Step 1: Write your fascinations. Stage the image-repertoire of
your fandom.
Return to the journal you generated for exercise 2. Rethink your
situation now that you've had most of the semester to reflect on
your relationship to your favorite star and list the points of
identification you have with that star. Working from this list,
stage these points of identification by writing them up; be sure
to show the points where you intersect with your star.
Step 2: Include discursive examples of your image-repertoire from
the four domains of the pop cycle.
Return to the list you generated in step 1. For step 2 you
should think about how these points of identification occur in
various areas of your life. They will appear in different forms.
For each item on your list, imagine how it exists in four areas
of your life experience: your personal life (home/family),
popular entertainment, school, and your major. Obviously, step 1
of this process has addressed the popular entertainment category,
but are there other places in popular culture (besides your
chosen star) where you identify in the same way; where you
observe a similar stereotype hailing you? If so, include
examples of these instances. Proceed by writing these kinds of
instances up for the other 3 domains (home/family, school, and
your major area of study); where in these domains of experience
do you see your stereotypes at work?
Step 3: Write your fragments in various modes; use multiple
genres to compose the text.
Return to the ideas you generated in steps 1 and 2. Experiment
with mode, voice, and genre. Transform your fragments using
various approaches. Try to avoid leaning too heavily on the
traditional expository 'telling' mode of most academic essays --
instead, try slashing some fragments. That is, use this playful
space to indirectly challenge the stereotypes that hail you.
Play with several possibilities. Recall the lesson we learned
about zine writing in exercise 4. Vary your fragments as zine
writers vary theirs.
Readings:
excerpts from Raymond Queneau's Transformations
Jenkins' "'Welcome to Bisexuality, Captain Kirk': Slash and the
Fan-Writing Community"
Constance Penley's "Brownian Motion: Women, Tactics, and
Technology"
Screenings:
Todd Haines, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
Step 4: Foreground aesthetic logic; arrange the text according to
a pattern.
At this point, you need to start thinking about the form your
zin/ography will take. Proceed with a pattern in mind -- and
then simply following the pattern. You might think about
patterning your project in two ways: by screen and by link.
That is, you want to consider both the aesthetics of the
individual screen and that of the links between screens. Step 5,
below, speaks directly to the issue of patterning you links, but
for now you should think about the screens themselves. For our
purposes, I might suggest that you consider the aesthetics of
zines as a guide. You might appropriate their aesthetic form and
use it to present the work you are now doing. Remember that your
pattern must repeat and be recognizable -- so strive for
simplicity rather than too much complexity. If your reader
cannot recognize your pattern, then it's failing to do its job.
Sticking with one pattern will allow you to foreground aesthetic
logic.
Screenings:
Greenaway's H's
Farocki's Images of the World and Inscriptions of War
Step 5: Remotivate textual meaning through juxtaposition sequenced by the associational link. Ask yourself not so much what does it mean, but what does it mean in relation to something else? Focus on the meaning of the links between texts. For step 5 I'd like you to experiment with the many ways you might connect your fragments. How does combining your fragments in different ways make them mean differently? Think about this aspect of your work very carefully. Which of your fragments are more telling when grouped together? Link these fragments together in ways which highlight these connections. Extrapolating from On Dreams, use the four main operations of the dream work as your way of linking. How might these translate to a written project? Use Michael Jarrett's piece "A Jarrett in this Text" as a model.
Readings/Viewings:
Freud, On Dreams
Jarrett, "A Jarrett in this Text"
Waxweb
Screenings:
Berger's Ways of Seeing (part 1)