NIO: Review Assignment

   "NIO" was definitely a new experience for me when it comes to electronic literature. Although I had experienced a lot of technical difficulties since I had to download a newer version of Flash, so for a very long time I was unable to take a took at this piece of work. But eventually, I was able to finally get through this obstacle and be able to finally look and interact with this very interesting piece of electronic literature. This electronic literature is pretty much a sound poem, a type of kinetic visualization that allows the reader or whoever is interacting with this, to almost create their own musical piece. "NIO" consists of letters that are voiced over with sounds where you can layer them one over the other. When you first enter this world, there is a clock-like looking image, and where you would usually see numbers, you see letters. Each of these letters makes a different musical sound that consists of voices. Whenever you click on any of these letters, there are loops and threads of letters that move to the sound in the center of this clock-like image, creating this almost wave-like, circular art form of imagery consisting of the letters. Although this piece shows moments of text, when I was trying to find any sort of narration or story base, I was unable to really find it. "NIO" seems to mainly be a tool that provides a place where one can play around with the sounds and make your own musical creations; combining image, sound and text.  That is exactly what the reader is, the creator. We have the chance to interact with this piece and make something of our own with the tools provided. In a sense, we are creating our own story. Music is usually a way for us to express ourselves, since there are different sounds, I found that there were a few sounds that utterly bothered me to no end. Yet I'm pretty sure the sounds that bother don't bother others, or for them, the sound is beautiful. It all honestly depends on the person. What I created will obviously not be the same for someone else, they might combine completely different sounds, maybe do a mish-mash of something rather than keeping things orderly. Therefore, this e-literature, is honestly more so a very interactive and creative piece.

A Review from someone else:
http://culturenet.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/nio-joseph-gunulfsen/