Joellyn Rock
abstract / The Vasalisa Project
www.rockingchair.org


Fairy tales have been hijacked throughout history for various uses. Emigrating from one distribution method to another, they have been duplicated, mistranslated, and subverted.

It could be that Cinderella is the world's most-told tale. There are thousands of versions, each one colored by the details of local culture, the needs of its audience and the desires of its teller. Buried among the world’s heap of Cinder tales, is the Russian version, in its multiple incarnations. It is the story of Vasalisa and her encounter with the powerful hag, Baba Yaga. Vasalisa’s doll serves as transitional object, helping the girl navigate a series of tests. It is a story of loss, humiliation, enslavement and triumph over adversity.

New media designers craft transitional objects, from navigational icons to digital stories. In Bare Bones I submit a new version of this very old tale. By reshaping its text, imagery and format, I build a bridge for the fairy tale audience between traditional media and digital media. The text, as broken down into nodes, is meant to be experienced in an interactive story space. Bare Bones is just one piece of the larger Vas(a)lisa Project, which is more visually and textually complex.