Introduction: the problem with ‘live media’
The practice of ‘live media’ has become increasingly important
in the last decade. After experimenting with the various aesthetic and
conceptual aspects of interactive devices, computer and web technologies,
artists realised that the use of digital media in a ‘theatrical
situation' [1]
could attract a larger public and generate interesting new cultural genres.
Live media include all kinds of ‘mediatized’ traditional forms
of performance (theatre, concerts, live shows where digital technologies
play a fundamental role) and all kinds of ‘performatized’
media practices (film, web streaming, TV in a performative situation).
'Live media', thus, generated new cultural forms (VJ-ing, multimedia performances,
etc.), but also transformed or hybridised traditional forms.
The complexity of the ‘mediatizing process’ and the high level
of ‘hybridism’ in the generated languages, contents and contexts
have inspired a debate on how to define and describe those new forms of
theatre.
In order to elaborate a specific vocabulary and theoretical tools for
live media within new media studies, it is necessary to distinguish between
‘technology’, ‘medium’, ‘cultural function’
and ‘social field’, four concepts that introduce four different
‘points of view’ on live media and on all cultural forms in
general.
My case study will focus on a group of live media performances called
The Sudwestern Saga, by the Portuguese artist Edgar Pêra,
that does not fit completely within traditional performance genres nor
in new media genres (like VJ-ing and electronic audio-visual performances).
The performance (defined by the artist as ‘cine-concert’)
makes use of several media and languages
(cinema, theatre, digital video, music), but it is the ‘theaterical
hypermedium’ that determines the general narrative structure and
the function of new media inside it.
For this reason, I chose as a useful term of comparison an ‘old
theatre genre’, the commedia dell’arte, a genre which
shares with Pêra’s work the ‘modularity’ of storytelling
and a certain kind of ‘popular aesthetics’. From this comparison
it emerges that ‘mediatized theatre’ functions as ideal feeding
ground for new forms of ‘modular’ narratives.
It is beyond the scope of this article to account for the complex debate
on new media, liveness and narrativity. Nevertheless, I will try to underline
the importance of theatre as hypermedium, as a ‘place’
where ‘intermediality’ (the ‘on stage’ relationship
between different media) takes place and influences our ways of telling
stories and creating cultural identity.
1 The Sudwestern Saga: movies, myths, music and mix
1.1 The Sudwestern Saga: the myth
The Sudwestern Saga is a series of performances directed by
the Portuguese ‘cine-artist’ Edgar Pêra. By means of
live music and video, the artist develops stories inspired by the culture
of fado and by the Western film genre. Pêra combines these
two ‘popular epics’, believing that fado (traditional
Portuguese music) shares with the Western stories a certain atmosphere,
a certain attitude towards life. “Cowboys, just like fado
people, are solitary and always getting into fights”. He sees “the
southwest of Europe as a resistance point, a bit like Asterix, as a corner
in Europe where there are small instances where the popular culture survives.
It is that confrontation with today that interested me. All these popular
historical references; to take them and to put them face to face with
contemporaneous acting, or at least, with a kind of burlesque acting and
a kind of mute fado. To turn the fado’s ‘sobs’
into laughs. Fado are emotions in its primitive stage. Not only
sadness but also another type of emotions…”
[2]
The Saga represents a ‘parallel universe’, a place where authenticity
and primitive feelings survive. The ‘Sudwestern’ is Portugal,
the last frontier where cowboys came in the XIX century and lived the
same kind of life as fado singers, joining the scum of society,
telling stories of misfortune (‘bad fado’ means ‘bad
fate’, ‘bad karma’). Resistance (against modernisation
without
culture?), travel as a philosophy of life and nostalgia for a lost authenticity
[3] are the leitmotivs
of their adventures.
1.2 The Western-fado filmzzz
The ‘story’ of The Sudwestern Saga was first developed
in a video work called Guitarra com gente lá dentro (2003),
realized for the exhibition Movimentos perpetuos. On this occasion
“Portuguese artists were invited to kreate original pieces inspired
in the work and life of Carlos Paredes”, a famous fado
musician. The ‘film’ starts in the theatre where Paredes,
“legendary Portuguese guitar hero, rehearses for a koncert with
Madredeus”. [4] The legends of
fado and the spirit of the music immediately call up associations
with another myth, that of the West, ‘embodied’ in the media
through which it was shaped and spread all over the world: cinema and
comics (the artist proclaims to be a “lover of Musik & Freedom
(and Komix!!)”).
Re-interpreting the language of the Western film genre, the early Western
in particular, Pêra tells the story of a group of cowboys who came
to Portugal as ‘poor immigrants’ and struggled to survive
on the streets of Lisbon. The Portuguese capital is transformed into a
Western movie set, with its small streets and its saloons. Portugal is
represented as a land of immigrants (as America was in the Western), where
the rules are made by guns and the emotions are primitive.
In the movie, the ‘true hero’ and other characters play short
episodes, linked with each other in an associative and intuitive way,
assembled like ‘interchangeable modules’ (some titles: Europa
Southwest, Saloon Fadista, Unemployed & Hopeless,
Delikate Lifes, Stage-koach Robbery, Lynch au Espichel,
Female Fado). The episodes describe scenes and happenings from
the fado-Western life, with cowboys attacking trains (in this
case the Lisbon tramway!), robbing undefended women to make a living in
difficult times, fighting in the saloon. The episodes are scenes of love
and jealousy, fights and rivalries. The Western-fado filmzzz
is an assemblage of ‘loose gags’ and always ends with the
death of one or all characters.
The movie is released in several ‘re-mixes’, with different
‘sequences of episodes’, depending on the context within which
it is presented as a movie.
1.3 The Sudwestern performancezzz
Each Sudwestern Saga performance develops a particular version of the
story, using episodes from different remixes and creating a new sequence
that does not correspond to that of a particular movie-remix. The musicians
and the actors play always the same role (in the films and in the performances),
but not all of them are necessarily present on stage. There are editions
with only two performers, like the one at the Video Village Festival
in Milan, and versions where the complete troupe participates, like that
at the World Wide Video Festival in Amsterdam.
The musicians are the group DEAD COMBO: Antonio Antunes (Tó
Trips), Carla Bolito (Zevera, The Woman From Nevada), Miguel Borges (Mik
the Kid), Johnny Gomez (The True Hero). The ‘guest cine-stars’
are: Marina Albuquerque (A Víuva da Atalaia), Lavínia Moreira
(Kacilda), António Alcântara (Kid Beans), João Dias
(Pasolinero Del Diablo) Teresa Meireles (Wretched Girl).
While the actors and the musicians are ‘playing’ (the story
is not ‘spoken’, the episodes are acted by means of pantomime
and songs), Edgar Pêra mixes images from different sources: real
time images of the performers and public; images shot one or two days
before in the city where the show is presented; episodes from the fado-Western
movie; archive images (tapes related to the
fado-Western theme, images from other cities where the group
travelled). [5]
This kind of improvisation could be compared to that of a jazz band. “There
is a map of sequences for the actors and the VJ. A road with one direction
and multiple ways of getting there”.
[6] Most of the times the music leads, but other
times a particular episode/action starts on the screen and passes to the
stage, or vice-versa, from the stage to the screen. As in a jazz band,
the instruments play together, alternating the leads and the solos without
following rigid rules.
The ‘mute cinema of fado’ comes to life again every
time it is played live and is influenced by the context where the performance
is staged. [7]
Like the Carnival, the Saga crosses the borders between real
life and theatre. The myth lives also ‘off-stage’, when the
actors wear their ‘masks’ (a hat, a jacket, a guitar) and
‘perform’ on the streets of the places they visit. “The
Sudwestern Saga is shot in almost every place I go – says Pêra
– also when it is not performed in a theatre. I only need a hat.
The AmeriKan Kowboy is All
Over The World”. [8]
The tension between ‘kaos and kontrol’, coincidence and fate
generates the endless and cyclical movement of life. This cyclical movement
through time and space is ‘represented’ and ‘empowered’
by art. “Everybody dies on stage. They stab themselves whilst singing.
The end is always a celebration of Acting and surviving Death through
‘Art-Actions’”. [9]
2 Names are the (broken) mirror of things
Every time a new cultural form is created, it takes some time to define
it and give it a place in the history of culture. This history is made
up of ‘traditions’ and ‘genres’ based on a particular
technology, cultural function or social context. In the last two centuries
new technologies played an important role in the birth of new ‘media’
like cinema, television, the Internet, etc. But the ‘technological’
aspect is not always the only or the most important element in shaping
the identity of a cultural form. Some cultural forms and functions, such
as narratives, music, virtual spaces, etc., are ‘cross-medial’.
‘Genres’ like the comedy, the ‘detective fiction’,
the romance, even if born within a particular medium (in literature, theatre,
film), are ‘transmedial’.
In order to describe the relationship between medium and narrative, it
is necessary to define the different elements which play a role in this
relationship: the technology, the medium’s identity, the cultural
function and the social field.
‘Technology’ indicates a group of techniques and devices having
in common certain functions or features (digital technology, for instance,
includes all devices that can read, write, or store information that is
represented in numerical form).
‘Medium’ as ‘means’ for transmitting cultural
content is based on a technology, but its identity is influenced by the
dispositif, [10] or ‘apparatus’,
that is the mode of address, the positioning of the spectator/reader (for
instance the ‘screening situation’ in cinema), the cultural
function and the social field(s) within which it operates.
In Pierre Bourdieu’s model of analysis of social phenomena, the
‘field’ is a structured social space with its own laws of
functioning and its own relations of force. It has its internal dynamics,
but it is also related to other social fields. Inside the field of cultural
production agents compete for symbolic power, and the conflict between
the orthodoxy and the challenge of new modes of cultural practice manifests
itself as ‘position-takings’, which may refer to both internal
(e.g. stylistic) and external (e.g. political) positioning. At the social
level, the systems of production and distribution, the critical discourses
and the artistic products relate to each other following dynamics which
are internal to the field. These dynamics, though, can be influenced or
modified by other fields like the field of economy, of power, etc.
[11]
‘Cultural functions’ are narratives, information, game, education,
entertainment, etc. The identity of a cultural form, thus, and the way
we name it, results from the positioning and the relationships between
the four elements mentioned above.
Film, for instance, is a cultural form named by a technology, but the
‘genres’ within it can be defined by the cultural function
(‘comedy’ refers to a certain kind of narrative, thus to a
cultural function), by the dispositif (‘experimental cinema’
presents ways of addressing the audience different from those of classic
cinema), by the social field (‘independent film’ refers to
film produced by ‘independent’ production companies). All
those ‘vantage points’ together constitute the identity of
film as a medium.
The Sudwestern Saga is described as ‘cine-concert’.
‘Cine’ indicates the predominant role of the film medium in
the choice of the visual language and of the ‘screening dispositif’,
‘concert’ indicates the presence of musicians on stage, thus
the theatre as medium. The title ‘Sudwestern Saga’, though,
refers not to a medium, but to the popular narratives of the Western and
to the fact
that these narratives are organised as a ‘Saga’, that is an
‘open story’, developing in ‘real time’ and dealing
with the myths and legends of a certain community.
2.1 Naming cultural forms by the medium, the cultural
function and the social
field
The commedia dell’arte is a theatre genre born in Italy
in the mid-16th century. It was called by different names, each of them
pointing to different aspects of this genre which could describe it and
distinguish it from other forms of theatre and ‘entertainment’.
In the first decades the commedia dell’arte was “known
as ‘improvised comedy’ (commedia improvvisa), ‘comedy
by subject’ (a soggetto) or ‘off the cuff’ (a braccia)
from the technique of the comedians who improvised their sallies on the
basis of a scenario or canovaccio…” [12]
These terms emphasize acting and performance rather than the literary
text. The narrative structure (cultural function and dispositif)
and the performing techniques were the most important features in this
new genre. Nevertheless, the term ‘commedia’, I would argue,
indicates the influence of the classic comedy, and thus the profane and
literary character (rooted in Renaissance culture) of the new genre as
opposed to the two main forms of theatre in the Middle Ages: the sacre
rappresentazioni (religious theatre) and court entertainment (the buffoni,
stand-up performers).
“The term ‘commedia dell’arte’ can be traced to
the eighteenth century… In the medieval and Renaissance period,
an ‘arte’ was an economic and political corporation organized
by one of various crafts of profession”. [13]
This term denotes that the actors were organized into professional companies
to perform not merely on religious and political festival occasions, but
all year round
for their principal livelihood. The genre is thus named by the social
field within which it operates.
The bourgeois culture and context were indeed very important in shaping
the identity of the commedia dell’arte. In the 16th century
theatre became a secular form of entertainment again, for a bourgeois
public, dealing with bourgeois issues, with its own professional status
and place (the building called ‘theatre’) and its own ‘commercial’
production system.
Modern forms of ‘mediatized performance’ have undergone a
similar process of shaping identity through the debate on names and definitions.
It was easier to find an appropriate definition when new media were totally
integrated in older forms and aesthetics. It became much more problematic
when the new cultural forms involved new or hybrid production contexts,
contents, displaying and viewing patterns.
Multimedia performances described as ‘VJ-ing’, for instance,
are directly inspired by DJ sets for the techniques used, the aesthetic
qualities and the context of presentation. ‘Video settings’
in theatre plays and in rock-pop concerts do not have a ‘separate
identity’ and name, since they do not change radically the technology,
the dispositif or the social field of the ‘hosting forms’,
but just ‘add’ cinematographic or ‘mediatic’ features
to those old media.
When the aspect of technological experimentation is predominant, both
on a technical and on a theoretical level, the performance is included
in the field of new media arts and labelled as ‘live media’.
Live media forms, like electronic music concerts with video, multimedia
or interactive performance in the tradition of performance art, etc.,
can be presented in traditional contexts
(theatre, concerts, clubs), but they also developed their own circuit
in media arts and electronic music festivals, that is, in the field of
new media arts. [14]
Some media art makers and critics call some of these forms ‘live
cinema’. This definition refers not to the traditional ‘cinema
effect’ (realistic moving images telling a linear story, shown in
a ‘passive’ viewing situation) described by Metz,
[15] but to a different ‘cinematic dispositif’
of screening and spectatorship patterns (suggested by the word ‘live’).
The term ‘cinema’ is used here in a very broad sense, as a
synonym of ‘moving image’, referring to experimental forms
of screening, visual language and contents. [16]
This definition stresses the similarities with film practices, especially
the presence of big screen projections, but neglects the contribution
of video and TV to the elaboration of various dispositifs, visual
languages and narrative structures.
Both ‘live media’ and ‘live cinema’ are broad
definitions which do account for the ‘theatrical dispositif’
and the presence of ‘media’ within it (the term media refers
mostly to electronic and digital media) but do not indicate the cultural
function and the context of presentation.
Actually, these terms are used in the field of new media art (the complete
name should be ‘live media arts’) and indicate works dealing
with the aesthetic aspects of digital media. [17]
Edgar Pêra’s work can be included in the broad category of
live media. The particular structure of the Saga, though, where different
media (cinema, theatre, digital media) produce a particular kind of narrative,
can be better explained through the confrontation with the commedia dell’arte
rather than with other forms of live media.
3 Modular narratives
‘Narrative’ and ‘story’ are very complex concepts.
Different definitions have been given, and the issue of what is narrative
and what is not is too broad to be discussed here. I will agree on a narrow
definition of narrative as a particular textual structure that is functional
to my case study.
According to Wanda Rulewicz:
A text is a semantically coherent whole which may be
presented as a surface structure either in natural language (as was the
case with the traditional notion), or in any of the sign systems used
by mankind… Narrative grammars are only part of text grammars, narrative
structures not being the necessary condition for the existence of a text...
Nevertheless, these grammars furnish an instrument to analyse the great
part of our literary and theatrical heritage which is based on the principle
of narration, including 'characters' and their actions.
[18]
A text, thus, is not necessarily narrative. According to Mieke Bal, a
cultural object is narrative if it contains an actor and a narrator, is
organised in three levels, the text, the story and the fabula, and if
the ‘content’ is a “series of connected events caused
or experienced by actors”. [19]
3.1 The narrative structure of the commedia dell’arte
Obviously, the performances known as commedia dell’arte
were narrative texts. The narrative structure of this genre is of a particular
kind.
The commedia dell’arte was played by organized professional
companies that performed improvised drama based on written plots (scenario,
libretto, canovaccio):
The scenario or canovaccio (canvas) is a schematic
description of the performance; it gives a list of the characters and
of the ‘props’ required, the division into acts and, by the
use of brief and stylized instructions, the entries and exits of the characters.
The plots… are developed by the use of the most varied devices:
disguises, identifications, misunderstandings, kidnappings, shipwrecks,
spells and magic. The central theme is always the loves of the young people,
the jealousy and rivalries of the old ones and the intrigues of the zanni…[20]
The plot described in the canovaccio was always a variant of
the ‘universal and eternal’ story of a hindered love between
two young lovers. The central theme was the love between the young people,
opposed by the jealousy and rivalries of the elders, but helped by the
intrigues of the zanni (servants) and destined to a happy end.
Often a generational conflict shaped the plot, with the lover’s
father (Pantalone or Dottore) providing the blocking agent either for
financial motives or because the father has erotic designs of his own.
The canovaccio complicated this ‘common basic plot’
with additional romance plots, sometimes in contrast with the main one,
misunderstandings, spells, disguises, plots within plot, etc.
There were thus three structural levels: that of an overall structure
(the dominant romantic plot), a sub-structural level (the variant of the
story described in the canovaccio), and the level of particular verbal,
musical, or gestural enactments (actors improvised songs, gags, jokes,
drawn from repertoires called zibaldoni).
For developing the plot in its most basic form four main characters were
necessary. The characters were ‘types’ playing conflicts of
elementary, ‘universal’ forces: the servant against his master,
the son against the father, the old against the young. Those conflicts
triggered the minimum ‘action’ necessary for generating a
story. The four main ‘masks’ were the old man (Pantalone,
il Dottore), the cunning servant (Brighella, Pulcinella, Arlecchino) and
the two lovers (the Cavaliere, Isabella, etc.). Those basic characters
could ‘multiply’ and be presented in many variants in the
same play (two or more servants, two or more couples of lovers involved
in interlacing affairs, etc.), but none of them had an ‘historical’
or psychological evolution, they were masks without memory and without
catharsis. [21]
The fixity of the ‘overall structure’ (the basic plot of a
hindered love, which we could call ‘metanarrative’ or ‘matrix
narrative’) and the characters contrasts with the variety of the
canovacci, and with the uniqueness of each performance. The same
canovaccio was indeed interpreted differently each time it was
played (it functioned as a ‘second level matrix’, a matrix
for the single performance), since the actors improvised the dialogues
using jokes, gags (lazzi) and gestural enactments taken from
the zibaldoni. The zibaldoni were written repertoires,
a kind of ‘character’s data base’ containing all possible
words and acts that could belong to a certain character.
The general structure (the three levels together) can be described as
‘modular structure’ (and ‘modular narrative’),
formed by a matrix narrative filled by modules describing situations and
characters, which could be endlessly recombined.
[22] The modularity
operates at two levels: the matrix of the overall structure (the romantic
plot) was filled by modules-situations (disguises,
misunderstandings, kidnappings, etc.) and modules-characters (Pantalone,
the Doctor, etc.) forming the canovaccio, the second level matrix
was filled by the modules-dialogues (jokes, and gags retrieved by the
actors from the data base – zibaldone).
As we will see, this structure has many similarities with contemporary
new media performances and with the so-called ‘aesthetics of the
data base’.
The simple plot of the canovaccio is each time enriched by ‘interchangeable
modules’ (gags, scenes, characters, ‘inserts’ like music,
poetry). The gags were not necessarily functional to the development of
the storyline. While in a ‘classical’ story each element contributes
to the development of the plot, in this kind of narrative the ‘digressions’
are as important as the main story.
3.2 Modular narrative in the Sudwestern Saga
The Sudwestern Saga is built on a modular structure similar
to that of the commedia dell’arte.
The meta-narrative is the ‘Western-fado saga’, where
the heroes fight for love and survival and die tragically at the end.
The different versions (remixes) of the video and the total corpus of
‘episodes’ are the canovaccio (each remix edits a
choice of the many episodes realised) and the zibaldone where
the video artist select the clips he mixes during the performance and
the actors find the stories on which they improvise.
The ‘play’ can be performed by two characters (at the Video
Village festival, in Milan, there were only two artists performing
a ‘duel between camera and guitar’), by more than two or by
the complete troupe of ten elements.
3.3 Modular narrative forms throughout history
The cultural forms using modular narrative are numerous and various throughout
history.
Modular narratives probably originated within oral cultures. When stories
were transmitted orally the storyteller needed a repertoire of phrases,
images and episodes which could be easily inserted at any point in the
main storyline, to avoid embarrassing silences, to keep the attention
and interest of the public high and to adjust the length and tension of
the storytelling to the particular circumstances, audiences and context.
Even though the term ‘modular’ indicates a ‘technical’
aspect, my understanding of a modular narrative form is also linked to
a specific cultural function (collective and archetypical narratives)
and social field (popular culture).
The story told in a modular structure is often a ‘collective’
product, showing archetypical characters, situations and values. The content
is ‘ahistorical’ and the characters have no psychological
depth or development. At the same time, the story is more embedded in
and influenced by the ‘real life’ of the storyteller and the
public (who can often participate in the development of the story). The
difference between ‘real life’ and ‘fiction’ is
less clear-cut than in ‘classic narrative’.
Finally, modular narratives are often ‘transmedial’ (they
can evolve or be transmitted by different media in different ‘viewing
and participation settings’).
Examples of modular narratives include oral sagas and epics, fairytales,
TV genres like series, sitcoms, reality TV, (video) games, ‘theatre
genres’ like carnival, rituals, etc.
3.4 Performance and modular narrative
Modular narratives are ‘open’ forms which function better
if the public is involved in the creation of the story or ‘lives’
in the fictional space. For this reason, modular narratives have a privileged
relationship with ‘performative’ media in general and theatre
in particular.
The practices of storytelling and theatre (in all its forms, including
ritual) were the main means of transmitting stories in pre-literate times,
when visual arts as well were meaningful only as part of a ritual or collective
event. In performance both the ‘maker’ and the ‘public’
work to construct the story in ‘real time’ (here and now).
Non-performative cultural forms that are structured as ‘series’
are also often ‘modular’: in a broad sense, all literary,
theatrical and cinematographic genres are modular narratives, because
they present variants of the same kind of story. In a more ‘restricted’
sense, only forms like sit-coms and some TV shows are modular. These forms
are not performative, but for the reasons mentioned above (parallelism
with the ‘real life’ of the viewer) they involve the spectator
directly in a different way than do ‘classic narratives’.
TV for example, is more ‘theatrical’ than ‘cinematic’,
because of the ontology of liveness, the ‘continuous’ use
of space (while cinema has access to an alogical or discontinuous use
of space), the ‘programming flow’ that follows the daily rhythm
of the audience’s life. [23]
Modular narratives, just because they have a ‘participative’
character and are able to build a sense of community, are often linked
to performative or participative cultural forms, which seem to be more
developed in oral and digital cultures. The term ‘modular narrative’,
indeed, is common in new media studies, where it is sometimes used as
synonymous with ‘hypertextual narrative’.
4 New Media, modular narrative and performance
4.1 Digital media fostered the development of modular
narratives
According to Lev Manovich, in the computer age narratives have been replaced
by data bases as the ‘dominating form’ of human culture. A
data base is defined in computer science as a “structured collection
of data… organized for fast search and retrieval by a computer…
Different types of data base - hierarchical, network, relational and object-oriented
– use different models to
organize data.” CD-ROMs and web sites are collections of data ordered
in lists, where narrative is just one method, among others, for accessing
data. The fact that data are continuously added to a web site, which is
thus ‘open’ and never ‘complete’, contributes
to the anti-narrative logic of the web. “In new elements are being
added over time, the result is a collection, not a story”.
[24]
Manovich seems to set data base and narrative in opposition to each other.
But further on Manovich affirms that data base and narrative are complementary
to each other, which he explains through the concept of algorithm. In
computer games, for instance, the ‘tasks’ set by the algorithms
(‘if you shoot, you win’) “make[s] the player experience
the game as narrative. (…) While computer games do not follow database
logic, they appear to be ruled byanother logic – that of an algorithm.
They demand that a player executes an algorithm in order to win.”
Manovich compares algorithms with narrative: “in contrast to most
games, most narratives do not require algorithm-like behaviour from their
readers. However, narratives and games are similar in that the user, while
proceeding through them, must uncover their underlying logic – its
algorithm. (…) CD-ROMs, web site and other media objects which are
organized as data bases correspond to the data structure; while narratives,
including computer games, correspond to the algorithms.”
The concept of algorithm, though, cannot be precisely identified with
the concept of narrative.
‘Algorithm’ only indicates the ‘mechanical’ operation,
executed mostly by a computer, of retrieving data from a data base and
assembling them in a sequence determined by predefined parameters. The
concept of narrative is more complex, and Manovich admits this when he
adopts Mieke Bal’s definition of narrative, which requires the presence
of a text ‘representing’ connected events, and makes this
connection (and the presence of a meaning) depend on the activity of a
human author, reader, actor, etc.
In Manovich’s view, the importance of the data base in new media
and the interaction with algorithmic operations would create a new kind
of narrative. “The ‘user’ of the narrative is traversing
a data base, following links between its records as established by the
data-base creator.
An interactive narrative (which could also be called ‘hyper-narrative’
in an analogy with hypertext) can then be understood as the sum of multiple
trajectories through a data base. A traditional linear narrative is one,
among many other possible trajectories; i.e. a particular choice made
within a hypernarrative.” [25]
I agree with Manovich that data bases are important elements of modern
narratives, because new media allow the ‘elements out of which the
story is constructed’ (stored in the data base) and the interface
to maintain their separate existence, even while they are working together,
connected by a matrix-structure (which determines which choices the author/reader
can make).
If we want to describe this kind of narrative - a text formed by multiple
data bases and by an interface that leads the choice through the data
base, structuring the sum of these choices as a coherent sequence –
independently from the medium used to produce and convey it, the terms
interactive and hypernarrative are not the best options. In my opinion,
‘modular narrative’ better
describes this process because it refers only to the organisation of the
content (in a matrixmodules structure), while the term ‘interactive’
refers to a certain action, function and position of the reader/actor.
[26]
In fact, the problem of how this kind of narrative influences the concepts
of spectator, actor, reader, author, is one of a different level. Modular
narratives can ‘activate’ different kinds of authorship and
spectatorship, and they are not the product of digital media only.
The opposition between ‘traditional’ and ‘new’
narrative proposed by Manovich thus is not precise enough. I prefer ‘modular
narratives’ vs. ‘classic’ narrative’, where the
story is not only linear, but represents a ‘complete’ and
independent weltanschauung proposed by an ‘author’ (separated
from the ‘reader’). In ‘classic narratives’, even
if the author and the reader refer to meta-stories, models and ‘data
bases’ to build up their stories, there is no ‘recognised’
matrix saying how the story should be organised and which kind of data
base should be used.
The term ‘hypernarrative’ could be considered a synonym of
‘modular narrative’, but it seems to refer more specifically
to computer interfaces, to narratives transmitted by a hypertext. As Jon
Dovey argues:
Strictly speaking, ‘hypertext’ refers to
works which are made up from discrete units of material, each of which
offer the user a number of choices as to which unit is next encountered.
That is to say: pieces of text which carry within them paths to other
texts.
The work itself is made up from discrete bodies of representational content,
linked together in a web connection, which the user must navigate.
[27]
Even if we extend the concept of hypernarrative to non-digital media,
it still differs from ‘modular narrative’. Hypernarrative
indicates more a networking, rhizomatic structure, where a hypertext retrieves
data and texts from potentially endless other data bases, while in a modular
structure the choice of the data bases and the kinds of data (modules
which are homologous with each other) are limited.
Mediatized theatre as ideal stage for contemporary modular narratives
Contemporary ‘mediatized performance’ with a narrative content
often presents modular structures for two main reasons: digital media
allow elements from a data base to be easily and quickly recombined ‘on
the fly’ and secondly, in contemporary culture there is a need for
participation, social meaning and identity.
With regard to the first reason the data base – interface relationship,
typical of digital media, also allows the manipulation and recombination
of elements of a data base very easily in a ‘live’ situation.
In VJ-ing for example, video clips from a digital data base are combined
‘live’ by a Video Jockey by means of a VJ software. ‘Mixing
softwares’ and devices are used in all kinds of performance with
video or digital sound.
Edgar Pêra uses no VJ software in his performance, but by connecting
analogue and digital video sources to the digital mixer and projector
he reduces all video elements to a digital code: the film episodes are
transformed into digital modules and reassembled during the performance
by the interface mixer-artist. The acting and singing of the actors mirror
or induce the video sequences.
The second aspect is that of social identity and participation built through
theatre. The structure of modular narratives can be successfully combined
with a kind of content which re-uses and reactualises collective values
and forms. Think about TV and the film ‘icons’ used by VJs
to involve the audience of young people that has grown up with such images
and to build through
them an ‘age community’.
Theatre as hypermedium allows the artist to combine different media, strengthening
the ‘effects’ of each of them in the ‘intermedial’
interaction. [28]
In the case of live media, both the medium theatre - where the performers
and the public ‘create’ the story while sharing the same space
and time - and the digital media (sampled and real time video mixed by
a digital mixer, mixing softwares, etc.) intensify the aspects of participation
and interaction.
In fact, modular narrative in a non-theatrical situation can also be participative
and popular, like some kinds of virtual communities and online role-playing
games. Nevertheless, from an anthropologic and psychological vantage point
the physical presence of two or more participants (author, spectator,
actor, etc.) in the same space reinforces the feeling of participation
and community. Theatre enhances the anthropologic aspect of modular narratives
as collective and archetypical narratives (cultural function) and as popular
culture (social field).
The Sudwestern Saga draws on the ‘colonisation myths’
of Western societies (the Western film genre) and combines them with the
local tradition of Fado. This combination of elements from different
traditions ‘translated’ into popular culture is very strong
in the commedia dell’arte and in most forms of popular live entertainment
as well.
To summarize the results of the comparison between The Sudwestern
Saga and the commedia dell’arte, we can say that the
saga has in common with the old genre the use of the theatrical dispositif
(theatre as hypermedium), the integration of different media (theatre
as acting, music, stage design, etc.), the cultural function (modular,
archetypical narratives), and, with all the differences due to the distant
historical situation, the field of cultural production (popular and
profane theatre).
Conclusion
The question of what kind of narrative emerges from a new media environment
is not a simple one. As Manovich notes, even if “the modernist notion
of medium specificity (‘every medium should develop its own unique
language’) is obsolete, we do expect computer narratives to showcase
new aesthetic possibilities.” We expect digital technologies to
identify with a certain kind of hypernarrative, ‘data base’
or ‘video games narratives’.
Nevertheless, even admitting that there is a prevalence of a certain narrative
structure in ‘digital culture’, my case study and the huge
corpus of comparative media studies indicate that this structure does
not account for all cultural forms created by digital media and that some
of the characteristics of new media narratives were already present in
older media.
Live media sometimes make use of the ‘digital’ data base –
interface relationship, but the kind of narrative that results from this
operation is determined by different factors: the theatrical hypermedium,
the social field, the cultural function and the several aspects of the
media involved in the performance.
In this perspective, The Sudwestern Saga can be defined as ‘live
media’, but also as ‘participative’ narrative, ‘modular’
narrative, ‘popular theatre’, ‘cine-concert’,
etc. Pêra’s work certainly belongs to the field of ‘live
media art’, because it is produced and presented in the art context
and because
it fosters the experimental use of digital media within a performative
situation.
Nevertheless, the assonance between the Saga and the commedia
dell’arte underlines the importance of the theatrical tradition
(as narratives and techniques) and of theatre as hypermedium in the definition
of this mediatized cultural form. Theatre incorporates cinema and video
and adapts these media to serve a narrative structure and participative
patterns that are theatrical and televisual rather than cinematographic.
We can say thus that in the case of The Sudwestern Saga the convergence
of theatre and digital media generated a cultural form which is at the
same time modular, performative, and participative.
-----------------------------------------------
References
[1] I distinguish ‘theatrical
performance’ from ‘performance’ in general. Theatre
is a cultural form based on four main elements: text, performer, audience,
theatre space. Performance is ‘every action which produces meaning’
in all kinds of cultural forms (reading a book or playing a game are performative
actions). In this article I use the word performance and theatre as synonymous
with ‘theatrical performance’.
[2] Interview with Edgar
Pêra in the World Wide Video Festival 2004 catalogue on
CD-rom.
[3] For the concept
of ‘nostalgia’ in Western films, see Nanna Verhoeff, After
the Beginning: Western Before 1915 (forthcoming, Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press, fall 2005).
[4] Quotes from the
video Guitarra com Gente lá dentro.
[5] Lisbon, Amsterdam,
Beijing and Milan.
[6] Interview with Edgar
Pêra, 1 April 2005.
[7] http://www.art-u.it/Perform.htm
[8] Interview with Edgar
Pêra, 1 April 2005.
[9] Interview with Edgar
Pêra, 1 April 2005.
[10] For the concept
of dispositif see Frank Kessler, Notes on ‘dispositif’,
work in progress, version presented at the Utrecht Media Research
Seminar in August 2004, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.
[11] Bourdieu, Pierre
(1993) The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature,
Cambridge: PolityPress.
The reference to open and popular narratives in the name of Pêra’s
work triggered the comparison with an older form of popular performance,
the commedia dell’arte.
[12] Oreglia, Giacomo
(1968) The Commedia dell’Arte, London: Methuen & Co
LTD, p.1
[13] Henke, Robert
(2002) Performance and Literature in the Commedia dell’Arte,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.5
[14] Some examples
are the Sonar Festival in Spain, the Toonfestival and
the Sonic Acts festivals in The Netherlands, new media art festivals
like Ars Electronica, Transmediale, Deaf festival,
etc.
[15] Metz,C. (1975)
“Le film de fiction et son spectateur”, Communications
23.
[16] According to
the Dutch curator Hans Beekman, "live Cinema" stands for the
simultaneous creation of sound and image in real time by sonic and visual
artists who collaborate to elaborate concepts on equal terms (http://www.live-cinema.org).
[17] In the press
release of the Netmage festival, 4th edition (Bologna, 21-24
January, 2004), ‘live media’ are described as “performance
practices that use, and integrate, audio-visual devices (digital, electronic,
cinematographic, technological, pre technological etc.) to construct an
active relationship with the
audience… the wide range of instruments and solutions that are used
by artists, musicians, technicians and crews from vastly differing starting
points: going beyond, though obviously not excluding, the forms of mixing
sound and image that are covered by the term VJ-ing… We are aiming
for innovation and originality, for forms that reflect the pleasure of
risk-taking, a taste for experimentation, originality.”
[18] Rulewicz, Wanda
“A Grammar of Narrativity: Algirdas Julien Greimas”, The
Glasgow Review, Issue 3, Summer 1995, http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/STELLA/COMET/glasgrev/issue3/rudz.htm
[19] Bal, Mieke (1985)
Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, Toronto:
University if Toronto Press, p. 8.
[20] Oreglia, Giacomo,
ib., p. 18.
[21] Jonard, Norbert
(1982) La commedia dell’arte, Lyon: L’Hermès,
p.72-73.
[22] In the on line
English dictionary Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com)
“modular” means: 1- Of, relating to, or based on a module
or modulus. 2- Designed with standardized units or dimensions, as for
easy assembly and repair or flexible arrangement and use: modular furniture;
modular homes.
[23] Turco, Marina
, “Changing histories, changing practices. An instance of confrontation
between video art and television”, E-View, no. 2, 2004, p7-10, http://comcom.uvt.nl/e-view/04-2/inhoud.htm
[24] Manovich Lev,
Database as a Symbolic Form, in http://www.manovich.net
[25] Manovich, ib.
[26] For an overview
on interactive narratives see Hales, Chris , “New Paradigms <>New
Movies: Interactive Film and New Narrative Interfaces”, in New
Screen Media: Cinema/Art/Narrative, Martin Rieser & Andrea
Zapp editors, London: British Film Institute, 2002, p.105-119.
[27] Dovey, Jon “Notes
Toward a Hypertextual Theory of Narrative”, in New Screen Media:
Cinema/Art/Narrative, Martin Rieser & Andrea Zapp editors, London:
British Film Institute, 2002, p.135.
[28] For the concept
of theatre as hypermedium see Kattenbelt, Chiel “Theatre as the
Art of The Performer and the Stage of Intermediality”, in Intermediality
in Theatre and Peformance (forthcoming) Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi,
2005.
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