ASSEMBLAGE (work in progress #2)

The process of ontographic list-making produces a system of interconnected objects that establishes a nonlinear narrative structure. K-films can be seen to operate in this way*. With each selection made by the user a new list of thumbnail options are presented to them to select from. By navigating their way through the video clips they begin to understand how each video is connected.

Instead of depending on a conventional, linear structure of documentary that hinges upon explicit dramatic cues to progress the user through the narrative (causality), K-films generate a variety of narrative combinations and leave it up to the user to interpret how they are connected. The focus of the user shifts from identifying a logical sequence of information (i.e. a linear understanding of a topic) to a more poetic, holistic understanding that emphasises the connections between each piece of information (nonlinear).

In Placing the Bend for example, why is footage of a tree trunk connected to footage of moss, which in turn is connected to footage of the Yarra river?

The interest becomes more about why these different objects are connected, not what the objects are doing. The actions of the objects bares no consequence to the overall narrative within a Korsakow film. There is no direct cause and effect enacted by the objects within each clip of footage. We assemble the information in a different manner to traditional modes, drawing meaning from the implicit connections between each video clip rather than the actions played out within the video clip.

Instead of focusing upon what has passed, we are constantly searching for what will come next. In this way, we are “future-geared” to search and identify how the upcoming information is tied to the present information. Unlike a conventional, linear narrative that bases it’s progression on the past events that have occurred within the assemblage of information, a nonlinear poetic narrative works in a way that promotes a proactive investigation to discover the connections between each piece of information.

We may not be able to comprehend these connections until we have viewed the interactive documentary several times. The connections between a tree trunk, moss and a river may only become apparent on the third or fourth time of engaging with the documentary. In this example, vertical objects are linked with circular, which in turn are connected to horizontal objects. One reading of these connections may be exploring the unity between flora and the river within the BOI. Another reading may relate to the juxtaposition between slow and fast rates of change within that region.

The connections we find from exploring the “contours” (Bernstein, 22) of the documentary become a strong thematic point in the overall narrative, revealing the purpose of the assemblage and how it is to be read.

The level of engagement an interactive documentary enables not only alters our temporal-orientation in reading a narrative, but as Manovich explains, adjusts our focus from understanding narratives as fixed syntagms to variable paradigms.

Manovich appropriated Saussure’s semiological terms in order to describe the shift from media that was traditionally temporally-focused to New Media that places more emphasis upon the spatial orientation of information. Manovich describes a syntagmatic system as a sequence of elements strung together temporally, whereas a paradigmatic system chooses each new element from an established set of related elements. In this way, Manovich summarises the syntagm as explicit whilst the paradigm is implicit; ‘one is real and the other is imagined’ (203).

For example, when we assemble our impression of the BOI we may think back to how we originally experienced it. This may begin with driving into the region on an unsealed road, walking down an unkempt trail into a densely forested area, steadying ourselves as the trail descends before coming across the river. This is a syntagmatic system of events, recollecting the chronological sequence of events in relation to how we experienced it. A paradigmatic recapitulation of events would be nonlinear in construction, emphasising the spatial dynamics of the region; these types of trees are within this region; there are different types of trails throughout the region that look like this, and this. And so on.

Paradigms can be seen as lists whereas syntagms can be seen as timelines. For quite some time media has been presented in a fixed, linear syntagm that imposes a diachronic assemblage of information. With the advent of New Media, Manovich explains that the paradigmatic structure has been given a new lease of life. Many interactive documentaries offer an opportunity to explore the information presented paradigmatically (spatially) rather than syntagmatically (temporally). This is the main difference between webdocs and idocs. The former appropriates it’s structure from the traditional style of documentary: a linear narrative that allows “exit points” to multimedia, contextualising information that deepens the users understanding of the topic. The latter draws upon the autonomous functionality afforded by search engines and encyclopaedia’s that allow the user to navigate freely through an spatial array of information.

Here are two examples. The first is the webdoc Prison Valley (2009), second is the idoc Water Life (2009).

Korsakow functions in quite a different way to Manovich’s syntagm and paradigmatic structuring. The algorithms embedded within the program react to user interaction by generating new assemblages of clips based upon the keyword associations you have made at the projects conception.

These keywords offer a different style of paradigm, enabling sparse distributed connections rather than connections made from the similarities of each video clip. Likened more to the functionality of a homograph, K-films operate by linking a variety of information under the one keyword. Keywords in K-films, like a homograph, represent the unification of a variety of meanings.

A homograph is one term that means a variety of things. For example, the word “close” means either to “close a door” or “become close to another.” The term “wave” is a physical gesture (i.e. “I waved goodbye to them”) as well as an environmental occurrence (i.e. “waves crashing on the shore”).

The author has the ability to compose any keyword within Korsakow and determine what it is linked to. The author may decide to link the keyword “vertical” with everything that grows upwards or is physically portrayed as vertical within the BOI. However, poetic assemblages within Korsakow generally work best when a keyword does not function in such a literal sense. For example, instead of linking a tree trunk and a cliff to the keyword vertical, the author will form a much more interesting K-film if he chooses the word “rough” or “tower.”

In this instance, an unpredictable narrative structure will emerge as the user jumps from quite disparate and seemingly incongruous video clips of “rough” things or depictions of “towers”. The less logical and literal the keywords are the more poetic the narrative structure will become, allowing the user a variety of ways to interpret the assembled narrative.

AI makes us slack

An interesting article in Sunday’s Age (the full version can be found here), exploring the idea that the search engines and other artificial intelligence software packages that are becoming much more common these days are impacting on our own thought processes in a negative way. We are no longer asking why the search engine has found that particular information, instead, we are asking what it is. The statistical probability AI systems rely upon to come to their conclusions can be skewed, especially in personalised searches, as you can see in the above example.

I feel this relates to my research in the broad scheme of things. How we categorise data dictates how it will be accessed. Whether a folksonomy, taxonomy or associated relations, the way in which we “code” the sparse distributed representations of the information determines the form it will take within the system/software (i.e. how you will be able to access it).

The different combinations data assembles in defines your experience of it, an “organic narrativity” emerges from the raw information. The more you interact with the data the better understanding you can achieve, as you begin to understand how the information has been categorised/filed away in this system of operation. In Korsakow, understanding the keywords used to categorise the video files (SNU’s) will reveal the premise of the project. The keywords that are harder to find require more time to map out the commonalities and “contours” (Bernstein) of the work.

I am at the point where I feel I must switch hats and pull together the other Lit Review necessary for my exegesis and research. This involves revisiting the research I have previously done on interactive documentaries (idocs) and re-orientating the themes to suit my major research project. I feel I must first flesh out some of the similarities I see idocs have with placemaking. Put another way, how creating an idoc of a place will represent a more holistic depiction than a conventional, linear documentary ever could.

Here are some of the similarities I can think of off the cuff:

• How the content is experienced dictates how it will be filed and therefore accessed

As briefly touched upon in my comments above, how we categorise either the facets we encounter in a space, or the video clips we SNU’ify in Korsakow determines the various sequences the information will make within our mind (as is the case with placemaking) or the K-Film. When we understand the connections made between each piece of information we begin to understand the form of the place or K-Film. By form, I do not mean a fixed structure. Rather, a dynamic set of behaviours that governs the various permutations the information will sequence in. As this idea of form is variable, both placemaking and K-Films share a kaleidoscopic quality that is impossible to pin-down into a clear definition. Hence the density, and complexity of placemaking.

•  “Routes rather than roots” (Massey)

The form of placemaking and K-Films is modulated by a series of flows or routes that step in and out of operation within the our conception of a place or a k-film. These flows can be seen as particular themes or categorise that can reoccur in the sequence as a motif or manifest in different forms. The tagging cloud Korsakow employs when you designate a keyword to a video clip acts as a particular route that can make up one of the major flows of a K-Film.

Similarly, one of a hospitals main routes could be seen as it’s sterile features (i.e. disposable bins for syringes; disinfectants; flat, clean, white surfaces, etc.) that is a particular defining aspect of it’s placeness. Therefore, routes and flows are governed by how the information is categorised in the first place. Considering the descriptions/keywords we use of particular experiences change over time due to perceiving them in different circumstances, this impacts upon how the routes function within the sequence of place or k-films.

• Musicality

Correlations can be made between the form a k-film takes and a piece of music. I also see this similarity in how we construct places. All three modalities we use (in the context of this post i condense the five senses we use to experience places to the one modality, the other two obviously are nonlinear audiovisual for K-Films and audio for music) depend upon a rise and fall of information in an ongoing process of becoming.

A brief description of becoming from my draft exegesis:

Becoming is a term often used to indicate the time it takes for raw stimulus – often physical objects or behaviours – to become a stable, “fixed” impression within one’s own consciousness. In the case of placemaking, Cresswell uses this term to explain the process of making a space populated with unidentified objects, into a place of meaning populated with significant objects. Significant in the respect of having been experienced, and from this experience a relationship has formed between perceiver and object.

As a gross simplification, we experience music in both a qualitative and quantitative sense. The former when an exacting note has been reached that truly resonates with us. The latter when a chorus or similar melody is repeated within the one piece to illustrate it’s significance or establish a closer bond between narrative and perceiver/user.

The depth of quality reached with a single note can be seen to signify how we spatially interpret music whereas the repetitive nature of a chorus utilizes the temporality of the narrative world. Both of these channels within the modality of music function in quite unique ways, generating the form the piece takes and thus instigating the assemblage of meaning the perceiver/user comes away with.

Claude Lévi-Strauss characterized music as “le langage moins le sens” (language minus meaning) (Mythologique 579) (Tarasti, 283), an intriguing view that sums up the openness of music. We can affix our own meaning to particular melodies, interpreting them whichever way we like. Of course, there is a language of music, certain notes and tones denoting particular meanings, but the sequence that comes into being assembles to mean whatever the listener interprets it to mean.

I see this same becoming of a meaning, a poiesis if you will, analogous to k-films and placemaking. Poiesis denotes a “revealing” of something. Differing from the Greek term Praxis, which means the act of doing, Poiesis is often used to articulate what the Praxis has created – the instance of an artefact evoking a meaning or sensation. To follow on with this trend of Greek terminology, a poiesis normally initiates an epoch – something that is given and retained. Significant experiences normally encourage an epoch to arise that solidifies gnosis (“to know” or “knowing”).

I digress.

The form of k-films and placemaking is similar music in the way that all three initiate and act out a similar type of becoming. 

• Seamon’s “Place-Ballet” is similar to the rhythm you initiate in K-Films by selecting and experiencing different length SNU’s

The rhythm of becoming can be explained in Seamon’s schema body-ballet = time-space routines = place-ballets (Cresswell, 34). The habitual routines we act out on a day-to-day basis sequentially link together to form a time-space routine, where several activities/interactions with the environment we are in creates a routine. As we are exposed to the multifaceted nature of the place within any given routine, we establish a relationship with the place. Seamon believes that every time we perform these routines we are creating place-ballets, initiating multiple flows of interactivity to create a networked sense of place.

• A sequence/assemblage that relies upon motion (space) and pause (place) (Tuan, 8)

Tarasti describes becoming as breaking into two separate categories.

In musical terms, Becoming is realised by the symbiotic relationship of what Tarasti calls the two modalities of music: “being” and “doing.” As he describes it, ‘Being means a state of rest, stability, and consonance; doing is synonymous with musical action: event, dynamism, and dissonance’ (Tarasti, Narrative Across Media, 296). Both play an important role in how we experience music and also K-Films. He goes on to say that the ‘alternation between tension, doing, and de-tension, being, forms a tiny “narrative” program, or, to speak metaphorically, a kind of “organic narrativity” (Italics mine, Ibid).

If we were to expand on Seamon’s schema of place being a ballet of flows and routines, we can see that the moments of pause in a dance sequence is the Being, whereas the instances of activity are the Doing. The tension and de-tension within a dance routine creates a rhythm to the dance that allows a form to emerge. Applying famed humanist geographer Tuan’s framework to this analogy we can see how the dancer in motion is transitory and therefore cannot be properly defined (symbolising space). However, when the dancer pauses, they orientate themselves in a space and thus establish a place.

• Materiality-Meaning-Practice

All three modalities rely upon the motor schema of interaction and reflection. For this to occur there must first be a material facet to interact with. Next, a praxis that engages with that facet. And finally, reflection in order to evaluate the outcome(s) of the praxis.

• If place can be seen as a ‘container of experiences’ (Casey quoted by Cresswell, 86), space can be viewed as an empty container. By this rationale, an interface offers the same opportunity to construct experiences/narratives from an “empty” space.

There are two sides to an idoc. As it exists within a web browser the same principles apply to that of any other type of web page. There is a front-end and a back-end. The front exhibiting the interface and the virtual facets that the user can interact with. The back-end storing the data and the algorithms or system of behaviours that govern how the project reacts to user interactions. As the raw information is hidden from view, in the back-end of the website, the interface can be seen as an empty space whereby interactions with the virtual facets reveals these experiences into an assemblage that informs the user what form the project takes. By understanding the form the user gleans an insight into the premise or essence of the project and how it can fit together in a variety of ways to produce a place.

All three modalities (music, placemaking and k-films) all rely upon gauging what form the information takes. The form is governed by how the information has originally been categorised within a closed system (the duration of a musical piece, a locale, or a k-film project); as a folksonomy, taxonomy, etc. The connections that are made between each piece of information creates a network of interrelated data that are in a constant state of readjustment and categorisation. This is why making a k-film about placemaking will portray the multifaceted nature and the changeable form of place.

Climbing the wrong tree

 

Just met up with Adrian. Shellshocked once again. I feel like I waste time pursuing topics I feel are important. Are my instincts that wrong? Should I disregard my intuition when researching for academic purposes? I feel mentally exhausted and somewhat over the whole investigation. I know I just need to allow my brain a chance to rest before attempting to give it another slog. But right now, right now I feel like running away.

I have been pursuing what I saw as a correlation between the geographical terms chorology and chronology with the literary terms paradigm and syntagm. Unfortunately, this was a pointless exercise as Adrian believes there is no such similarities. I should instead focus upon the “messiness” of placemaking and how this can be best represented in interactive media (i.e. a K-Film).

We had a lengthy discussion about what a place is. I have been interpreting placemaking as more of a personal, intimate journey an individual experiences with an environment; not the socio-political construct of a place within a larger consensus. I feel that our intimate experience of a place informs the communities sense of place as much as the larger, contextual guidelines that we employ when understanding what a place is. Assembling individual experiences of a place I feel is similar to assembling the independent elements of a Korsakow film in order to construct a place or narrative.

How wrong I was.

Adrian requires I look into placemaking in a more critically rigorous manner, noting the myriad of ways one can view the formation of places. I need to strip a lit review out of Cresswell’s intro to place and start to write about why and how does interactive media allow me to represent the multifaceted nature of place.

How and why is place messy?

It’s messy because there is no simple formula we can draw on to construe how we make places. Places can be actual and virtual. They can be small or large. Fictional or factual. Crowded or sparse. Transitory or stationary. In sum, they are heterogenous enterprises.

They are both socially constructed as well as personally constructed. Their mercurial nature makes them hard to pinpoint and define. Hence why Tuan uses the term “pause” rather than “static.” Places cannot be fixed. Similar to how we learn, we assemble pieces of information together as a constant stream of incoming and outgoing expression. The more recent the information is, or the higher quality it may be seen to be, can influence previous held beliefs and knowledge paradigms. A place can also change in this manner. Our understanding of any given place alters as we experience it more. Our knowledge base expands; transforms. Information is constantly being overwritten.

Anyway. I am going away this weekend. There will be no internet connection. I will use this time to write. Write. Write. And write some more.

Tonight and tomorrow morning I will endeavour to finalise my ethics application now that I’ve had a chat with Neal – who’s on the Ethics committee. I think I was going wrong by presuming that leaving interviewee’s anonymous would simplify the ethics procedure. Neal has suggested I throw such a notion out the window and stipulate that all participants will be identified within the documentary. Some extensive redrafting is now needed.