When Professor Weinstein first mentioned the two final project options, I immediately decided to write a critical essay. "Creative project?" I thought. Creative is not a word that I often hear in my computer science or biology classes. To tell the truth, the idea of a creative project scared me a bit. I'm musically inclined, but could not think of any way to incorporate those creative talents into a final project for Comparative Literature 181b. I actually pictured myself on December 14, in the basement of Marston Hall, screaming lyrics above the buzz of my amplifiers: "1...2...1, 2, 3, 4. Hedda Gabbler, Hedda Gabbler! You bitch! George, you're a sucker!" But, for some reason, I still could not picture myself pulling that off. And, I couldn't find a drummer. The "critical essay" sounded like the way to go.
Somewhere during the course, that state of mind changed. Perhaps the shift was brought on by doodles in class. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that I was often so disturbed after leaving Pembroke Hall after a Bergman film that I had to write something down before my head exploded. Most of the computer pictures here are based on sketches in the margins of my notebook.
I have not written any serious poetry in quite a while. Silly rhymes fly off my tongue naturally, but nothing more serious than Cat-in-the-Hat-esque gibberish. Once I decided on the idea of a poetry collection, and started writing Knight's Sonnet, it took me almost thirty minutes trying to remember the rhyme scheme of a sonnet and distinguishing my iambs from my trochees.
The idea started as a simple collection of poems. On paper. No fancy "user interfaces" or buttons and mice. I began writing some of the poems, and images flew into my mind. I jotted these pictures in the margin and they often became the ancestors of the computer images that are in when the sun does not rise now. I began to try to think of ways to incorporate the visual images and poems into a coherent whole.
I am not new to the world of computers. I am planning to concentrate in Computer Science. (Yes, I feel it deserves to be capitalized.) One of my main interests related to Computer Science is educational software. I first looked into Mosaic and the World Wide Web (the platform on which when the sun does not rise is published) as an educational tool. It is a fun interface, with the capability for lots of pictures, sounds, and animation. Perfect, I felt, to use as a medium for my poetry and artwork. The artists we have studied in The Nordic Legacy used film, novels, plays, etchings, paintings, and woodcuts to express their feelings and desires. Munch often did many versions of the same work in different media. If computer technology were available, he probably would have taken advantage of it to add to his palette. Maybe if I had more time, and I had any idea of what was involved in making woodcuts, I could do a series of woodcuts with my poetry on them.
Learning HyperText Markup Language (HTML) was relatively easy. I am proficient in a number of different computer languages and HTML was probably the easiest to learn the basics of. Adjusting minute details such as the spacing of the skulls and crosses in Knight's Sonnet took a bit of time, but the programming was not very difficult on the whole. There are two aspects of HTML that I found very interesting. The first is the ability for the viewer to choose his or her own path through the "map" of pages I set up. In this particular case, all of the "links" are to pages that I wrote, but I could have easily set up links to a museum in Norway or Sweden to give the user access to more information. I chose to restrict links to pages that I have written because it would be difficult to determine exactly where my pages end and the rest of the world's pages begin. The second aspect of HTML that interested me is the fact that HTML documents can be viewed on almost any type of computer. I wrote my pages on an IBM compatible color lap-top, but once I was finished I found that they looked best from the Macintoshes in the CIT. There are viewers for Macintosh, IBM compatible, UNIX systems (such as the fancy ones in the Computer Science department), and even for the BROWNVM mainframe at Brown. Practically anybody that has any type of computer plugged into the Internet can view these pages.
Evening on Karl Johan is based on the Munch painting of the same name. I tried to capture the blind marching and silence that Munch's painting embodies. I'm not sure if I like the little spooky twist at the end of the poem. When I look at the Munch work, I get the feeling that the people have been walking down that street forever. In the picture, I tried to capture the Munch's characteristic blank stare. I think I succeeded. Note how the border becomes part of the picture.
Father Lament is one of the first pieces that I wrote. The Father was one of my favorite works in the class. I found the reoccurring theme of the uncertainty of paternity intriguing. I think the reason that I liked The Father so much was the balance between the Captain's scientific certainty and his moral uncertainty. This poem does not cover any new ground that was not addressed in The Father, but I like it anyway. The picture does nothing for me. It was the first picture I did. I tried to portray Captain Adolf's confused mental state, but the result is rather boring.
In Knight's Sonnet, I adhered to the poetic form of the sonnet. Bergman represented the medieval world on film in The Seventh Seal, and I tried to replicate the form of a Shakespearean sonnet on a computer. I like the result, but I feel like it's not tormented enough, and perhaps a bit straight forward. Like Father Lament, it does not stray very far from what is dealt with in the work on which it is based. The picture was scanned from the movie, with a bit of manipulative coloration. I feel that the image from the movie is powerful enough, so I did not edit it. The skulls and crosses represent two of the things that the Knight looks towards to find meaning in his life.
Life Lie started as a sketch in my notebook during the section on The Wild Duck. It seemed like everybody, both in the fiction I was reading and in my relations with other people, was living out their life lie. The Wild Duck actually made me come to a realization about some life lies of my own. The picture was, in pen and ink form, a face composed of hundreds of repetitions of the words "life lie." I'm not sure if the uninitiated viewer will see the face in the background of the picture here. When I drew this on my computer, I wanted to show how Ibsen's characters became sucked into their lies, and no longer could see truth. I think the vortex successfully gives the viewer that feeling.
Nora's Thoughts could be an excerpt from Nora's diary from A Doll House. It chronicles what I see as the three stages of her relationship with her husband. In the first, she is comfortable with the playing the part that men have assigned her, but straying from the path in secret. The second stage is the collapse of Nora's view of justice. "A daughter hasn't a right to protect her dying father from anxiety and care? A wife hasn't a right to save her husband's life?" Nora says to Krogstad at the end of Act One. In third stage, all illusions have crumbled for Nora. She must begin to determine who and what she is. The structure of the poem falls apart at the end, just as Nora's life has fallen. Nora's Thoughts, like A Doll House ends with the closing of a door. The picture is a representation of how men have set women up as "dolls" in the past and still do today. An earlier version had these images juxtaposed with current swimsuit models, but it looked contrived. I chose the stereotypical "feminine" colors for obvious reasons.
In One I tried to capture the unity of the couple that Munch portrays in The Kiss. The poem is simple and suggestively cyclical, as are the drawings. Two distinct shapes merge into one, and then separate back into two. I appreciate the attention Munch pays to the couple as a being unto itself, but feel that something is missing because he never recognizes that the result of this "coupling" can be another individual.
Sawdust and Tinsel disturbed me. I think I felt every bit of pain that Frost felt in the opening scene where he ran to get his wife away from the soldiers at the beach. Pain is the word I use to describe how I felt when Bergman really moved me. Pain is pain times twelve.
Strindberg's pseudo-biographical narrator in Inferno entertained me to no end. Strindberg, the ultimate playwright come mad-scientist, is a great character. Paranoia was written after I had stayed up for over forty-eight hours working on a computer program. I felt like I was Strindberg, toiling over a little fire, trying to extract carbon from sulfur. I saw things in the corner of my eye that disappeared when I looked directly upon them. I had dreams about electrons. I think I was able to capture my own distorted mental state and Strindberg's in Paranoia. The picture is a distorted picture of my best friend. I think the image contains aspects of both Inferno and Paranoia.
The Sins of the Father refers to how Osvald Alving is punished because of the infidelity of his syphilitic father in Ghosts. In the background is a picture of an all-American family from the 50's. The next layer is an enlargement of a chemical diagram of a yet to be named AIDS drug. Ghosts is much less likely to happen in today's world, because syphilis can now be treated and AIDS usually doesn't wait long enough for the children of victims to grow up before it attacks. AIDS is an example of a disease where "the sins of the father" and mother can adversely effect the child. I'm very interested in the current AIDS situation, both social and medical aspects. On one hand, The Sins of the Father idea reinforces the religious right's crime and punishment view of AIDS as God's tool to punish homosexuals. On the other hand, I want to bring attention to the fact that there are many fathers that are either hiding their infidelity or their homosexuality.
Truth deals with the dilemma of Dr. Stockmann in An Enemy of the People. Can truth be moralized? Is truth always "good"? This is what An Enemy of the People is all about. This is, in a sense, what my Brown education is all about. This questioning goes on inside me daily. Truth, with a capital "T" shows up often in my poetry.
The name of the Exhibit as a whole is when the sun does not rise. I often felt, after finishing a play or leaving a screening, that the sun would never rise again. I am not surprised that Scandinavia is a land where winters last an eternity and the sun does not rise for days. Eternal night is a perfect symbol for the morbid and depressing, yet relevant themes in the artist's works. This year, in Providence, we have been lucky to see the sun quite often. I wonder if my poetry would be darker if there were a few more cloudy days this year.
I feel like I succeeded in expressing my feelings about the works of Strindberg, Ibsen, Munch, and Bergman. In planning and making this project, I found myself empathizing with the artists in several ways. I feel a similar struggle to when I attempt to create that Bergman felt in Inferno. My dreamscape is surprisingly similar to the darker creations of Munch. I am often tormented (though not quite as tormented as the artists we have studied) by questions regarding Truth, pain, "reality," creation, and religion. I thoroughly enjoyed investigating these Scandinavian artists and the reactions they set of inside me. I hope you get as much enjoyment from experiencing this "virtual gallery" as I did creating it.
