Scott's+MSA

__Overview__

Justin Katko’s, “Up Against The Screen Mother Fuckers,” is a piece of electronic literature developed at Brown University to be used in their Cave installation. It has subsequently been released by the Electronic Literature Collection in a Quicktime video and is also for viewing on YouTube. The name of the piece is derived from an anarchist group from the 1960’s, but instead of “screen,” the group employed the word “wall.” Katko was inspired to name his piece this due to the group’s final exploit: cutting open the fences at Woodstock. Editors at the Electronic Literature Collection had this to say, “ “Up Against The Screen” is a call for the destruction of screens and their power to buttress societal control.” It begins with a warning which differs between mediums, but the drift is this; Warning: This video uses stroboscopic flickering lights which may induce seizures in certain viewers.

__Textual Features__

Note: The varying mediums and subsequent editions of the work make it difficult to pin point exact textual and media features. I will be using the YouTube version due to its textual uses.

- Stroboscopic lines of text - Generates the text on all faces of Cave installation/generated likeness - Color changes in congruence (possibly not) with the stroboscopic flickering

__Media Feature__

Note: I will be using the Electronic Literature Collection version of this piece due to its interesting media feature.

- No warning text - QuickTime video
 * Extremely dissonant audio track
 * Broken/contorted/stripped/enhanced color images to the likeness of a broken computer screen attempting to produce images
 * Solitary soldier within (what looks like) the Cave installation
 * Text is spoken to the viewer with a tone of immediacy, in conjunction with the stroboscopic images

__Performance/Reading__

The experience of the ELC version of Katko’s work is a dissonant experience. The viewer is plunged into something without knowing much about it at all. The images and the color, employ with stroboscopic flickering, induces a feeling of disorientation coupled with an unnerving quality that is caused by the barrage. Until the actual audio reading of the prose, which can be painstakingly read in the YouTube version, the viewer has nothing to do but be enveloped in the chaos.

__Analysis__

My understanding of the piece is as a “call to arms” for a digitally saturated culture. The variation of mediums gives the piece, and pieces, differential aesthetic properties, but as a whole I see “Up Against The Screen” as digital dissonance, a brick through the Starbuck’s® window of media culture. This analysis is derived from the Editor’s notion of the work and also the commentary produces by Katko himself with regards to the 1960’s anarchist exploit of tearing down the walls at Woodstock.

__Discussion__


 * 1) How does the theory and practice of Katko’s piece work within our new found understanding of Perloff’s differential text?