Narrative As Process
Narrative As Process:
Subject, verb, predicate
Media Arts and Technology
Graduate Program
UC Santa Barbara
Winter 2008
Narrative As Process
What is a Narrative in the context of research?
Media Arts and Technology
Graduate Program
UC Santa Barbara
 Facts/events organized to create meaning
 Basic form: Some event is transformed into
something else
 Usually something meaningful must occur,
otherwise no reason to report the event
 In research, the areas of interest may be in:
a) The topic (its structure), b) the
procedure (how the topic is handled/
transformed), or c) the outcome process
 So narrative is about giving something form
and/or a context
Winter 2008
Narrative As Process
Inventory as narrative
 What are the elements/components of a
system? (Cosmic Thing, Damien Ortega, 2002)
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 Presentation of Disassembly: Represent
the system through its parts
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Media Arts and Technology
Graduate Program
UC Santa Barbara
 Let the parts express
themselves
 Can the parts be re-organized
in new ways?
 Can something new be reinvented through exploration
from unintended, unexpected
perspectives?
Winter 2008
Narrative As Process
What about processes?
 Create an extended list of multiple
approaches
 Consider previously identified errors,
discarded solutions, as potential resources
 Do research while developing (who else has
addressed the topic and how)
 Design prototypes/model
Media Arts and Technology
Graduate Program
UC Santa Barbara
Winter 2008
Narrative As Process
Iterative Approach
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 Repeat the process
 The more often you repeat, the more you
will push your self-imposed boundaries
beyond their limits
 Redesign: Leads to cohesion & resolution
 Genotype: Generic condition of a
system
 Phenotype: Any observed quality of an
organism (variation)
Media Arts and Technology
Graduate Program
UC Santa Barbara
Winter 2008
Narrative As Process
Transformational procedural experimental rules
 Modify the elements or the process
 Magnify, condense, re-arrange
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 Transpose, reverse opposites, inside/out
 Substitute, combine, blend, distort
Media Arts and Technology
Graduate Program
UC Santa Barbara
Winter 2008
Narrative As Process
Project Presentation
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 Consider the results
 Project is a “work-in-progress”:
 (Let the data speak for itself)
 Create Closure:
 Re-format to fit presentation
expectations
 (sometimes not!)
Media Arts and Technology
Graduate Program
UC Santa Barbara
Winter 2008
Narrative As Process
Now Back to Time Based Narrative Definitions
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Media Arts and Technology
Graduate Program
UC Santa Barbara
Winter 2008
Narrative As Process
Narrative Structure (Todorov)
Most basic narrative consists of a stable
situation that is disrupted (transition)
eventually ariving at a final stable situation
which in some way is different from the start
1. Start: Situation definition
2. Event: Event, transition, action, verb, etc.
3. Closure: Creating meaning through closure
Media Arts and Technology
Graduate Program
UC Santa Barbara
Narrative normally evolves in time: Time often
represented in space (graph)
But there are other forms: (proposition,
inventory, etc.)
Winter 2008
Narrative As Process
Literary/Cinematic Narrative (Gérard Genette)
 Order: Temporal-order of the narrative
 Duration: Timing structure of the narrative
 Frequency: relationship between event and
its retelling
 Mood: Distance and perspective
1. Distance: Is it told in direct, indirect mode?
2. Perspective: point of view
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Media Arts and Technology
Graduate Program
UC Santa Barbara
From a fixed position
Outside the action
Narrator knows less then the characters
 Voice: What kind of narrator implied?
Winter 2008
Narrative As Process
Organizing the Image: Visual Narrative Tools
 Sequence: implies plot development
 Divided screen: subsections imply
sequence
 Shape: Horizontal implies time length
 Spatial proximity: object placed next to
another signifies relationship
 Direction: left-to-right, or reverse
 Scale: signifies hierarchy
 Repetition: Rhythmic emphasis
Media Arts and Technology
Graduate Program
UC Santa Barbara
Winter 2008
Narrative As Process
Bibliography
 Conceptual Blockbusting, Adams
 Poetics of the Prose, Todorov
 Narrative Discourse, Genette
Media Arts and Technology
Graduate Program
UC Santa Barbara
Winter 2008