Dearest Pam,

I hope that this packet finds you healed of your sickness and doing well in the great frozen north.  Things here are okay.  I’m trying not to absolutely panic at the thought of flying to New Orleans in two days to “meet” people I’ve known for years and somehow extract a documentary out of the experience.  So far, this semester has been one of great technological disappointment.  I’ve done what I can with the resources I’ve had available, given the dead nature of my camera and the repair shop’s refusal to let me have it back until the part comes in.  I eventually got the camera back and was relieved to find out that it still records, it just doesn’t transfer footage to the computer because of a broken firewire port.  That part should be in next week, so by the next packet period, I will be able to edit together the footage I’ve already taken and the footage that will be gathered at the resurrenderNOLA03 convention.

Because this is the first packet, feel free to tear it apart in your response and tell me exactly how you want things presented.  I know my table of contents sucks already.  In prior semesters, I spent a good deal of time and money printing out and mailing the packet (and complete print-outs of all writing done for the packet, which sometimes amounted to 75+ pages) to my advisors.  I hope you won’t be offended that there is no postal packet for you this period, and all of the writing and visual material is contained in the shiny new hyperlinks that I’ve included below.

With my video capability hindered for much of this packet, I turned instead to reading as much as I could of Delany and most of Rutsky’s High Techne.  (Annotations follow.)  Because of Rutsky’s discussion of the film “Metropolis,” I acquired a copy of it.  I was amazed at the level of sophistication and visual effects that Lang was able to do in the mid-1920s.  I’ve also attempted to write a substantial amount in my new novel, broken tomorrows and I’ve begun a new journal at dyingdays.com.  In addition, I’ve begun systematically creating new aesthetic motifs for many of my webpages.

It seems a pithy first packet, but most of my energy these last few weeks has been poured into organizing the convention that will become my practicum, and dealing with broken technology (and not a little bit of energy has been expended on the MFA-IA message board system).  I’m confident that with the resolution of camera troubles and the lifting of the giant gorilla of the convention off my back, I’ll be able to devote significantly more time and creative energy on Packet Two.

I just watched “The Shipping News” last night…  It has nothing on “Rare Birds”!

Take care, and I hope to hear from you soon!

Paul.

Video:

Before my camera died, the majority of footage that I had gathered was for a project I’ve tentatively titled “The Lonely Bear.”  You may view a virtual storyboard for it here:

http://www.resurrender.com/bear/index.html

To create this virtual storyboard, I first drew out a series of shots that I knew I would want to include in this project.  As I continued drawing, I got a sense of where the narrative of the project would be going and I physically re-arranged the pieces of paper into a linear representation of that narrative.  After I’d completed the drawing aspect of the storyboard, I went out with my camera and gathered the footage that was necessary, adding certain segments and improvised shots for the end product.  I realize that this systematized storyboard process defeats much of the “playful” intent of this semester, but I’d never before used a storyboard and once I had the idea of the Lonely Bear in my head, I wanted to explore how closely to the images I saw in my mind I could capture on video.  The photographs that appear beneath the drawings on the virtual storyboard are stills that I took of the raw footage as I watched it on my television.  After my firewire port is repaired on my camera, I will download the video into my computer and edit it for the next packet period.

In addition to the footage that I’d taken for Lonely Bear, before my camera went into the shop, I was able to take about half an hour of raw footage that included a significant exploration of the cats from Happy Kitten Jamboree! (G2 semester), nature imagery, and a short animation that I intend to edit together involving beer bottles.  Once I have a fully-functional camera, the “playing” process should come much more easily.
 

Audio:

I’ve been going through my extensive .mp3 and compact disc attempting to find suitable soundtrack music for my “The Lonely Bear” project.  I envision the project in two distinct segments: the pre-delivery of friends segment and the post-delivery of friends segment.  For the first, I would like to use a somber classical piece to evoke a sense of solitude and isolation in the audience.  I am considering the Adagietto movement of Mahler’s fifth symphony, followed closely by “Celestial Fantasy” by Alan Hovhaness or “Fur Alina” by Arvo Part.  For the second segment, I would like to find a cheerful, corny musical piece.  I’m looking at Herb Alpert and Henry Mancini.
 

Webdesign:

old site: http://www.paulevanhughes.com/indexold01.html
present site: http://www.paulevanhughes.com/
• Site re-designed.  It was my intention to provide viewers with direct access to my writing, art, media coverage, direct links to purchase books, etc. with a better aesthetic than the plain gray of the first incarnation of this page.  By using one of my paintings as the background image, I also tie paulevanhughes.com to resurrender.net with the same motif, solidifying the link between my personal work and the de-centralized work of others that appears on resurrender.net.

old site: http://www.resurrender.net/indexOLD9.html
present site: http://www.resurrender.net/
• Site now shares similar motif with paulevanhughes.com.  I also integrated an update log javascript into the left side of the page so that viewers can see almost immediately what has recently been updated across the twelve domains that comprise the resurrender network.  The complete update log is stored at resurrender.livejournal.com.

http://www.resurrender.com/bear/index.html
• As explained above, this is the “virtual storyboard” of The Lonely Bear.
 

Writing:

http://www.paulevanhughes.com/writing.html
• I have recently uploaded and “declassified” several pieces of creative and academic writing that I had felt uncomfortable about making available for public viewing.  Pieces recently made available include “Lilies,” “cans of yams,” and the “[dying][days],” “Susan” and “Stillness” journals.  Through time, shadows, echoes and a barrage of neuropharmaceutical re-engineering, I’ve realized that I have nothing left to lose by making these writings public, since I’ve lost most of the main characters already.

http://www.silverthought.com/broken01.html
• I’ve continued writing entries for my latest sf novel, broken tomorrows.  It is at times frustrating and I’ve been dissatisfied with recent developments, but it is still early in the story and I’ll still feeling out exactly where this is going.  I’m now confident that whereas the first two books in this “trilogy” do contain similar elements and some character overlap, this third and final part will be a complete cohesion of the first two, in essence a sequel to two entirely different books at once.

http://www.dyingdays.com/paul.html
• After completing the Stillness journal on dyingdays.com late last year, I decided to take a few months off and focus solely on my new sf novel for creative release.  In response to recent global events, I’ve begun a new DD journal called “wars of desire and technology” (title from Stone) in which I can discuss my personal beliefs without worrying about their incorporation into a science fiction novel.
 

Practicum:

As explained in my practicum proposal, I intend to use the resurrenderNOLA03 convention to generate a video documentary about the meaning of community.  I intend to explore the issue of what happens when a virtual community suddenly becomes a physical community.  For the filming of the documentary, I have enlisted the help of several resurrender.net members who will be attending the convention with video cameras.  I have asked them each to take 15-30 minutes of footage exploring the transgression of virtual and physical worlds, and after the convention, I intend to edit it into a cohesive documentary.  The logistical planning of this event became more difficult with my camera being broken..  I had intended to do some preliminary on-site editing of footage, but that is now impossible.  My focus is now primarily on letting as many people as possible generate footage for the end product.  I leave on Thursday, 13February2003 and return Monday, 17February2003, so I should be well into the editing process after the repair of my camera by the next packet period.
 
 

Delany, Samuel R. Distant Stars. New York: Bantam, 1981.
• Disappointing in that I’d already read many of the short stories in the earlier Driftglass, this book nonetheless had several gems that I’d never before encountered, including the introduction, “Of Doubts and Dreams,” in which Delany, with signature humor and modesty, discusses the unending revision process of Empire Star, the “final version” of which appears in this collection.  I know the trials and uncertainties of revision, having re-written my first sf novel no fewer than thirteen times before publication.  Empire Star itself is a fascinating, if somewhat juvenile compared to later books, exploration of the levels of human and alien consciousness, virtual versus physical embodiments of souls, and the fluidity of time.  Delany successfully tells a tale that is temporally fragmented, patched together, and in the end brilliantly and coherently concluded.

Delany, Samuel R. The Mad Man. New York: Richard Kasak, 1994.
• Although I’ve just started reading this book, I can now say that I have an excellent idea of what transgressive fiction is: it contains something to disgust and offend just about everyone.  From piss drinking to penile modification to blatant displays of the most dangerous public sex imaginable in the new AIDS-addled world of early-eighties NYC, The Mad Man is an amazing display of just what horrible imagery beautiful arrangements of words can convey.  I have a pretty strong stomach, and I like to think of myself as a liberal guy, but some passages from this book really churn my stomach.  My interest in reading this book stems from that very reaction…  Is it the subject matter or the extremely tight way in which Delany writes that evokes that reaction?  His style is not unlike any of the other dozens of his books that I’ve read, so I’m inclined to believe that it’s his treatment of the profane, hidden worlds, describing them as beautifully as any sunrise on an alien moon, that effects the visceral, disgusted reaction I’ve had to this work.  In reading this book, I hope to learn how to apply my own writing style to similar profane elements of my new novel: blood, sweat, cum and tears.

Delany, Samuel R. Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. New York: Bantam, 1984.
• The most striking Delany novel I’ve read since Dhalgren, I was left quite disappointed after finishing Stars because I’m familiar with the story of the unpublished sequel, The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities.  As Delany lore goes, he refuses to publish Splendor, although it is supposedly completed, because the main characters of both novels were based on two of his friends who succumbed to the AIDS epidemic that struck NYC in the early 1980s.  To me, Stars is a gorgeous exploration of what happens when two people who are “perfect for each other” actually meet.  Even more than simply exploring the theme of a perfect love, Delany draws the reader into a world where the line between human and alien has been erased by centuries of interbreeding, dissolution of traditional ideals of “family,” and the conflict that arises when a segment of humanity rebels against this inclusion of aliens into our species and begins an ambiguous war referred to as “Cultural Fugue.”  The main combatants in this war are the Family and the Sign, linked together by the internet-like mental interface called General Information.  As in Gibson’s matrix trilogy, Delany expresses an amazing prescience when considering the present-day internet compared to his GI construct.  I am once again in awe of Delany’s handling of the English language…  In the society depicted here, all humans are “women,” all women are referred to with feminine pronouns, unless there is a sexual relationship between them, and then masculine pronouns are used to describe them.  Sound confusing?  Of course it is, but that’s the beauty of Delany’s writing.  It is unabashedly confusing, not at all inviting to the casual reader, and so self-referential and self-informed to be almost incomprehensible at times.  I appreciate a writer who can fall so far into the universe that she’s depicting that considerations of our world’s readers become secondary to the artistic exploration of our world’s languages applied to alien cultures.  Delany is most definitely not for everyone, but his style has most-directly influenced my own, and I would recommend Stars  to anyone who is willing to work for understanding while reading a gorgeously-written sf novel.  I’ll leave you with a passage about desire and loss that I found particularly moving:

"You've blotted the rich form of desire from my life and left me only some vaguely eccentric behaviors that have grown up to integrate so much pleasure into the mundane world around me. What text could I write now? It's as though I cannot even remember what I once desired. All I can look for now, when I have the energy, is lost desire itself-- and I look for it by clearly inadequate means. At best such an account as I might write would read like the life of anyone else, with, now and again, a bizarre and interruptive incident, largely mysterious and completely demystified-- at least that's what it has become without the day-to-day, moment-to-moment web of wanting that you have unstrung from about my universe. Without it, all falls apart. In a single gesture you've turned me into the most ordinary of human creatures and at once left me an obsessive, pleasureless eccentric, trapped in a set of habits which no longer have reason because they no longer lead to reward. And if I had enough self-confidence, in the midst of this bland continual chaos into which you've shunted me, for hate, I should hate you. But I don't have it."
 

Rutsky, R. L.  High Techne: Art and Technology From the Machine Aesthetic to the Posthuman. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.
• Whereas I was bored and frustrated through the first three-quarters of the book, which dealt mainly with modernism versus postmodernism, the conception of art as technology, technology as art, form following function, form as function, etc., I’ve been quite enthralled by the later chapters which begin to discuss the boundary between art and technology in virtual worlds, which of course is one of my main foci of practice.  Rutsky’s discussion of the work of William Gibson’s virtual world of the matrix (not that Matrix..  bleh) is interesting that it reveals how prescient Gibson’s vision of computer-mediated communication truly was, given the recent development and flourishing of the internet.  Rutsky’s comparison of virtual environments to a fluid, feminine form entered by forceful, masculine “jacking in” was a metaphor that I’d never before considered, but in analyzing my own writing, found subconsciously appearing.  Another segment of the book that I found particularly interesting was Rutsky’s discussion of German director Fritz Lang's 1927 dystopia tale "Metropolis."  I have just recently seen the film for the first time, and I enjoyed much of Rutsky’s interpretation of the film in terms of Freudian psychology and Marxist economics, with a heavy dose of Hebrew mysticism rolled in.  I will complete my reading of this book for the next packet.

Schaffner, Ingrid.; Winzen, Matthias., et alii. Deep Storage: Collecting, Storing, and Archiving in Art. Munich; New York: Prestel, 1998.
• Just got this in the mail, so all I’ve been able to do is a cursory flip-through.  I intend to explore how other artists have used archives in their work.  I see my online network as a virtual archiving of many things Paul: writing, images, sounds, storing the emotions of very distinct moments in my life, making them available to anyone who takes the time to look hard enough.