Platformstuck
(The title of the project is a work in progress.)
SO I REALLY LIKE HOMESTUCK. There's actually a print version of the first parts of the comic, which I happen to own. Actually I'm just going to copy/paste the description I wrote for the friends who are helping me with it.
Now at this point I (hopefully) have explained to you why I even asked you to help out and voice act in the first place, but in case I haven’t: This is part of my final project for my Electronic Literature class. This project is essentially an experiment answering the question: what happens when you take an object, make it post-digital, and then re-digitalize it? How does the reading change, and how does the interaction with the work change?
To do this, I’m using my FAVORITE THING IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, Homestuck. It started out as a webcomic, and it is definitely a story that can only come to fruition because of the Internet. The comic uses different types of storytelling to convey its story. And then...the author made a print rendition of it. I have a copy of the first act in book form (roughly 200 pages on the website, and ~150 in the book itself). The plan is to take the book and put it back online in three different ways: through an Instagram retelling, a youtube video, and a scanned and annotated pdf. That Youtube video is where you come in!
I essentially want to do a “Let’s Read Homestuck” (an actual video series) of the first act...but the book version. None of you have actually read Homestuck, and despite my ramblings you probably know very little about it. That is part of the project too. I’d prefer it if you didn’t read the comic for this -- I think it’ll make it that much more interesting! Because you don’t really have experience with it, you’ll add your own meaning to it as you read the character’s lines and become familiar with them! I’ll give you all basic information on your characters, but other than that, it’s up to you to breathe life into them! You can do that any way you see fit, but I asked all of you to do this because I believed you would be a good fit for that character.
Each form would incorporate interactivity in its own way. Homestuck was originally driven by reader commands, and it was very much a story that encouraged reader interaction even after commands were no longer taken. Each platform allows for a personal element in its own way: the Instagram account through hashtags and captions, the Youtube video through the readings the voice actors will do, and the pdf through the comments I add. They all also play with the format and become a game in itself: how do you tell a story through different mediums and what does that look like to even approximate a similar experience to the original?
