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Twin Narrative • Floatsam / Jetsam • by David and Nathan Zellner sound, image, text Lecture Eight Wed Sept 10, 2008 Telling Stories Narrative Threads Narratives / Narrativity • The way we organise and structure information (data, words, sounds) helps us make sense of the meaning around us. • Narratives are tools for organising & conveying this information. • Narratives can be stories involving some aspect of tension or conflict that may ultimately be resolved or left unresolved. • Narratives capture attention, entertain, teach, inform. “fairy stories, mysteries, science fiction, romances, horror stories, adventure stories, fables, myths and legends, historical narratives, ballads, slice of life, personal experience.” http://english.unitecnology.ac.nz/resources/resources/text_forms/narrative.html Allegory for Human Relationships • Norman McLaren – Neighbors Defining Narrative • Narrative can have multiple meanings. (1) a chronological account of events (2) a process of telling a story (3) a collection of forms (like a database) • Traditional Narratives conform to horizontal organisation across time but recent theories of hypertext have broken down the strict temporality of narrative. • Structuralist and poststructuralist theorists (Kristeva, Barthes etc) write of the polyvocality of narrative; the vertical and horizontal reading of events. • Roger Duestch – Mario Makes a Movie Non-Linear Narrative • Hypertext Narratives, Database Art, Non-Linearity are forms that are experienced as narrative. Thus the reader (user, game-player) takes a trajectory through the experience of the work that is modelled on previous conceptions of narrative. This has lead some theorists, such as Liestol, to highlight a paradox in the reading of such form, namely that the reception of such texts takes place in time: “Nonlinearity in time is imaginary; it is a fundamental contradiction of terms and necessarily impossible . . .Reading and writing are linear phenomena; they are sequential and chronological . . . although their positions as stored in space may have a nonlinear organization.” [Liestol, Hyper/ Text/ Theory, (1994), Musical Narrative • Some aspects of music are quickly identifiable as narrative: a chronology of events, a story, a collection of forms. This is most obvious in song lyrics. • For example, in many pop songs the verse generally outlines the story while the chorus focuses on the mood or emotional state of the subject/ songwriter. Through repetition, the chorus suspends the progression of the story momentarily in time. • However, the instrumental parts of a piece may take on a narrative function by imitating, symbolising or illustrating the events and moods of a story. Audio example: Disco Musical Stories by Sharda “Here's another fine example of "How could I resist buying this for $3?" I do not know anything about Sharda, the kids in the audience, the producers of this tape, or how they got those exquisitely cheesy sounds. I recently made a copy of the complete 1hour Disco Musical Stories experience for my nephew & niece; their mom (my sister) said it was "demented".” - Drew Miller (Omnium Recordings and Boiled In Lead) Narrative / Narration • In texts that emphasise spoken language – film, radiophonic, poetry - these words can determine and shape narrative…. – literal: focuses on semantically significant text that directly conveys narrative meaning - metaphoric: words acts as symbols or metaphors to illustrate a story, theme or idea but are not intended to be understood literally - documentary: text includes anecdotal remarks, such as comments on the what we see or here. - structural/ composition: elements of spoken language such as grammar or rhythm are used as the basis of the organising the composition of a text. John Smith – Dirty Pictures Moving from one hotel in Bethlehem to another in East Jerusalem, the filmmaker encounters a series of problems involving a ceiling, a video camera and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Dirty Pictures is the seventh episode in the Hotel Diaries series, a collection of video recordings made in the world's hotel rooms, which relate personal experiences and reflections to contemporary conflicts in the Middle East. Narrative Sound in Film • DIRECT narrative sound contributes to the plot, most obviously dialogue but also effects eg a sound heard offscreen that directs a character’s attention to it. • SUBLIMINAL narrative sound works on the audience subconsciously, most obviously film music, that often relies on learned or conventional codes, to influence the audience’s reading of a scene. “A distant thunderstorm played underneath an otherwise sunny scene indicates a sense of foreboding or doom... An interesting parallel is that the shark in Jaws is introduced by four low notes on an otherwise calm ocean...” Brothers Quay – Can’t go Wrong Without You Non-Narrative Form • While the author of a work may have a particular narrative meanings in mind, ultimately we as spectators construct narrative through our experience of a text. • Some forms do not confirm to narrative interpretation. • Music, film, art or performance may look away from fixed narrative and toward patterns or associations between objects and events. As such, any spectator may interpret the events as a narrative but this is not the fundamental point to the work. • Marvo Movie by Jeff Keen