The performance e-poem that I did was one of my favorite assignments to work on. In the impromptu one for class where we grew accustomed to using camtasia and the concept of e-poetry, I had trouble letting go and spent far more time preparing the concept than I needed to. This project focused on growth and chaos in cities, which inspired me to do a more serene, pastoral piece for the prepared live-performance poem. The Forest, by Susan Stewart, worked extremely well with that concept, especially with it's lush and repetitive imagery, and it also added a sense of loss and sadness that I think works well with the rest of my portfolio. When approaching my main video video, I wanted to use my computer as a very versatile and interactive stage. I first did this by transforming my dashboard into something that moves and grows on it's own. I put a sterile grass field as the base and added structural and almost-unnatural photographs of plants by Karl Blossfeldt that were growing out of this. By having a slide show of the images, it appears that only the flowers are moving a growing, but also disappearing. I also used  multiple screens to show an almost irreversible change that was happening, but moving the text of the poem from one window to the other, joining the birds and mossy forest. I included the clip with the bizarre, rhythmic music and video of a nematode to show the world that was also experiencing growth and change underneath the forest floor that Stewart highlights. The live nature of this project really made it my favorite. Having to work with the limitations of your live computer screen to produce a live product as this project did is to me, one of the purest forms of digital composing and  it demands creativity. Like jazz, you have to practice and rehearse tirelessly in preparation for the performance, perfecting the techniques, but when the time comes, a unique, novel, and artistic piece is created, and would be difficult to recreate.