Question 3.1
Discuss how this approach (nteractivitiy in Slippery Traces) to constructing a narrative changes the roles of the reader and the author in the process of narrative transmission.
The interactivity that allows the viewer leeway to manipulate various images framing segmented strands of the same story – so that assembled in relation to past and future frames, they form an integrated and discernable story logic – is revolutionary and thought-provoking. If each image is understood, given meaning in a narrative only when placed side-by-side with another image and another and so on, they cannot exist alone semantically. Pictures and language exists because and for another. In humans the same is true because we are defined somewhat by our relations with others and what we do. Each visual is useless by itself unless there is a story-teller piecing them together by noting relevance between the group of postcards.
The story is told in a 2-fold process. Firstly, the author (Legrady) determines the network of relationships between the images. From a large pool of “anything goes” he has to create a set number of plausible relations by deleting “impossible” narrative sequences that would render the narrative illogical. The second layering comes from the reader’s role in the finalization of which image gets paired up with the previous image from the set that the author has already narrowed down. The author lays down tracks for the reader to “piece” the story together, while the reader has the final decision as to the plot synopsis.
Where previously the reader is the passive participant in the unfolding of the narrative, like the child listening to the elder telling a bedtime story, he does not have a choice in determining how the story ends, how the elder tells the story, or in re-ordering, deleting kernels and satellites. The control of transmitting the traditional narrative is solely left in the hands of the wiser and more experienced elder and the child is left out, drawn into a third-party role wherein he is the unbiased onlooker. In Slippery Traces, however, the reader shares in the telling of the story and based on his world views, personality, imagination, selecting the frame he or she finds suitable to the telling of the story. In non-visual terms, it is paramount to the reader choosing which sentences goes next. Although the roles are not reversed, as the author still has a say in laying the foundations of the story, the reader can now say, “This is how the story should be told…”
Discuss how this approach (nteractivitiy in Slippery Traces) to constructing a narrative changes the roles of the reader and the author in the process of narrative transmission.
The interactivity that allows the viewer leeway to manipulate various images framing segmented strands of the same story – so that assembled in relation to past and future frames, they form an integrated and discernable story logic – is revolutionary and thought-provoking. If each image is understood, given meaning in a narrative only when placed side-by-side with another image and another and so on, they cannot exist alone semantically. Pictures and language exists because and for another. In humans the same is true because we are defined somewhat by our relations with others and what we do. Each visual is useless by itself unless there is a story-teller piecing them together by noting relevance between the group of postcards.
The story is told in a 2-fold process. Firstly, the author (Legrady) determines the network of relationships between the images. From a large pool of “anything goes” he has to create a set number of plausible relations by deleting “impossible” narrative sequences that would render the narrative illogical. The second layering comes from the reader’s role in the finalization of which image gets paired up with the previous image from the set that the author has already narrowed down. The author lays down tracks for the reader to “piece” the story together, while the reader has the final decision as to the plot synopsis.
Where previously the reader is the passive participant in the unfolding of the narrative, like the child listening to the elder telling a bedtime story, he does not have a choice in determining how the story ends, how the elder tells the story, or in re-ordering, deleting kernels and satellites. The control of transmitting the traditional narrative is solely left in the hands of the wiser and more experienced elder and the child is left out, drawn into a third-party role wherein he is the unbiased onlooker. In Slippery Traces, however, the reader shares in the telling of the story and based on his world views, personality, imagination, selecting the frame he or she finds suitable to the telling of the story. In non-visual terms, it is paramount to the reader choosing which sentences goes next. Although the roles are not reversed, as the author still has a say in laying the foundations of the story, the reader can now say, “This is how the story should be told…”
posted by aileen @ 9:14 AM
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