"Each student will collaborate on a series of five ‘tiny stories.’ By ‘tiny story’, I mean a narrative (with something that might resemble a beginning, middle and end) of less than 30 words, accompanied by an illustration (drawn, photographed, computer generated, etc.). By ‘collaborate,’ I mean that each student will complete the series’ 1st tiny story, forward it to a second (pre-determined) student, who will complete the 2nd tiny story in the series, who will then forward that 2nd story (NOT 1 & 2) to a third (predetermined) student who will continue the process until each student has contributed 5 tiny stories, each to a different series. Then we’ll see what happened. Artist statements should include a discussion of how form and content, narrative and theme, individual story and series correlate and compliment each other."
1. (Jeffrey) My husband hid some chocolate-covered bananas (my favorite) in our closet--presumably for Valentine's. I found them on February 12.
2. (Garrett) As I started eating the candy, I read the card on the box. The chocolate was not for me.
3. (Daniel) I instantly knew I had made a mistake. My throat burned, my vision blurred, and I collapsed on the ground.
4. (Leo) Now paralyzed, and blind, I screamed for help. But all that came out of my burning throat was “XXXOOLLPZZ.”
5. (Taylor) And when I thought there was nothing left, I saw a speck of light. One little speck of light.
Artist's Statement:
Through adaptations media becomes a game of telephone that both maintains original meaning and gains added significance or nuance from each new creator or iteration. An example that suits this description is the tale of Frankenstein. Some call Mary Shelley’s novel the first modern myth. The tale of Victor Frankenstein and his monster is known by almost all age groups whether or not they have read it. Since its first publication in 1818, it has gone through various changes and multiple mediums to fit the need of each generation. The 1823 play Presumption, or the Fate of Frankenstein introduced a monster that couldn’t speak; the 1931 Universal film Frankenstein cemented the Karloffian image of the creature that holds in our collective unconscious with his flat head, scars, and neck bolts; and the recent web series Frankenstein, MD gives us a female, more sane, version of the creator. The story is still recognizably Frankensteinian, but the myth has morphed since Shelley penned it in 1818.
Frankenstein is like a 200 year old Round Robin.
The reading on the exquisite corpse by DJ Spooky and the Very Short Story tweets combined are a glimpse of what this project is about. The reading by DJ Spooky discusses the vast library of knowledge and information in the world that, as time goes on, continues to increase. As one creates projects of their own, they are taking their prior experiences and knowledge and blending it together to make a unique version. For this assignment, five individuals combined their ideas to craft a story and create a flow of these ideas into one main story. The Twitter account of Very Short Stories was a great example of how much detail can be packed into a short sentence or two. These two readings illustrated how other construct stories and served as a great direction to follow for this collaborative assignment.
The fact that we could not see the complete story while contributing to it created some complications in regards to the final product. There was a definite shift in tone from one short story to the next, not only because of the difference in authorship, but also because of the challenge of transferring the theme or genre of the story by referencing the previous 20 words. Certain characters were lost while others became embellished. In some cases it worked beautifully, in others it developed notable inconsistencies, overall the raw creative contributions creates a captivating whole; There is truly no knowing what happens next.
What felt most unique about this project was its limitations. Normally, after reading a story, I would think that I could come up with numerous ways to continue the narrative and to provide new insights. However, with only 20 words to work with, options were severely limited, and it became difficult coming up with even one option for the story.
Fortunately, as the project progressed and I got to see the incredible directions that my original story was being taken in by the other members of my group, I realized that the project would be both more fun and interesting if I made my stories stranger and more surprising. By the end, that’s what I tried to do.
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