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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