ATHF: A New Media Message to Old Media

Posted on February 2nd, 2007 in Journal by spazeboy


More on the story here.

Class Notes - February 1

Posted on February 1st, 2007 in Notes by spazeboy

Narrative Structure Everything is a story, from which plot elements are taken.

Narrative A sequence of events with a cause and effect relationship happening in space and time

Story Arc Conflict - Complication - Rising Action - Climax - Resolution

Potential Narrative - Second Life is an example of potential narrative. It’s a game with no goals.


Comics Discussion
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

Harold will become a symbol of New Media.

  1. Harold is the hero of the story
  2. Harold is the creator of the story - he is creating his own sequence of experience or narrative
  3. Harold is the writer of his narrative
  4. Harold is interacting with his narrative
  5. Harold is the reader of his narrative

In the story, Harold decides to walk in the moonlight. In order to do so, he must satisfy the conditions that he set by drawing a moon. And he needed something to walk on, so he draws a straight path…creating his space.

The straight path wasn’t taking Harold anywhere, so he takes a quick shortcut and the moon goes with him. He gets to a spot where he thinks a forest might be, and so draws a tree (a very small forest, so as not to get lost). The tree turns out to be an apple tree, an occurrence unplanned by Harold.

When Harold observes that the apples might be tasty when they turn red, he draws a dragon under the tree to guard them. A frightening dragon. A terribly frightening dragon that even frightened Harold, another unplanned and unexpected occurrence.

So frightened was Harold that his crayon hand shook and drew an ocean, which he found himself falling into. “He came up thinking fast” and drew himself a boat. He climbed into it and drew himself a sail.

As the story continues, it’s clear that Harold has gotten lost in his own story–all stemming from the shortcut he took. The moon triggers his memory and just as Harold created his own conflict, his own narrative, his own obstacles, and his own climax he creates his own resolution by drawing himself a bed to sleep in.

The moon is always present in the story as a condition, and one reason why is as a reminder. The moon is an icon. It represents something else. Harold’s means of navigation was the moon–his compass.


Interactivity is the sixth principle of New Media. There are varying degrees of interactivity, which we define as our ability to change the system and participate in it.

In Harold’s story, he is at a medium level of interactivity, using the senses of touch, taste, and sight.

Looking through Steve Ersinghaus‘ Amazon.com (his personalized recommendations once he’s logged in) we’re able to learn a lot about him. The recommendations suggest that he’s into literature, Flash MX and adult comix.


Books are dumb systems. (Dumb in this case does not necessarily have a negative connotation)
A system that learns is a smart system. (Smart in this case does not necessarily have a positive connotation)


Things to look at later:

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