Six Sex Scenes >>
Adrienne Eisen
"A hypertext novella about personal memory, public history and sexual
frustration." -Adrienne Eisen
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||| HIAFF 3.0 | university of colorado | department of art and art history | digital arts area | in conjunction with alt-x | atlas | blurr
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[Reviews] Stories are no longer being told only on paper. Since the
introduction of the Internet, hypertext has begun to take precedence over
other
forms of media. Adrienne Eisen has found paper boring in comparison to the
interactive pages of a digital narrative. Hypertext format is perfect for
her "Six Sex Scenes", a compilation of various stories connected through
links.
No images support Eisen's narrative, only poetic language and vastly intense
prose are available to the interactive reader.
Somewhat similar to a "Choose Your Own Adventure" but incredibly sexier,
Eisen's narrative allows the reader to jump from page to page. Her non-linear
storyline is not meant to be read in any particular order. The main interface
of Eisen's work is the only place were there are images; five squares display
pictures of party streamers, pools, parking lots, while the sixth simply glows
orange. There truly are no "scenes", and if the various pages are to be
called "scenes", there are definitely more than six of them and not every one
incorporates sex.
This misleading title adds to the ambiguity of Eisen's narrative. Each page is
related to each other only through the nameless narrator, who is perhaps Eisen
herself. The reader learns about the narrator's lover, Andy, a somewhat
pathetic man who constantly quips "if you were really a feminist...", as if he
himself were the better woman. The narrator reveals her dysfunctional family
with anecdotes about the uncomfortable sexual incidents between she and her
father. Coming of age is also a common topic throughout Eisen's hodge-podge of
pages, as is the intense sexuality that haunts the narrator through almost
every short story.
This digital narrative will probably never be read the same way twice, since
the reader can click on any interesting link which leads to an equally
interesting revelation. Hypertext is perfect for Eisen's non-linear style of
writing, allowing the story to come together however it may. Eisen is no
digital whiz: the pages are simple, the font common and the images few and
static. However, it is the thick content that makes it so impressive. Her
prose
is anything but simple, the story line anything but common, and the
interaction
between reader and writer is full of movement. Eisen has found a medium that -
unlike paper - allows her story to morph and exist in a tangible way.
By Kendall Pata
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