Thursday, September 20, 2007

Mid Term Project Idea

I thought about the midterm project again and came up with a revised idea:

modern photographs that would supplement or copy the illustrations of a Connecticut Yankee in a way that target Twain's sarcasm about a certain theme (like slavery, the church, nation/kingdom idea)

It would be like "A Connecticut Yankee in Pittsburgh 2007"

I was also thinking I might photoshop these photos or just use MS Paint or Adobe to create modern day collages that would illustrate the book, commenting on one of the themes above.

Tell me what you think /what you're doing for the project

4 comments:

A. Benevent said...

Hey James,

I like this idea. I think it'd be interesting to see it unfold, but there are a few things I'm wondering about what you've got lined up:

Obviously, you're setting it in 2007, so my question is are you going to stick with the aspects of this story that don't translate well into modern-day (such as monarchy, magicians, etc), or are you instead going to replace them with similar stand-ins, such as presidents and computers?

I'd also like to go ahead and reccommend anything but MS Paint to create a collage, or really edit any image, ever (although I do have to concede that this is incredibly awesome), generally using MS paint for anything other than doodling is an exercise in frustration.

Without rambling too much more, you have definitely piqued my interest with this project, and I'm eager to see where you go with it.

Adam Johns said...

I think this is, obviously, a more focused idea than the original, and therefore better.

I'll defer to Alex's technical advice (the things I draw on the chalkboard represent the limit of my skills), and extend/respond to his other question. My assumption is that you are looking for ways to develop the metaphoric content of the Connecticut Yankee, and apply them to some issue or set of issues relevant to us. Like all novels of its kind, Twain's book is about his time more than the 6th century; what I assume you're doing, essentially, is re-interpreting it for us, which is good.

Assuming this is your goal, in addition to a limited number of new illustrations (go for quality, not quantity), you can have a short essay explicating the new/changed metaphors...

Tim said...

I have to agree with Alex and Adam in saying that I like this more refined idea than the one you presented in class on Wednesday.

I think it would be interesting to see how you would translate Twain's more abstract ideas into modern times.

Definitely looking forward to seeing where you take this. I'm sure it will be an excellent project...

Liam said...

That's fabulous, because I'm going to steal the Illustrated Zork idea wholesale.

The main idea would be to provide the illustrations and see how other people's own ideas squared with them. When I envision a man standing "west of house," is what I see markedly different from what anyone else sees? And what is the value of a narrative where everyone's vision of it is different compared to a modern game where every detail is shown to us on screen?