The NEXT | Ask Me for the Moon

"John David Zuern's Ask Me For the Moon is a digital poem created in Adobe Flash using juxtaposed images, words, and sounds, to create the feeling of the labor behind the scenes at a Hawaii resort. The images and colors (black, white, and turquoise dominate) paint a picture of Waikiki that is emphasized in Zuern's notes on the piece, which observe that at the time the piece was made there was approximately one worker for every two and a half visitors to Waikiki. The text of the piece plays over the faded gray landscape of the island, while the moving pictures depict fragments of labor moving through like waves along the shore. The visual poetics serve as a poignant reminder of how much work is done at night, out of sight of the tourists who swarm the island." -- from Electronic Literature Collection, Volume One

Experiencing the Work

Once begun, visitors observe the piece as poetic text fades in and out relatively quickly, with white words on a black background. The timing of the text cannot be controlled and it is rasterized text, making it unavailable to screen reading programs or other similar tools. As the poetic text fades, it often overlaps, creating mixed gray colors that may be difficult to read. Sudden sounds play when buttons are hovered over, which may be alarming since the rest of the poem is silent. Interacting with the menu that appears at the end of the poem requires cursor movement and a cursor click from a mouse; the menu is not navigable by keyboard, voice controls, or other non-mouse navigational tools. The menu is also compact and may require fine control to navigate.