BLOG PROMPT ONE: Non-linear Narrative
My Boyfriend Came Back from the War (1996) by Olia Lialini
PLEASE ANSWER BY POSTING COMMENTS.
Step all the way through My Boyfriend Came Back from the War
(MBCBFTW) by Russian net art pioneer Olia Lialini. What
do you think the narrative is about?
MBCBFTW may look extremely primitive now, but imagine how people
might have felt seeing it in 1996 in the very,
very early years of the internet. How might the site have challenged
expectations about web design and about linear narrative?
My Boyfriend Came Back from the War by Olia Lialini: http://www.teleportacia.org/war/
To see some of the legacy of MBCBFTW click on the "museum" link when you've made it through the site.
The narrative explores relationships and how violence and war shape individuals and those around them. I found the Window gif artwork intriguing, as it works in tandem with the webpage's window blocking, emphasizing the connection between physical and mental presence and highlighting changes brought by violent experiences. The project uses web page frameworks with visual windows in GIFs that obscure details and include binary choices for multiple pathways with additional artwork. It features visual stanzas and poetic forms, with color blocking and formatting that enhance the visual poetry. Blocked sentences create a nonlinear story through multiple-choice interactions, with language and imagery supporting the overall narrative. For the time this was created, I feel it really expands on what the web's potential has become since its inception and how the digital medium and programming web-based experiences can be these unique experiences that speak to physical experience and digital connection, especially now.
ReplyDeleteThis website uses the web as the medium of expression. The narrative is told in a nonlinear, fragmented format through black and white images and text, incomplete sentences and still graphics. This narrative form reflects the way a relationship and communication can grow distant after and during war. The minimal style emphasizes the tension as there is only black and white, which I view as two people with vastly contrasting perspectives. The use of squares and the addition of more squares as the user clicks through the site portrays the growing distance in the relationship. Overall, this site turns basic web design functions like text, color, and graphics into an artistic narrative.
ReplyDeleteThis piece represents the impacts of war and conflict. The use of space between the "window" like shape and the 2 men can symbolize distance in relationships whether thats between spouses, boyfriend and girlfriend, or family. When you see the use of color, this black and white can usually be used to make a message of tension and unsolved problems, or life and death. The abstract use of the squares with the links that are vague can create critical analysis of whats going on in this world. This use of creating a website and the use of the art style keeps the audience focused and interested on the work
ReplyDeleteThe narrator is having an affair with her neighbor and admits this to a boyfriend who just got back from war. You're supposed to feel overwhelmed by the options and opinions of clicking, different places on the screen the dial up style of the images loading makes this feel older. This plays out more of a memory of events since it is non-linear and if Google has all of the text written in one page, I feel like I could understand what was happening more, but this would be like a blurry flashback through it without a TV show that hints at whatever happened and then at the end of the season you get the full story that's the kind of energy this is giving. Aso I like the art. I agree with what the other commenters said about the black-and-white images and decisions and about how violence has increased since coming back from war and maybe based on some of the text feeling like the boyfriend is invincible because he survived war and he can do whatever he wants now.
ReplyDeleteAfter clicking through My Boyfriend Came Back from the War, I find it fascinating that this was created in the early days of the internet. Through my experience, I understood this to be a retold story of their first meeting after the war. Though you take in each part of the story in a random order, based on what you click and when, I could sense the disconnect between them. He talks about the war, she talks about what she did while he was gone, even mentioning another man, and you can tell that the two have drifted apart during their time away from each other and because of the war. Following through with the story and now knowing a little bit about how to code, I am very impressed by MBCBFTW. Not only did it utilize the internet as an art form, but it also challenged what the internet was for, allowing it to branch into expression and storytelling. Design-wise, this website uses black as the background, which I assume was very uncommon at the time, and this was likely seen as a risk. For the narrative style, it is very clear that Lialina tells a story that does not follow a specific path. Each click changes the story and turns the web page into one that is interactive and unlike anything of its time. I enjoyed interacting with MBCBFTW, and I think it speaks to how the internet is forever and has been a form of expression since its beginning.
ReplyDeleteThe story told is not being told in any specific order, although it is clear the two people speaking to one another have drifted away from each other. One of the people seem to have cheated on the other, while the other is trying to patch up their relationship. The style used, black and white, flashing images, and compartments that are interactive, makes you feel like you're intruding on someone's privacy, that you're reading something that isn't for your eyes. I believe this form of artwork is very enticing, but also a little nerve racking. I think that this style was very ahead of it's time, and would not be able to tell when it had been made.
ReplyDeleteMy boyfriend came back form the war by Olia Lillian tells a very fragmented story about the difficulty of reconnecting trauma and the silence that formed between people who can’t quite communicate. The story line emerges through broken dialogue, awkward pauses, hits of infidelity, and a stalled marriage proposal, all delivered through the splitting and multiplying of browser frames, minimal design was truly striking in 1996, when the Internet itself was new. Lialina tires the wed into narrative material, using clicks, frames, and empty spaces to echo the fractured emotions of the characters. Instead of being traditional and having a beginning, middle and end, the piece forces the readers to assemble meaning from scattereed shards, making the form reflect the experiences of disconnection after war. in doing so, it truly challenged the expectations of both wed design and storytelling, proving that the wed could be more than an information hub but it could be a race for expression, experimental, non-linear art that left lasting influence.
ReplyDeleteThe interactive art project, "My Boyfriend Came Back from the War," is a really compelling story that is told through the viewer's engagement with the content. The website design is something I have never seen before, especially with the high contrast visuals and the text being used to navigate the viewer. The story seems to be about someone coming back from the war and struggling with their time adapting back into society, especially with their partner. Many of the visuals and text on the website evoke emotions such as confusion, separation, and misalignment that are used to symbolize a deeper meaning of the story.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely see how this is would be mind blowing to people in the early internet years, especially because it challenged the usual linear narrative that people were used to. As the viewer, you are put in the position of choosing which way the narrative unfolds, as well as putting together the pieces to establish a meaning.
The narrative of "My Boyfriend Came Back from the War" presents an emotionally resonant and almost haunting story of a couple attempting to reconnect after the boyfriend returns from an unspecified war. Clicking progresses the story, thus, throughout clicking the story reveals that the woman admits to having an affair during his absence. He proposes marriage to either build or rebuild their relationship? Gradually, the screen fills with a mosaic of smaller frames, and it eventually dissolves into darkness. Regarding why this was so important in 1996, while this site had a radical use of web structure, and it even blurred the line between cinema and the web, the most important is that it's as if it redefined the expectations of web art as a whole. Showing that the web can be almost like a living thing, filled with memory, heartbreak, emotion, and stories.
ReplyDeleteI like how "My Boyfriend came back from the war" tells a story through fragmented statements. It is communicated almost as if each quote is a main statement a person would remember from a letter. They are short and random because I can imagine the letters are very far apart from each other in time, so you only remember what sticks out to you. The narrative follows their relationship with some messages assumingly having pictures in the letters, like the one asking if he likes her new dress. There is also some fragments that hint that he cheated, "but it was just once". Another message is their 'proposal' and finding the best time to get married. One message that stuck out to me was the sequence that said, "don't kill ... him .... them". It shows a conflicted feeling of not wanting your loved one to be killed, but also to not want your loved one to kill others or for his comrades to be killed. In the beginning stages of the online world, I could see this website maybe being seen as alarming. Especially with the images that glitch on the screen, I feel like people would be afraid that their computer is glitching or that it is getting a virus from the website.
ReplyDelete“My Boyfriend Came Back From the War” is a browser-based art piece that was created in the 90s, before technology took off the way we know it today. I interpreted this piece as a relationship struggling to connect after one of the partners returned from war. Themes of cheating, darkness, unhealthy attachment behaviors, and overwhelmingness. I loved how interactive this piece was, and how I was guided to click on each link, until there were too many areas to press. I think it symbolized the obsessive thoughts and conversations we have with ourselves when a relationship fizzles out. Even the spark is gone - that’s why I think the whole page is almost all black. This site really opened up and challenged traditional website design layout. The artist used a variety of hyperlinks, different-sized imagery, contrasting colors, and text to make a point. I never thought of using a website as an art medium.
ReplyDeleteI believe the MBCBFTW narrative was a testament to the multidimensional relaties of war. For the soldier (the boyfriend) who's witnessed it with his own eyes, every flash of light reminds him of the countless days and nights spent fighting an enemy. On the other side, the girlfriend watches those same days and nights rise and fall through the slow passage of time out of her window, on her clock, through her blinds, waiting for her lover to return. When this site was first released, I believed it challenged expectations about web design and about linear narrative by making people question what they know or considered as art. What was originally done in reality could now be converted into a digital format to become interactive, providing a different experience with each interaction.
ReplyDeleteWhen I clicked through My Boyfriend Came Back from the War, I felt like the story was less about what was being said and more about how it was breaking apart as I kept going. The black-and-white images, short bits of text, and the way the screen kept dividing into smaller and smaller squares made me think about how relationships can fracture when someone comes back from something as life-changing as war. What stood out most to me was how simple web functions such as frames, links, text were turned into something expressive. I think the piece shows how distance, time, and trauma can make people grow apart, and the design makes you feel that disconnection directly.
ReplyDeleteClicking through My Boyfriend Came Back from the War was honestly confusing at first, like piecing together scraps of a conversation that didn’t really flow. To me, it felt like a story about two people who are physically reunited but still emotionally distant, almost like the war created a gap that can’t be closed. The site looks old now, but that actually added a kind of unsettling vibe that fit the mood of the story. The more I clicked, the more it felt like I was sifting through broken memories or thoughts, which made the tension between the characters even stronger. It was a little tedious and frustrating to get through at times, but also really unique and cool, like the website itself was forcing me to experience the same kind of disconnection and fragmentation the characters were going through.
ReplyDeleteThis website is a beautiful example of using the web to create and share art. Although the story is told in fragmented and small parts, there is a rhythm and beauty to it. Through the use of images and words, this website turned into a piece of art that is raw, moving, and inspiring. The minimal design elements and use of black and white, help enhance the story and art.
ReplyDeleteThis story is universal and to me, it's more than a website, it’s a piece of art. I love how non-linear and fragmented the story is. I think that it is a reflection of the relationships in the story and human memory.
If I were seeing this in 1996, I would be obsessed. This site is revolutionary and a testament to Net Art.
My boyfriend came back form the war by Olia Lilli is really thought provoking for me. It was dark, unsettling, and I didn't know what was going to happen next. Even though it's fairly simple in our modern age, it was extremply ahead of its time (especially through the use of using the internet as "art." The non-linear use of the story is super confusing but also really cool at the same time!
ReplyDelete