Some readers of this blog might remember that I posted my notes to Greg Ulmer's book Internet Invention while I taught my Fall "Computers and Writing" class. We used Ulmer's book in that class to work through a genre of writing called mystory. Mystory is an attempt to understand the various images and discourses that shape us as thinkers, readers, writers...as beings.

I never did post anything about how that class went, so I thought I'd post a description of the Mystory projects that students in that class developed. Overall, I was very pleased considering I'd never taught the book before. I'm submitting this project for the CWRL's annual MEME Award. Here's a brief description of the project with some links to student mystories:

This is one of a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.

This is one of a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.

In Internet Invention, Greg Ulmer notes the a significant difference between how art and advertising solve problems. Art opens up questions and asks the viewer/reader to think through possibilities. Advertising solves the problem for you:

"The effect of advertising is exemplary of the effect of myth in the spectacle in general: to introduce the actual problems of life, but then to invoke the psychic defense mechanism of fetishism and conduction, by displacing the threatening, anxiety-producing possibilities of the problem toward a sense of well-being, reassurance, safety" (258).

Ulmer asks us to study an advertisement and explore the “alternate paths available that avoid or confront the real social or psychological difficulties touched on by the ad” (261).

The following advertisement would seem to address the “problem” of pollution and energy conservation by offering a hybrid vehicle. However, the real problem it addresses is the smugness of hybrid owners:

This is one in a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.

This is one in a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.

I had an Ulmer moment this morning. In my computers and writing class, we're using Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention and creating mystories. Part of what Ulmer is trying to get students to do is recognize how certain forces and discourses shape us at the level of both the conscious and unconscious. To this end, he offers a number of different exercises that get students to recognize what Barthes calls the "sting" of the punctum. That is, how an image or sound or text stings the body prior to consciousness - prior to us making sense of it.

This morning, I parked my car next to this car:

There was clearly a sting of some sort. This picture affected me in some way because I took a picture. I snapped a couple of pictures and started walking toward campus. I had the Decemberists Castaways and Cutouts album playing on my ipod, but for some reason that wasn't doing it for me. So I scrolled a bit farther down in the D's and stopped on The Doors. My brother and I recently bought the re-issue of The Doors The Soft Parade album for my Dad (it has some new tracks on it). Dad and I talked recently about how great that album is and how under appreciated it was when it was released.

This is one in a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.

This is one in a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.

This is one in a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.