DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSSA”
Is narrative a complex system? Federico Pianzola
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam UNIVERSITY OF MILAN-BICOCCA
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
Narrative as a complex system A narrative is an entity emerging from non-linear interactions between some elements
Narrativity is a property emerging from the organisation of a system constituted by interdependent components interacting with the environment over time in non-linear ways Narrativity is an emergent behaviour of the system coupled to certain contexts, i.e. a property which is only present when the scope of the system under scrutiny is expanded so to include its environment as well.
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
What is a Narrative System? x discourse narrativity audience
z y DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
What is a complex system? Systems are entities/wholes possessing properties which their elements do not possess
DYNAMIC
Complex systems are established and “exist” through the continuous interaction of their elements
EMERGENT
A complex system is a whole identified by a constitutive property emerging from the interaction of its elements
NON-LINEAR
A complex system is characterized by non-linear interactions between the constituents
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
What is a Narrative System? x discourse stimuli narrativity audience agent
z y DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
Narrative Systems?!
What does it mean?
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
Russian Formalism Jury Tynjanov “Literature is a speech construction perceived precisely qua construction, i.e. literature is a dynamic speech construction” (1929: 14). “the unity of a work is not a closed symmetrical whole but an unfolding dynamic integrity; among its elements stands not the static sign of equation and addition, but always the dynamic sign of correlation and integration” (1924: 10) “story is the entire semantic scheme of the action” represented in the literary work. “The plot of a work, is defined as its dynamism comprised of the interplay among all the correlations of material… stylistic, story-related, and so on” (1977: 341) DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
What is literature? Jean Paul Sartre “the literary object is a peculiar top which exists only in movement. To make it come into view a concrete act called reading is necessary, and it lasts only as long as this act can last. Beyond that, there are only black marks on paper.” (1947)
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
The Act of Reading Wolfgang Iser “Effects and responses are properties neither of the text nor of the reader; the text represents a potential effect that is realized in the reading process” (1978: ix)
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
Systems in Narrative Theory Aristotle 335 BCE (holos) Jakobson & Tynjanov 1928 (system, system of systems, dominant) Jury Tynjanov 1929 (dynamic construcZon) Jan Mukařovský 1936 (polyfuncZonality) Meir Sternberg 1982 (representaZon–communicaZon interplay) Niklas Luhmann 1984 (emergent communicaZon) Bruce Clarke 2008, 2014 H Porter Abbof 2008
Merja Polvinen 2008 Richard Walsh 2009
Marco Caracciolo 2014 DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
Complexity and narratives Interactive video games
“We all construct narratives out of our daily activities to help us remember, understand, categorize and share experiences. It is this skill that many interactive systems exploit. They give us environments to explore. We, by combining the elements of these spaces with our goals (the user’s goals), allow a narrative to emerge. If any narrative structure (or story) emerges it is a product of our interactions and goals as we navigate the experience. I call this ‘Emergent Narrative’” (Galyean 1995: 27). DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
Complexity and narratives Interactive video games representation?
interpretation?
virtual environment narrativity player
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
Complexity and narratives literature
films
Hayles 1990; Conte 2002; Polvinene 2008
Poulaki 2011
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
interactive video games
Galyean 1995; Walsh 2011
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
Style and Rhetoric of Short Narrative Fiction Dan Shen
Edgar Allan Poe “A Tell-Tale Heart” DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
“A Tell-Tale Heart”
preparing murder, killing, hiding corpse
murderer’s dissimulaZon and his taking delight in it
the heart beaZng louder, again, increasing…
unwidng self-convicZon DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
morality
covert progression
the unity of effect
overt plot
confession
“sanity defense” of the murderer ethical unreliability of the narrator (enjoying his dissimulaZon and criZcising that of the policemen) unconscious condemnaZon of his own dissimulaZon
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
System–Environment Coupling
discourse
narrator’s unreliability (covert) narrahve progression stylisZc pagerning
intertextuality (“The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether”: saZre on the asylum reforms) DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
historical and cultural context (misuse of “insanity defense”; reform of jusZce)
audience
author’s theory of prose ficZon (structural design / subject mager)
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
The Experientiality of Narrative Marco Caracciolo
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
Blindness José Saramago “Some [of the blind internees] had covered their heads with a blanket, as if anxious that a pitch-black darkness, a real one, might exZnguish once and for all the dim suns that their eyes had become. The three lamps suspended from the high ceiling, out of arm’s reach, cast a dull, yellowish light over the beds, a light incapable of even creaZng shadows” (1999: 70-71)
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
The Experientiality of Narrative Marco Caracciolo
“Saramago’s descripZon invites readers to imagine visually scanning the dormitory by drawing their agenZon to the heads of the internees, to the blankets that cover some of the heads, then (with an upward movement) to the lamps that hang from the ceiling. Finally, with a downward movement, following the light that falls from the lamps, the reader’s agenZon comes to rest on the beds. Thus, readers of this passage run an embodied simulaZon of this circular moZon, enacZng the movements that would be required to perceive a similar scene by reacZvaZng past experienZal traces” (2014: 102) DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
The Experientiality of Narrative Marco Caracciolo “The three lamps suspended from the high ceiling, out of arm’s reach…”
“As the phrase “out of arm’s reach” implies, this spaZal descripZon is tailored to the body and sensory systems of a human being, so that, even if we could train a machine to understand the linguisZc meaning of the text, it would not be able to make sense of it. It would miss the experienZal “feel,” and fail to see why this is a spaZal descripZon as opposed, for instance, to a list” (2014: 101) DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
The Experientiality of Narrative Marco Caracciolo
text story-driven experience experiential background
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
Systems of different scope Jury Tynjanov
plot novel story
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
works of one author
literary style
prose (as a linguishc form)
culture
society literary school
literary genre
history
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
Narrative Discourse Gérard Genette
“This arsenal, like any other, will inevitably be out of date before many years have passed, and all the more quickly the more seriously it is taken, that is, debated, tested, and revised with Zme” ([1972] 1980: 263)
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
ISSN 2016 - 18th June - Amsterdam
Federico Pianzola
[email protected]
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES FOR EDUCATION “RICCARDO MASSA”
