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| Transmedialization:
An interart transfer by Karin Wenz
1. Integration
One of the most important
conceptual elaboration of multimedia is Fluxus' idea of intermedia.
As defined by Dick Higgins, intermedia is the "art form appropriate
to people who say there can be no artificial boundaries between art
and life. If there can't be a boundary between art and life, there certainly
cannot be boundaries between art form and art form. For purposes of
history, of discussion, of useful distinction, one can refer to separate
art forms, but the meaning of intermedia is that our time often calls
for art forms that draw on the roots of several media, growing into
new hybrids" (Friedman 1989). Derived from reflections on intermedia
are the contemporary oppositions of mixed-media and intermedia, to distinguish
the illustrative mixture of text, image and sound from the organic combinations
as in visual poetry of the 1970s and 1980s. Important developments of
these concepts can be found in the theoretical discussion on experimental
poetry from the 1960's on, as stated in Friedrich Block's "The form
of media: the intermediality of visual poetry" and Philadelpho Menezes
"Poetics and Visuality".
In hypermedia hybrid
combinations and new possibilities of codification are possible: "One
surface fits all" (Beressem 1999). As the development of the audio-visual
media show, there is an increase of visualization but at the same time
an increase of semanticization (cf. Schneider 1997). It is the most
important development, caused by the audiovisual media, that the attention
especially in artistic contexts is turned to processes of sign production
and that these processes are more and more perceived as aesthetic functions.
Signs do not refer as symbols to meaning but refer selfrefentially to
themselves and make the reader aware of his or her own perception.
Machiná by Philadelpho
Menenez combines the image and function of a calculator with sound and
text.
We can type in a combination
of numbers (612309), which will start a sound file pronouncing the sound
of single letters. When we finally choose the "="-symbol, the voice
starts to combine the single sounds to the word "POESIA", which appears
at the same time as the mirror image of the calculator, turning the
numbers into letters. The integrative effect of this example can be
described as a doubling: first, an electronic medium has been transferred
onto the desktop of the computer - the calculator we all have used several
times as one of the standard tools our computers offer. Second, the
numeral sign system has been interconnected to the alphabet, not because
of a semantic relationship but because of a mere visual similarity between
numbers and letters. This example highlights, the numeral basis of digital
literature in general and focuses on the limited possibilities of interaction
digital media provide.
The user produces a
new form of media poetry within a very limited environment. Besides
a playful and interactive approach towards literature the reader should
gain an awareness about the control and limitation which is inherent
in digital literature at the same time. We are not dealing with a transformation
of form and content from one medium to another, but instead with a sort
of synthesis. In such an intermedial form individual components complement
one another but could not stand on their own.
2. Inflection One important aspect in
the field of digital literature is the difference between digital and
virtual technologies. In digital documents, the main features are related
to non-linearity, very often described as spatial. Experiments with VRML
give us the impression of a textual space which is not only a metaphor
for the text. The idea of digital geometry and text as space is constructed
in Econ by Silvia
Laurentiz.
Text is transposed from the printed medium
to the digital without changes of the content or the integration of
new sign systems. Econ is based on the poem "O eco e o icon" by E. Melo
e Castro, constructed as a virtual space the reader may navigate. The
use of VRML for computer games is already well known, but there are
only few examples for its use in a poetic context. In Econ the single
verses are marked in different colors to allow a linear reading as well
as jumping from one area to another. Whenever a poetic text is set into
another medium without changes of its content, the original medium is
inflected rather than transformed. All aspects from syntactic composition,
vocabulary, metaphor and allusions used to the mode of expression remain
untouched. This is a new approach towards digital literature which refers
to Jeffrey Shaws interactive installations as for example his "Legible
City". Space in VRML is a software construction which creates the environment
for interaction. You may navigate from place to place, which is from
verse to verse in the example of Econ. This spatial, poetic form integrates
various forms like literal and pictorial space, virtual space, the metaphorical
space of the poem and the space of the artwork. The technical problem
of a smooth movement in VRML especially in a file provided on the internet,
makes the reader to a player as in flight simulations, navigating around
in the colored space of the poem. Reading and comprehending what the
poem is about, is extremely difficult without knowing the original by
Melo e Castro. Melo e Castro's poem is inflected in a way by the use
of VRML. Somehow it becomes the background for a playfull interaction
of the reader. It is transformed into space, freed from its linearity,
but at the same time in part freed from its semantic content. 3. Adaption or the text
as a database model
A transmedialization
from a visual medium (video) to a dominantly textual one is the case
of the "Woman
in White" by Friederike Anders.
"The Woman in White" is an example of a video installation transferred
to the WWW and thereby transformed into a hypertext. The work consists
of a photonovel, a narration in images and words and two databases connected
to this novel: the identilador, which gives information about the possible
identities of the woman and the eventilador, which is an archive of
events. These databases connected to image and video databases are at
the center of the online version of the "Woman in White". The mere visual
presentation of Anders' video installation has been extended for this
internet project and changed its focus totally. A primarily audio-visual
presentation becomes a dominantly textual one by adding theses databases
to the "Woman in White". At the same time the video part, music and
animation has to be reduced to make the project accessible online. This
example highlights the textual dominance of the internet, besides all
discussions of visuality and multimediality. This transfer can be described
as a specific case of ekphrases, as a verbal representation of a visual
representation. Clüver (1997: 26) defines ekphrasis as "the verbal
representation of a real or ficticious text composed in a non-verbal
sign system". The result is an iconic projection of one sign system
into another. This is only partly true for Ander's project. She transferred
some of her files to the digital medium without any change on the surface.
She added the photonovel as a narrative part, which is the adaption
of the filmed story in the video to a textual medium and highlights
the closeness of hypertext to print, but highlights at the same time
the multilinear reading possibilites of a hypertextual, networked text.
The visual composition of the photonovel reminds us on the outer appearance of a tv with a huge central screen and its other parts like speakers and buttons on both sides and beneath the screen. A new component, which is typical for the digital medium, is added: the database. The transmedial processes of this example develop the original video installation further, highlighting on the possibilities and limitations of an internet project. Both, its range of register and its compositional elements transgress the possisbilities of printed text and of a video installation. The video installation was used as a source for this new artistic transfer. It is still visible in parts of the new project, but the result is a re-presentation in another medium. The discussions about the radical openness of hypertext are put into perspective by highlighting the necessary closeness of a database. 4. Enactment
The
transmedialization of a print novel into a computer game and a MOO is
a case, where the reader is forced to change her role and becomes a
player and - in the case of a MOO - acts on the public space of a stage.
"When transformation of an artwork is brought onto the theatrical stage and blended with the miming aspect of the genre, the result is a case of enactment" (Bruhn 2001). An example is Nika Bertram's Kahuna Modus. Only some theoretical presuppositions shall be outlined here. The analysis of MUD's (Multi User Dungeons) and MOO's (Multi User Dungeons Object Oriented) show that modes and genre of oral and written communication are merging. The leading hypothesis can be formulated as follows: medial literacy in computer-mediated communication is combined with new forms of conceptual orality. The distinction between conceptual and medial orality and literacy stems from the research of Koch and Österreicher (1994) to show that there is a continuum between both modes of communication. A personal letter to a friend, which obviously uses the medium written language, is conceptually more comparable to face-to-face communication than a lecture, which is mostly conceptually written and uses the medium oral language. Therefore, Koch and Österreicher propose to distinguish between medial distinct forms of representation but conceptual continuous forms, which are blending. A main function of the medium computer is mediation in communication between human-beings. But this is not new or surprising, because this is the function of signs in general, independent from the chosen medium of transmission. The capacity of the medium to condense dimensions of time and space is grounded in its immediacy and in its dynamics. One aspect of this dynmaics is the possibility of the participants in a MOO to "play out scenes from the novel" in the case of the Kahuna MOO, "based on the story and not the narrative technique of the novel" as Nika Bertram puts it. This leads to an enactment of the narrative in a new environment and a very specific case of transmedialization. Transmedialization in general means the transfer of signs from one medium to another. This leads to a different semiotic relevance of the textual components and reception in a new environment.
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