Entanglements: an exploration of the digital literary work FISHNETSTOCKINGS

Movement/Dance

It is hard to think of a mermaid without thinking of her dancing in water. The movement of her tail undulates so as to propel her through oceanic expanse. Dance is part of mermaid movement. And, the mermaid is a deeply embodied figure– embodied in deep waters and in a body that is never still, always moving. Unlike the majority of digital works that place the reader/viewer in a stationary position before a screen, FISHNETSTOCKINGS invites us to dance within its waves and to consider the importance of movement to mermaid-ology. In this path, we explore how FISHNETSTOCKINGS transforms embodied movement into a “response-ability” toward the mermaid and the creatures populating her aquatic realm. The mermaid beckons and the body responds. Even before you can command your arms to move and your legs to bend, you find yourself swaying alongside her and tapping your toes to the beat of her siren song. And once you realize you are occupying the space with creatures that can and do respond to you in kind, it is through this shared ability, or response-ability, that you become a co-creator of their world. How you inhabit this world is an open question. But whether you are following schools of fish [See Mark’s Flocking Algorithms], grafting your shadow onto mermaid silhouettes [See Diana’s “The Mermaid and its Doubles''], or dancing new life into Andersen’s fairy tale [See Jessica’s “Mermaid Stories as Code”], every movement renews your attachment to this undersea collective. Its fate is literally in your hands.

Contents of this path: