Using Technology to Tell Stories

Here is my letter Z movie:

Z is for Zeitgeist.
So often we live only in the moment
and fail to see the realm of possibilities
until they have shuttled on past us
and we are left with the trailing shadows of what might have been
or could have been
or at least, seemed likely at some juncture before the hesitation.
Yet, perhaps, if we were to reach out to explore this terrain together
then our imagination might emerge as community,
a hive of interaction and learning.
Perhaps something new might unfold from this moment
when our fingers wrap around the features of these times in such as way
that we are guided forward instead of retreating back
into the comfortable tradition of how things have always been, forever and ever.
This compositional entry into the unknown is a strange pathway
that moves between the heart and the mind and the eye,
image under sound, stories told from some center inside of us
and then shared as a common experience on the vast digital page.
Your story becomes mine, and mine yours, and the sequence of how it is told
is how we traverses amidst the phonetic sounds of our shared tongue,
from the comfort of A to Z, and everything in between,
to the micro-films of narrative.
There exists a space for our stories here in this place where space does not exist,
and like little wooden blocks with symbols carved upon them,
we are balanced upon each other and dependent upon the whole.
The moment is now and the movement is us.
Z is for Zeitgeist.

Reflection: I joked that I didn’t know what to do with Z but even when I realized that I was going to be stuck with it, I had an inkling in the back of my mind. I wanted to capture the spirit of this experiment and zeitgeist seemed to be the perfect term. But how in the world do you visually represent that? And what do you say? I decided to go at it from two different angles. Instead of a story narrative, I wrote a poem in which I sought to go below the surface of what we are doing. Instead of photographs, I decided to use an online site that visually maps out words and the relationship among terms, definitions and meanings. I thought long about what words I would pick, and then how to sequence them. I am still not sure it works. It seems like it might get boring on the eyes (thank god for my time limit). I do hope it captures my thoughts about collaborating with others and moving forward in a new direction.

– Kevin