Narrative As Process: Subject, verb, predicate

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Narrative As Process Subject, verb, predicate
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What is a Narrative in the context of research?

• Facts/events organized to create meaning
• Basic form Some event is transformed into
  something else
• Usually something meaningful must occur,
  otherwise no reason to report the event
• In research, the areas of interest may be in a)
  The topic (its structure), b) the procedure (how
  the topic is handled/ transformed), or c) the
  outcome process
• So narrative is about giving something form
  and/or a context

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Inventory as narrative

• What are the elements/components of a system?
  (Cosmic Thing, Damien Ortega, 2002)
• Presentation of Disassembly Represent the system
  through its parts

• Let the parts express themselves
• Can the parts be re-organized in new ways?
• Can something new be re-invented through
  exploration from unintended, unexpected
  perspectives?

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What about processes?

• Create an extended list of multiple approaches
• Consider previously identified errors, discarded
  solutions, as potential resources
• Do research while developing (who else has
  addressed the topic and how)
• Design prototypes/model

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Iterative Approach

• Repeat the process
• The more often you repeat, the more you will push
  your self-imposed boundaries beyond their limits
• Redesign Leads to cohesion resolution
• Genotype Generic condition of a system
• Phenotype Any observed quality of an organism
  (variation)

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Transformational procedural experimental rules

• Modify the elements or the process
• Magnify, condense, re-arrange
• Transpose, reverse opposites, inside/out
• Substitute, combine, blend, distort

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Project Presentation

• Consider the results
• Project is a work-in-progress
• (Let the data speak for itself)
• Create Closure
• Re-format to fit presentation expectations
• (sometimes not!)

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Now Back to Time Based Narrative Definitions
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Narrative Structure (Todorov)

• Most basic narrative consists of a stable
  situation that is disrupted (transition)
  eventually ariving at a final stable situation
  which in some way is different from the start
• Start Situation definition
• Event Event, transition, action, verb, etc.
• Closure Creating meaning through closure
• Narrative normally evolves in time Time often
  represented in space (graph)
• But there are other forms (proposition,
  inventory, etc.)

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Literary/Cinematic Narrative (Gérard Genette)

• Order Temporal-order of the narrative
• Duration Timing structure of the narrative
• Frequency relationship between event and its
  retelling
• Mood Distance and perspective
• Distance Is it told in direct, indirect mode?
• Perspective point of view
• From a fixed position
• Outside the action
• Narrator knows less then the characters
• Voice What kind of narrator implied?

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Organizing the Image Visual Narrative Tools

• Sequence implies plot development
• Divided screen subsections imply sequence
• Shape Horizontal implies time length
• Spatial proximity object placed next to another
  signifies relationship
• Direction left-to-right, or reverse
• Scale signifies hierarchy
• Repetition Rhythmic emphasis

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Bibliography

• Conceptual Blockbusting, Adams
• Poetics of the Prose, Todorov
• Narrative Discourse, Genette