The concept of literally building, or
even loading, an identity comes to mind, when the reader opens the first
screen/page of Juliet Davis’s innovative and interactive story, “Pieces of
Herself.” Similar to running a “Sims” gaming program, Davis’s piece provides an
interactive environment with familiar locations hiding symbolic items
(indicative of different parts of a woman’s identity) to locate in order to
drag and drop them into the apparently empty frame of a female body. Deceptively
a simple set-up to use and play, however, “Pieces of Herself” is actually a
highly complex and critical reading of how to interpret the social construction
and implications of/on a woman’s identity.
When
the reader first enters into the illusory world of cyberspace that Davis crafts
they are faced with nothing except for a dark space, and then suddenly a grey
image emerges on the screen in tandem with the sound of a lost signal, or static.
The static noise then accompanies the movement of the different greys trapped
inside the outline of what looks to be a female body, creating a residual
layering effect. Like Fisher’s “Circle” or even Wilks’ “Fitting the Pattern,”
Davis utilizes multi-modal elements, like so, in order to convey important
ideas regarding the representation and shaping of the woman’s identity. This,
then, inversely affects the importance of form and content in relation to the
work as well.
For instance, the element of sound plays
a major role in triggering a sensorial awareness of cyberspace as an affecting
platform on identity. As the reader drags their cursor across the screen to
uncover latent pieces to add into their mediated version of a Frankensteinian
model, sounds overlay their actions. For example, the piece includes recordings
from popular music tracks, the voices of other women describing a past memory (or
their self-consciousness), or the simplistic echoing sound of water dripping. All
of these noises are symbolic in identifying the female, and the ‘layering
repeat’ becomes more complicated as the user proceeds through the process of
finding and building. Additionally, the sounds also seem to connect with memory.
Then memories, in turn, appear to uncover social relationships, which serve as
the driving force and source for making-up ‘her’ identity.
Another interesting facet to “Pieces
of Herself” is the color organization, or arrangement, within the work. Such as
how all the symbolic items to be found not only make unique noises, but are
also vibrant and animated; whereas the surrounding area itself is merely black
and white or a grey area. After an item is dragged and placed within the body,
the item continues to move within the woman’s body frame, while repeating their
intrinsic sounds. It is as if nothing exists outside the self. Thereby the
placement of the items is also symbolic as an act of psychological (and
physiological) self-preservation. An idea very similar to the concern of archiving
and preserving born-digital works, today; in which this work demonstrates via
the mobility and power of the cursor upon the objects on the screen. Therefore,
the work complexly reveals the importance of the relationship between both the form
and content.
Indirectly, the action of drag-and-drop
with subsequent sound, and mobility, overlay builds upon both the woman’s body
and ideas concerning the real complexity of identity being construed as a ‘whole
package.’ Such as after finding all the essential items to build the woman, the
game never tells the reader that their quest has officially ended, or that the
task has been successfully completed. Rather, the reader is left in the black
and white world wondering, whether or not, they have found every part that was
needed in order to make the woman whole again. It appears that no matter how
many rounds (or loops) the player/reader takes, however, they end-up not
ending-up anywhere in particular. But this is actually an important aspect of
Davis’s implicit concept regarding identity as an ephemeral and fluid entity. As
the screen shot below emphasizes, there are parts of a person which go beyond
being entirely shaped by the environment. Identity is a social construct. Thus,
it will always be changing and moving along without ever having to be
completely completed.
