Mouchette and Tralfamadorian Existance

It's always nice to learn new things, obtain usable insights that will help you later in life. I'm talking beyond that which will further the progression of my own work. Cultural universals that supersede language barriers.

With the advent of the internet as a standard communication tool these insights often pass over us and are under appreciated. I wonder if this deters us from the nuances in daily life and leaves us to only notice overwhelming profundities.

In reading the socially interactive piece Mouchette I noticed a section that allowed for anonymous advice for pre-teen depression. Here I noted the following tidbit in a section entitled "What is the best way to kill yourself when you're under 13?". Gracie writes, "LETHAL INJECTION OF STARS AND BUTTERFLIES." Doesn't get more insightful than that.

All kidding aside I think this brings up an interesting point about the presentation of a work on the internet or really in any modern medium. Because of the access to technology and the ready ability to not only add to something but also manipulate it an artist is at the will of his or her audience. By allowing the audience to not only interact with the work but to also offer input into it is a risky move on the part of the artist. Where does the author censor his or her own creation when it has been defaced? Is that the point?

Mouchette, the interactive piece, is based (I believe) off the 1967 French film by same title.

Mouchette also means little fly, lending well to the section Lullaby for a dead fly, which I found to be the most interesting.

Here, Mouchette is deceased. Yet she is not because she is posting the mourners comments on the site. The mourners' comments stream about the page and proclaim Mouchette to not be dead because her creation (which I've found reference to being originally created by a Canadian man) is still alive and thriving.
Since Mouchette is an all together fictitious character she can never die in the literal sense because she also has never lived. But because of the interaction allowed in this medium she takes on a much more emotional presence to her audience than were she simply words on a page or an actress in a film.

The imagination of these website patrons not only allows them to be fans of Mouchette and post advice on her suicide site. They are also, through delusion or suspension of disbelief, allowed to mourn her in a more profound way than a conventional work of fiction.

They also do not mourn in a conventional way. Instead each offers philosophies of the their take on the digital afterlife. Mouchette, in the same way people often mention tangible loved ones, is "still with us." (Despite never really being with us to begin with.) Mouchette's website is still updated daily or so, people still contribute to it, still interact with her creation, with her. And even though she is dead in certain portions of the site it is irrelevant to her character as a whole. It's a lot like the Tralfamadorians of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. While deceased at one moment they are alive in a great many others. There is no need for chronology.

So Mouchette, like any tangible art work, becomes timeless in a way. Still, like a tangible work of art, Mouchette will only exist as long as aesthetics allows.

Once Mouchette's website has become outdated will she parish?

Well, the website is already outdated but I have seen postings from patrons as recently as January 22nd 2009. So in this way Mouchette has already stood a small test of time. I suppose she will parish when her links are lost or when the server respirating her breaks down. She might also homogenize into culture like other hijacked and manipulated thoughts, ideas, and works of art. In some ways she has already done this. The website is based off a movie, based off a novel, based off an idea from an author, based off of certain experiences and teachings that led him to said idea.