice it in. Is this the writerly experience? To me, many of the situations I've tried to use to explain "writerly experiences" have simply been situations where people have different perspectives and thus different results.

When we watch Timecode, we can claim that we are being dealt the same experience, and then be astonished by different readings of the movie, but the experience is never the same. Just as the revised chart of information flow implied in class Wednesday, our own unique perspectives will reshape every single situation so that no two are ever alike. I feel like there is no such thing as a non-writerly text, but maybe that's just how I read it...

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