An
Anatomy
of Anchors
[13]
Dinsmore, C. High Crimson. 2000.
<http://www.studiocleo.com/projects/
meridian/Crimson/Crimson1.html>
Dhtml version: http://www.studiocleo.com/projects/meridian/crimson/crimson1DH.html
Flash [FL4] version [with rather cinematic intro]: http://www.studiocleo.com/projects/meridian/crimson/flintro.html
without intro: http://www.studiocleo.com/projects/meridian/crimson/crimson1.html
commentary)
(aesthetic)
The rich sound and vision in High Crimson is reflected in the anchor menu structure: each subsection presents the same anchor menu, but in a different visual style which then influences that section's mood and content.
Adeline Tan found that: "in High Crimson, multimedia such as animation, sound and images, plays a relatively larger role in readers’ comprehension of the hyperfiction than text. [115, Section 4.1.1.5] " The visual panoply of anchors plays a large role in the emotional connotations for this piece.
Anchors as maps
The introduction sets the scene as a hand gently enters a beating heart/flower and stays there. A map of anchors lies both on top of and in the blood vessels/leaves---both as part of the story and as commentary on the story and its structure. My heart and the bookkeeping, for example, are more thematically related than vivid and the annunciation.
Screenshot used by permission.
Anchors imparting the look and feel
Although High Crimson's anchors trigger the same links in all
of the submenus, their strikingly different appearance molds the look
and feel of each subsection. Compare this artistic menu division with
the textual division of subsections in Reagan
Library [47] and The Unknown
[56].
Screenshot used by permission.
Screenshot used by permission.
Dinsmore also plays with merging visual puns and language: click on the embedded link "sighed" and an [aside] will appear in a montage overlay:
Screenshot used by permission.