Arsalan Awais

This week’s topic was about narratives and if storytelling and interactivity go hand-in-hand. Although my group discussed a show called Adventure Time, which works in an episodic format that is in line with Vladimir Propp’s 8 characters types, time to time has experimental narratives, works as a bit of all the types (graph, network and tree) and follows torodov’s narrative model where the equilibrium is upset and the characters go on a journey to fix it and set up a newer one in the process.

I wanted to tackle on a more non-traditional type of story, where all those characteristics mentioned above are seen through a different lens. For this I will be talking about the film adaptation of the novel The Little Prince.

The film uses the book the little prince as a plot device and instead of being a page to page adaptation it uses the book, well as a book. The story is about a minor who is put under societies pressure by her parents to get the best education, excel from prestigious institutions and leave a rich and mundane life. During her summers she encounters a raunchy neighbour known as the Aviator and grabs her attention through an illustrative book based onn his life experiences. She then starts to see the bigger picture and realises what life and living is all about.  

The film is somewhere in between Aristotle’s dramatic unities, in the sense that it does not follow an arc set within 24 hours but does have a linear narrative where the traditional narrative emphasises time space and causation as well as linear cause and effect and clear endings. According to this determinant, this animation fulfils these criteria. However, unlike traditional narrative, the story unfolds in both the real world and the mental world, so a double narrative is present throughout, sometimes even up to three parallel narratives. And these three threads are always interacting with each other at all times. These are all features that are different from traditional narratives.

Speaking of Vladimir Propp’s 8-character types, some characters act as more than one while some are symbolic characters.

The Hero – Little Girl, a smart, feisty and precocious girl with a kind heart. She has a very inquisitive mind and struggles to balance growing up and basking in her childhood.

The Aviator as various characters e.g. the Father and the donor. The Aviator, an eccentric and retired aviator who befriended the Little Prince in the Sahara Desert and acts as a mentor to the Little Girl.

The False Villain – The little girl’s mother, who organises her entire life according to her will and is an absentee parent.

The Villain – though there are not any such villains in the story but I regard as time itself being one. One of the messages given in the film is ‘Growing up is not a problem, but forgetting your childhood is’.

The False Hero – The little prince an eternally young boy and resident of “Asteroid B612”, a small asteroid roughly the same size as him. The adult version of Little Prince who has forgotten his own childhood and becomes an anxious, incompetent janitor for the Businessman.

Levi Strauss’ Binary Oppositions 

The film clearly makes it about Childhood VS Growing Up, or more precisely Little Girl VS society that dictates her life. The film is resolved as Little girl realises what it means to be a kid and enjoy the moments of life.

Todorov’s narrative model

The film follows a linear narrative. Has an equilibrium that is upset when the girl starts to feel that everyone is alone a one point or another. She embarks on a journey to find the Little Prince and set what is meant to be. She realises the purpose of life and this creates and new equilibrium in turn.

References

Media, A. C. o. C. a. t., 2016. Raising Children. [Online]
Available at: https://raisingchildren.net.au/guides/movie-reviews/the-little-prince

For the second blog post I wanted to answer the second question in which we were to select a media object and analyse it through the lenses of medium specificity and gesamtkunstwerk. Can it be considered a total work of art? Does it share any features with gesamtkunstwerk? Is this a positive or a negative thing? Why? Do you think that its specific medium has affected creative choices? Would it look different if it was created with different tools? How so? And what would be the implications of such changes?

Projection mapping is something that has revolutionized installation art. The technology itself is being in films. The Mandalorian was the first to use this and The Batman improved on this. The way it works is, an environment is created through projectors, which gives an illusion of you being actually in the situation.

A notable example would be the Van Gogh Immersive Experiences in London and US. They are operated by various companies and have converted over 100 of his paintings into a digital projection. The projection is not just a still image but is an animated collage and with immersive music, it feels as if you have stepped inside his paintings.

From the Starry night to wheatfield with crows all are there to experience. I think this a better way to expand the reach of an artist’s work to a whole different group. Though I would recommend going to the museum and seeing the actual one physically but with technology like this you could really feel the colours and compositions come to life and could spend hours gawking at the artwork. This would save time, away from rushes in museums plus a place to spend the day with friends and family.

Yes, I do consider this medium to be a total work of art as it is an amalgamation of different forms of art. That being it is a collaboration between different artists e.g. illustrators, graphic designers, programmers, curators and musicians.

The other way to do it would be to use LED screens (which would be costly venture) known as Virtual Production. Although it would also require a collaboration form people of vastly different field e.g. designers, concept artists, 3D illustrator, colouring artist, VR, technicians etc.

References

Anon., 2021. Artnet News. [Online]
Available at: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/immersive-van-gogh-guide-1974038

Jones, J., 2020. The Guardian. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/feb/12/meet-vincent-van-gogh-experience-review-south-bank-london

We all know about mixed media artworks and now it has a name; “Gesamtkunstwerk” or total work of art. Before we begin, let’s take a crash course into what the terms actually is. A Gesamtkunstwerk is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so. The term is a German word which has come to be accepted in English as a term in aesthetics.

The term was first used by the German writer and philosopher K. F. E. Trahndorff in an essay in 1827. The German opera composer Richard Wagner used the term in two 1849 essays. It is unclear whether Wagner knew of Trahndorff’s essay. The word has become particularly associated

with Wagner’s aesthetic ideals. In the twentieth century, some writers applied

the term to some forms of architecture.

Before Wagner, some elements of opera reform, seeking a more “classical” formula, had begun at the end of the 18th century. After the lengthy domination of opera seria, and the da capo aria, a movement began to advance the librettist and the composer in relation to the singers, and to return the drama to a more intense and less moralistic focus. In lay man terms Gesamtkunstwerk, (which roughly translates as a “total work of art”) describes an artwork, design, or creative process where different art forms are combined to create a single cohesive whole.

There are going to be two blog posts on this topic and each will tackle a different aspect/media object in relation to the topic.

For the first part we were asked to select an example of your own work and analyse it through the lenses of medium specificity and gesamtkunstwerk? What is special about your medium, how is it connected to other media? How would your work change if you used different tools? Is your work a gesamtkunstwerk? Would you consider turning it into one? What would change?

Just like Wagner, I consider theatre to fall under the category of gesamtkunstwerk. Being a theatre actor and director, I directed and wrote a play on the ongoing Kashmir issue. Instead of picking sides or giving a biased review I went for an unexpected approach. Being an admirer of radio dramas, I encompassed that into the story itself.

Here is a like to the play;

The story plays our like a radio drama and the I wanted to make a statement on media as to how to depict such events. For example, the ongoing Kashmir issues plays out differently for everyone. The Indian media depicts it differently, the Pakistan does something to evoke their people and while those living there, they experience something entirely different. Being a puppeteer, the medium I opted was a shadow theatre performance.

The play mostly relied on sound effects and music and was devoid of any such dialogues (the only ones were archive news bulletins). My goals was for the whole play to work like a radio drama, where the visuals and optical sound would submerge the audience into a fantasy of their own and image their own scenes according to the sound and hence create a more immersive experience. All of them organically bolstered the experience of the other medium and that is the beauty of it.

My ideals/work do align with being a Gesamtkunstwerk, for example the play combined different mediums i.e. lights, paper, music, foleys, puppetry etc. I can agree to an extent by what Armheim said;

“Not only does speech limit the motion picture to an art of dramatic portraiture, it also interferes with the expression of the image”.

If I were to attempt a similar story, I would opt for an installation art as a medium instead and would have used newspapers and lights for shadows to create it. Then again it might have had not been much more effective.

References

Anon., 2022. Britanica. [Online]
Available at: https://www.britannica.com/art/theater-building/German-Romanticism-and-Naturalism#ref464013

Lockspieser, E., 2022. Britancia. [Online]
Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Debussy