Reconstruction 8.3 (2008)


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Visualization and Narrative [1] / Adam Ganz

 

<1> Film has in the broader sense always been concerned with visualization. But in the digital age, visualization is taking on a very specific meaning: the visual representation and analysis of processes over time. The application of visualization techniques to narrative and narrative techniques is transforming the way in which we perceive and represent the world. The sheer availability of cameras and the many different technological forms which we have available to visually represent narratives or to record information in a form, from which narratives can be deduced or interpreted, means that as a society we are suddenly faced with a surfeit of visualizations. Every minute, ten hours worth of digital footage is uploaded to YouTube and it's all available in one place – or rather, in the infinite number of points that any one of millions of laptops can use to access the internet. These visualizations exist in an ever-increasing feedback loop of visualization and refraction, as the visualizations are themselves subject to visualization, and the data is teased to reveal its embedded narratives.

<2> One result seems to be that narratives no longer occur in specific spaces. They flow between different points of view and geographic locations in a boundless cornucopia of time-based media generated by multiplicities of cameras, or by virtual cameras which nonetheless create the illusion of presence. In a previous essay, the editors of this special issue proposed the notion of the "zone" as a key distinguishing feature of digital cinema, a reconfiguration of the cinematic gaze via feedback and crossover behind and in front of the camera, which transforms the spatial relationship between the players (the director, the actors, the audience). [2] We also related this to Susan Sontag's observation that the new camera technology would increasingly be used for self-surveillance. [3] A recent beautiful example of the scale of this digital zone is the photograph which forms the cover of this special issue. It shows an image from the Phoenix Mars mission of May 25th 2008, where the camera being sent to Mars as part of the NASA Scout program to undertake scientific research and beam back images was itself captured by another camera orbiting the planet. The image can be viewed in context here:

http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/phoenix-descent.php

<3> The various essays in this special issue each offer something specific and distinctive to the way in which forms of visualization are reconfiguring the relationship of time and space in narrative. Chiara Armentano's paper looks at the phenomenon of scattering in cinema and the ways in which visualization has been re-mediated by new media forms and explores how cinema narratives are changing in response to these new forms.

<4> Marshall Deutelbaum's detailed analysis of Hong Sangsoo's The Power of Kangwon Province evidences the theories Armentano expounds and looks at the complex interrelationship between space and narrative in Sangsoo's film and how discontinuity and continuity in space and time are represented. Stewart Mckie looks at the visualization of narrative itself and specifically the screenplay, and the various ways in which the deep structure of narratives has been and might be visualized. This theme of the relationships between graphic visualization and narrative is continued in Ashley Holmes' article which investigates the range of information visualizations created for a variety of media for a developing news event – the Beaconsfield Mine collapse in Tasmania on April 25th 2006. Holmes' comprehensive analysis shows how visualizations themselves develop and change over time and the specific emotional meanings that accrue around different kinds of visualizations.

<5> Ingrida Povidisa's essay considers the novels of Kathy Reichs and their subsequent adaptations for television. She stresses the importance of visualization in forensic narrative, where story resides in making details visible, and of the relationship between evidence and narrative. Specifically, she discusses how visual description in literature is translated into 3-D visualizations in television versions of Reichs' work. Finally we have a visual essay created specially for this issue by photographer Peter Robinson in response to Franz Kafka's short story Before the Law.

<6> Appropriately, Robinson chooses to locate his narrative both within and beyond the computer screen. Visualization and narrative are linked, through the agency of creator and audience, on both sides of the screen. As a succession of images presumes a narrative, a narrative presumes a succession of images. What these essays reveal is the complexity of this relationship. A visualization cannot be reduced to one narrative but consists of a cluster of different interlinked narratives which can be teased out of it, in dynamic relationship to the visualization and the points of view of the narrator and the audience. It's our task as critics and filmmakers to respond to these new technological and conceptual advances and stay open to their many possibilities. As Charles Darwin put it, in what remains excellent counsel on the interrelationship between visualization and narrative: "It is a fatal fault to reason whilst observing, though so necessary beforehand and so useful afterwards". [4]


Notes

[1] The origins of this special issue of Reconstruction come from an event on film, visualization and narrative sponsored by Methods Network, which took place at Royal Holloway, University of London in November 2006, and thanks must be due to the participants in the event, whose stimulating contributions provided the inspiration for this special issue; to Professor Chris Bailey as the rapporteur; and to the Methods Network (especially Neil Grindley), and the London Centre for Arts and Cultural Enterprise (LCACE) for their financial support of the event. Details of the proceedings can be seen online at http://www.methodsnetwork.ac.uk/redist/pdf/act11report.pdf.[^]

[2] Ganz, Adam and Khatib, Lina (2006). "Digital Cinema: The Transformation of Film Practice and Aesthetics". New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, volume 4, issue 1, pp. 21-36. [^]

[3] Sontag, Susan (1977). On Photography. London: Penguin, p. 177. [^]

[4The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882 (1958). With the original omissions restored. Edited and with appendix and notes by his grand-daughter Nora Barlow, p. 159. [^]

 

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