0.
guide 1.
introduction 2.
method as field of discussion
3. practice
4. theory
5. conclusion and further discussions
| 4.
theory |
4.1 the dialectic of “reading” and “writing” Media Education 4.2 the novelty and distinctiveness of digital media forms Digital Media Research 4.3 multimodal digital media and visualised culture A matter of method? 4.4 “artifacts of expression” and “expressive artifacts” Exploring theory through practice |
4.4.1 Artifacts of Expression. Production In addition to primary (firsthand) experience of the making, that is, learning to be able “to do” contrasting “mediated knowledge” gained through secondary experiences (e.g. Jarvis in The Practitioner-Researcher 1999:37), there might also be a chance to challenge and thereby refine theoretical assumptions through practice. In Making Media Buckingham et al. term this “Practical work as deconstruction” and one out of four partly overlapping versions of practice-based media learning. (Buckingham et al. 1995:6) [65. all versions listed]. Practical work as deconstruction In an experimental and collaborative context such as Extended, with an articulated “New Media Learning”-object of the activity, we were able to participate actively in the compositions, hence occasionally get the opportunity to create multimedia performances that explored, or referring to Buchingham, “deconstructed” theoretical knowledge. An overt theoretical construction to be deconstructed through the collaborative multimedia performance context of Extended, was the relationship between performing live bodies and performing media, much evident in my term paper “Extended – Mediert protagonist I Live performance” (Sem 2003) elaborating ways of challenging the dichotomy “liveness – mediatised” through practice [66. short on term paper]. The potential of challenging theory through practice, will be discussed in more detailed here, this time with reference to the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy put forward by Bolter & Grusin in Remediation (1999). However, it would be imprecise to term the inversion of this logic “deconstruction”. What became apparent already with the term paper on Extended was the methodological problem of giving creative decisions theoretical, deconstructive motivations in retrospect. I tried to solve this by separating the production-decisions that challenged the dichotomy liveness-mediatised through practice, into “implicit” and “explicit” challenges of theory. The following report on the adaptation of the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy into multimedia performance context is to be considered such implicit challenge of theory, or exploration rather than deconstruction of theory through creative practice [67. inadequacies of “deconstruction” tied to the critical paradigm]. Exploring theory through practice In "Dramaturgy in Building. Multimedia Performances: Devising and Analysing" Torunn Kjølner and Janek Satkowski (2003), discussing multimedia-production designs, suggest that whereas artists tend to think in terms of unique products “(…) designers and researchers more often aim at creating prototypes and other kinds of master references” (2003:127). These categorisations correspond well with my identification of the two main interacting activity systems in Extended and their sometimes contradictory artifacts and objects for the activity (see contradictions within the performance- and research activity as referred to in chapter 3. Practice, section 3.2.4). Whereas the choreography students in Extended were artistically educated and provided an expressive, dance-specific understanding of communication, the academically trained media-students may be said to provide a more abstract perspective on communication, adapting for instance compositional knowledge and terms from other media. These included montage-techniques from film studies, the twin-concept “story–discourse” from narratology, notions of non-linearity and, as will be elaborated further in the following passage, the conceptual apparatus of the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy from so called new media theory (see earlier discussion of “digital media” contra “new media” in section 2.4.2 specified terms). These adaptations may all be understood in terms of Liestøl´s “topical grid” [68. origin of concept] and the visa versa of synthetic-analytic method that entangle the clear distinction of analytic and synthetic; “an inversion of analytical concepts for constructive purposes, that is a reversion of the traditional sequence between object and concept in the humanities” (Liestøl 2003:409). A close relation between practice and theory may not only improve analytical capabilities - that is, to enrich interpretation by way of knowledge from the constructive domain. On the grounds that humanistic competence (e.g. rhetoric, genres, signification, narratives) might in some cases “exceed the depth and detail of the insights operationalised by developers” (Liestøl 2003:406), construction might be influenced by means of a humanistic knowledge base. One of the media-theoretical concepts that I found helpful both creatively and collaboratively as articulated knowledge was the “double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy”. Through interdisciplinary dialogue, this conceptual apparatus were adapted into the performance context and inverted into a creative and constructive tool by live movements and digital media. In Dias-Kommonen´s terms, this immaterial tool informed and influenced the collaborative performances as creative artefact of expression. The double logic will be presented briefly below. The double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy In Remediation. Understanding New Media (1999) Bolter and Grusin describe how knowledge of the relationship between old and new media becomes important to understand new digital media. According to the authors this relation is characterised by “remediation”: a process where the representation of one medium is appearing in another medium. The term “remediation” suggests a conceptualisation of this process located between re-mediation and remedy, that is, a way to improve mediation. This is based on Bolter and Grusin´s conviction that all medias “act” as if they (the questionably personified medias) were in a constant rivalry about status in our culture. Bolter and Grusin has conceptualised this rivalry as remediation according to a double logic of the strategies “immediacy” and “hypermediacy” (Bolter & Grusin [1999] 2000). The authors assert that hypermediacy and immediacy (or transparency as it is also called throughout the volume), are opposite manifestations of the same desire - the desire to get past the limits of representation and to achieve the real. The real is defined in terms of the viewer”s experience: “(…) it is that which evoke an immediate (and therefore authentic) emotional response. Transparent digital applications seek to get to the real by bravely denying the fact of mediation” (Bolter & Grusin [1999] 2000:53). Hypermediacy is regarded the diametrically opposite of immediacy, though at the same time being a part of the overall strategy of immediacy (hence the expression “the double logic”, instead of e.g. “dichotomy”). Hypermediacy is a “(…) immediacy that grows out of the frank acknowledgment of the medium and is not based on the perfect visual re-creation of the world. In such cases, we do not look through the medium in linear perspective; rather, we look at the medium” (Bolter and Grusin [1999] 2000:81). As I read Remediation, contrary to the strategy of immediacy, the represented is not what is achieved as real and authentic by hypermediacy, but the mediation itself. Digital media draws attention to the mediation itself, and hence the hypermediated real, primarily by “multiplying mediation” (Bolter & Grusin [1999] 2000:53). Correlating to Liestøl´s “inversion of analytical concepts for constructive purposes” the following questions arises. How did we conceptually adapt the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy into the interdisciplinary performance context as a creative tool? How did we invert the adapted theoretical interpretation into constructive artefacts of expression? To adapt and to invert theoretical understanding is of course interrelated processes. I have chosen to separate Liestøls´ “inversion” into a conceptual (to adapt) and constructive (to invert) act of translation in order to get at the contextual challenge of informing multimedia performance practice with theory from another, seemingly remote field. The double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy adapted to performance-context In “Research into the development of digital media as an interdisciplinary field based in the sciences and the humanities”, Liestøl emphasises how interdisciplinary collaboration between knowledge domains that are traditionally remote requires teamwork (Liestøl 2001: 51). Part of this teamwork is what I have termed adaptation of theories and concepts: “Methods, theories and concepts must be made compatible and translatable in order to ease and further the communication within the research group” (Listøl 2001: 52). Such an approach may well be linked to one of the main comprehensions in cultural historical activity theory, that of multi-voicedness: “It is a source of trouble and a source of innovation, demanding actions of translation and negotiation” (Engström 2001:136) (see section 3.2.2. Multi-voicedness). In the interdisciplinary and multi-voiced collaboration Extended, means of communication became crucial. We needed to develop a shared vocabulary. As media-students we had to understand concepts from the field of art, dance and choreography, and try to make our theoretical knowledge useful in the context. This was a process of translating terms into everyday language and adapting knowledge compatible to the collaborative context, from both sides. Apart from emphasising the terms “looking through” and “looking at” to explain the more complex double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy, the double logic needed to be adapted to the staged multimedia dance-performance context. In Extended “the medium” was different than the remediating, 2-dimensional medias discussed in Remediation by Bolter and Grusin. Extended was a 3-dimensional-performance space. The performing artists were physically present and a mediated part of the multiplied mediation only conceptually through the “stage-canvas”, corresponding to the now articulated definition of multimodal and multimedia performance as multimodal text [see definition of "multimodal" (on mouse over) section 2.4.2 (on click)]. As performances are temporal entities of analysis, the sequences are read and redefined in relation to the previous sequence and the next. In Extended, the double logic was at play between sequences commenting on each others strategies of authenticity . This was at least how we adapted the double logic to the performance context of Extended. The next paragraph will report shortly on how the adaptation of immediacy and hypermediacy was inverted for constructive purposes into digital artifacts of expression. Inverted hypermediacy into digital artefacts of expression The double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy were inverted into digital media artifacts in a variety of ways in the production process of Extended. Although they are interrelated strategies, all trying to get past representation in order to awake an authenticity that may grow out of the acknowledgment of the medium (understood here broadly), I have listed three main strategies of hypermediacy applied in Extended: 1. Altering the attention from the traditional stage-lit and moving performer towards the performing dynamic technology. |
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| 2. Displaying digital hardware as part of the scenography (props) and as part of the choreography (performers operating digital tools such as projectors). |
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| 3.
Exaggerating digital features by repetition and distribution: Digital
media”s ability of repetition, storage and distribution were
exaggerated and at play with live/recorded video to confront the audience
with the difference of liveness and the mediatised, or lack of such
difference from a viewers perspective [69.
negation of “live performance”, Philip Auslander].
This strategy was used in the recorded feedback “duet”
in In Between,
but most extensively in Duskalplasjon
(see further description in section
3.3.2 In Between). The piece Duskalplasjon dwelt with mediated realities, juxtaposing live and mediated consistently to blur and question the boundaries and intrinsic characteristics of the virtual and physical object. Three monitors, three cameras and four projectors recorded and displayed both live and recorded material in various ways in order to accomplish the fragmented mediatedness that we wanted [70. details]. Unlike the other pieces in the series, the audience in Duskalplasjon were prevented from the open and frontal staged performance and the fixed point of biew, thus confronted with responsibility of their own acquisition. Either your position in the space made it possible for you to watch the mediated version only, the dance performers only, or reveal the mediatedness or hypermediacy by watching both. To create the individual experience, the multiplied hypermediacy generated by digital media was at play with space [71. the fluidity of the ever changing space, visualised culture]. |
4.4.2 Theory altered by practice 4.4.3 Expressive artifact. Post-production reflection 4.4.4 Theory altered by critical inquiry. The double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy, post-structuralism and performance theory |
4.4.5 Recap section 4.4 . Exploring theory through practice |
| |
Practice-based Method. Exploring Digital Media through
the Dynamics of Practice, Theory, and Collaborative, Multimedia Performance
Hovedoppgave i mediavitenskap for cand.filol
graden, Universitetet i Oslo, Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon, Mai
2006, Idunn Sem
