wild things and poetic space
DESCRIPTION
A presentation exploring the meeting points between Narratives, Spaces and Place.TRANSCRIPT
Wild things and Poetic SpaceVisual Narratives
“...rather than focusing on general, abstract situations or trends, stories are accounts of what happened to particular people – and of what it was like for them to experience what happened – in particular circumstances and with specific consequences.” [my emphasis]
(Herman 2009, Pp. 1-2)
How Important are objects and spaces seen to be in representations of narratives?
Though representations of people play an important role in describing stories, the representation of objects and spaces can change the significance of those people’s actions, while in certain contexts acting as important vehicles for the imaginations of viewers or readers.
Objects and People
• [All] stories are accounts of what happened to particular people.
• All narratives centre around representations of people.
• Can narratives centre around objects?• Can objects in narrative be representations of
people?
John Badham (1986)
Anthropomorphic Objects (and Spaces?)
Hayao Miyazaki (1997) Princess Mononoke
“Suppose that there be a machine, the structure of which produces thinking, feeling, and perceiving; imagine this machine enlarged but preserving the same proportions, so that you could enter it as if it were a miill. This being supposed, you might visit its inside;but what would you observe there? Nothing but parts which push and move each other, and never anything that could explain perception”Leibniz (1646-1716) (1840 cited in Dennett 1993, p. 412)
Joe Dante (1987) Inner Space
Objects People Spaces
What about ‘normal’ objects and spaces?
Barthes (1915-1980)
“...we see... that there is continuously a kind of breaking loose on the part of the object toward the infinitely subjective...” (Barthes [1964] 1994, p.181)
“...there is always a meaning which overflows the objects use...” (ibid)
Barthes (1915-1980)
“Every object touched by the loved being’s body becomes a part of that body, and the subject eagerly attaches himself [sic] to it.”(Barthes [1977] 2002, p.173)
Bachelard (1884-1962)
On the House:“...we shall see that the imagination functions
[strengthen our sense of reality] whenever the human being has found the slightest shelter: we shall see the imagination build ‘walls’ of impalpable shadows, comforts itself with the illusion of protection – or, just the contrary, tremble behind thick walls, mistrust the staunchest ramparts”. (Bachelard [1958] 1994, p.6)
On the Cellar:“... It is first and foremost the dark entity of the house, the one that partakes of the subterranean forces. When we dream there, we are in harmony with the irrationality of the depths.” (ibid, p.18)
Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975)
Julie Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (1999) The Gruffalo
Material Culture
Workbench at the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham. Photo by Karen Bryan (2009).
“ ‘Things’ … make up the totality of the physical world not as a raw mass of matter, but as a material culture with human associations … informed by meanings as fundamental as identity, life and death.”(Attfield 2000, p. 9)
Material Culture: where people, objects and spaces meet.
People
SpacesObjects
Alessi (1994) Anna G Corkscrew
you have to be looking to find it…
Psychogeography
Myst (1993)
Riven (1997)
‘Upper Case’ and ‘lower case’
Apple iMac by Jonathan Ive
Back to Narratives
Upper Case lower case
Warren Ellis (TBR) Excalibur
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller (1995 and 2005) Dark Pool and Opera for a Small Room
Giving objects and spaces narrativity
Eisner 2008, p.15
Jake Cress (1990)Oops no 9
Spaces
• Paths: “We can conceive of plot as a metaphorical network of paths” or “our image of a work can involve the paths of the protagonists around their world, bringing together time and space to shape a plot.” (see below, p 55)
• Containers: Spaces that create insides and outsides.• Portals: Could simply be a door through which a
character peers, but it could also be a magical link between distinct spaces and forms of imagination.
(for further reading see Bridgeman 2007, pp 52-65)
Laika Inc (2009) Coraline
Baz Luhrmann (1996) Romeo + Juliet
Daniel Libeskind (2001) Jewish Museum [Denmark and Berlin]
“...rather than focusing on general, abstract situations or trends, stories are accounts of what happened to particular people – and of what it was like for them to experience what happened – in particular circumstances and with specific consequences.” [my emphasis]
(Herman 2009, Pp. 1-2)
References
• Attfield, J (2000) Wild Things, Material Culture of Everyday Life. Oxford, Berg.• Bachelard, G ([1958] 1994) The Poetics of Space. Massachusetts, Beacon
Press.• Bakhtin, M. (1930) The Dialogical Imagination in McQuillan, M (2000) The
Narrative Reader. London, Routeledge.• Barthes, R ([1964] 1994) The Semiotic Challenge. Berkeley, University of
California Press.• Barthes, R ([1977] 2002) A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments. London, Random
House.• Bridgeman, T (2007) Time and Space. In Herman, D (ed.) Narrative.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.• Dennett, D (1993) Consciousness Explained. London, Penguin.• Herman, D (2009) Basic Elements of Narrative. West Sussex, Wiley-Blackwell.• Woodward, I (2007) Understanding Material Culture. London, Sage
Publications.