Here in the land of the midnight sun we are getting some amazing sunsets ar around midnight.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
Thesis Extract- "Reading Focalization"
Focalization provides a sense of
perspective in reading that sets up a shifting structure of first, second and
third-person address in the works. Focalization is “the perspective in terms of
which the narrated situations and events are presented; the perceptual or
conceptual position in terms of which they are rendered (Genette)” (Prince Dictionary of Narratology 32). Focalization
establishes reader perspective in relation to the narratives of the digital
works through the interconnectedness of situations, events, and perceptual and
conceptual elements via a single point of awareness. In this sense,
focalization is “the textual representation of specific (pre)existing sensory
elements of the text’s story world as perceived and registered (recorded,
represented, encoded, modeled and stored) by some mind or recording device
which is a member of this world” (Margolin 42). The inter-relationships between
these focalizing elements represent a logic based on third-person address within
the structures of narrative. In Egypt,
Jeanette relates the activities and speech of Ross to us, the readers,from such
a third-person perspective. Second-person perspective is present in Last Meal Requested in the speech audio
of victims and perpetrators of violence and in the dream diaries of Dreamaphage, where “you” are drawn into
the temporal presence of narrative events. Herman classifies this second person
address as “address you,” which in turn can be broken into “fictionalized
address” (from within the story world) and “actualized address” which “exceeds
the frame (or ontological threshold) of a fiction to reach the audience” (quoted
in Bell and Ensslin 2011 314-16). I relate this excess, where address spills
over into the life of the reader, to narrative metalepsis. In the following
analysis, I will attach addressive modes to the focalizer in narrative as a
means of identifying the restrictions the two features combined placed upon
reading. In order for narrative to develop, the reader must obey the logic of
perspective these modes represent as part of the interpretation and navigation
of the text.
Perspective
operates in narrative by filtering events, places and actions through the
focalizing character or voice as part of reading. In such a situation, “the
difference between the nonfocalized narrative and the internally focalized narrative
lies in the agent ‘who sees’” (Bal 2006 10). The focalizing character sees in Façade (the guest) and Egypt (Jeanette), which drives narrative
progression forward for the reader. In each work, only the focalizing character
perceives a particular element and, via that perception, so too does the
reader. Bal identifies the role of the focalizer as “an interpretation, a
subjective content. What we see before our mind’s eye has already been
interpreted. This makes room for reading of the complex structure of
focalization” (Narratology 166). It
is important to understand that the perception of the focalizing agent in the
digital works is often multimedia, including but not restricted to the visual.
In Dreamaphage and Last Meal Requested, nonfocalized narrative
occurs from the positioning of the reader as the work is manipulated. Any
focalization here is achieved through a mixture of design specifics and
address, which is consistent with Genette’s statement that “focalized can be
applied only to the narrative itself” (1988 73). Focalization in this case is the sum of the narrative
structure in how it focuses reader attention and direction.
The focalizer has
agency in narrative, not exclusively as an embodied agent but as a set of
structures operating on the same temporal and spatial plane as the addressee (See
Bal 2006 14). These structures shift during the course of the narrative, and
the addressee follows this during the course of the interaction with the text.
Agency in focalization can be developed further according to whether the
narrator is omniscient or restricted in her knowledge. Bal, referring to
Genette, highlights this difference:
Genette distinguishes the
narrative whose narrator is traditionally called omniscient (the narrator who
knows, if not ‘everything,’ at least more than the character knows) from whose
narrator knows only what a given character knows. This character, ‘from whom’
the narrative is recounted, is the ‘focalized character’ (Bal 2006 9-10).
Genette’s internal or character
focalization as a means of determining literally ‘who sees’ is a common
technique in the digital works. In Egypt,the
focalized character is the first-person narrator Jeanette, who leads the reader
through the narrative revealing events at the same pace in which she herself
experiences them. In Dreamphage and Façade, the focalized character is the
avatar character of the reader, an interactive presence in the representational
space of the works. In Last Meal
Requested, the focalized character shifts between a first-person avatar
spatial perspective generated by visual and auditory positioning, and the second
and third-person narrators in each section of the work who relate the events to
the reader. In these situations, the focalizing character and focalization in
general can be understood as “the relation of knowledge between the narrative
instance and the character” (Kuhn 263). The reader is channeled by
focalization, establishing perspective and guiding navigation through the
digital work both as a material instantiation and in the interpretation of
narrative.
Narrative focalization
emerges as part of address; however, it is not a constant in the digital works.
As Nelles correctly points out, “focalization is always variable over the
course of a narrative” (Nelles 372). Nelles is just one of several scholars to further
re-evaluate Genette’s narratological concept of focalization (1972, 1983, 1988),
particularly in relation to its visual slant. Nelles redefines focalization
beyond the visual components of narrative originally associated with it to
include all the senses of the reader (366). In this way, Nelles (1990) along with
Bal (1997, 2006) and Kuhn (2009), refine Genette’s concepts to include mixed
media narratives, in an approach that can be called post-Genettian. The focal
point in the narrative structure results in the reader sharing the visual,
spatial and temporal perspective of a character. This perspective can be shared
via reported speech, or first-person audio or in an architecturally derived point
of view such as in Façade. The effect
of this arrangement for the reader, as Bal points out, is that narrative is based
on perspective. A level of control is thus asserted over reading via the
limiting nature of focalization, which is multimedia and that this dissertation
argues is effective in limiting and guiding the possibilities for reading.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Monday, July 02, 2012
Lecture Berlin 8th July 'The Folk of Digital Primitve'
The Folk of Digital Primitive
"This is not an urban avant-garde but a diffuse collection of people who came of age in a world were the image knows no boarder and sounds are free. Many live outside the major centres but communicate and publicise their work via the Net. Dowloading, uploading, forums and streamed media has created a global network of digital primitives who play the sort of folk music that few dreamed of 20 years ago. However, the present day bone and electricity groups follow in the footsteps of such luminaries as the Sun City Girls, The Flower Travelling Band, to name but two.". Jim Barret
The Internet in the last decade has produceed a global network of music made by low-fi, at home, DIY groups and released on CDRs by tiny music labels. Bands such as The Jewelled Antler Collective, Sunburned Hand of the Man and The North Sea have plied their sounds on labels such as Foxy Digitalis, Secret Eye, Manhand, Music Your Mind Will Love You and Fonal Records. This sonic lecture will examine the rise of this unamed and untamed musical genre. From his personal experience as founding member of the group 6majik9 and the Music Your Mind Will Love You collective amongst others, Jim Barret will talk about the intersecting Internet communities of these bands, the sounds they make and the creative arts model they represent.
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