When we talk about narratives we think structure; this is often linear when looking at radio, Film and TV this is fixed as when streamed you have to tune in at a certain time to consume the product. For example with radio you turn it on and it plays as it is, you can’t go listen to a song then go back and listen to it again. Likewise with TV and film its often projected in linear form to make sense and presented from start to end without stops. This is often hard to change (unless you record it, then you can start, stop and fast forward) however generally its a fixed notion. This leads into narrative last week with cause and effect, because typically a narrative begins with one situation that leads to another.
So what is non narrative… According to wikipedia “Non-narrative film is an aesthetic of film that does not narrate, or relate “an event, whether real or imaginary”. The aesthetic strives to be nonrepresentational.” So what does this mean well, this can be explained by theorists as categories, there are motivations that unify things to connect as a whole which ultimately make up a non narrative.
The 4 categories are … these are all linear and often blend
- abstract (in the experimental film category this one in particular is abstract, created around colours, shapes, movements and images)
- rhetorical (is motivated by the aim to to communicate an argument to move audiences to a particular point of view)
- categorical
- associational (in contrast with categorial connects material looking for illogical relationships, a key aspect is the juxtaposition created through unrelated associations)
Non narrative requires audiences to define how they are structured and they can vary from easy to hard to understand, likewise open structure where the structure is kinda more open but you don’t want it to become so random that you lose your audience.
for example when linking back to “le mechanic” an experimental film whilst for some this is a masterpiece whereas for others it is so random and irrelevant due to its lack of narrative or meaning that it can lose audience interest.
Split screen technique FOR EXAMPLE IN. Thomas Crown Affair 1968, this is used to show whole scene, it creates movements, shows game, reactions at the same time and in some shots focuses on multiple of the same thing at once. Split screen is basically 2 or more different images with its own shape dimension within a larger frame, it raises the question how does that category change, almost becoming abstract non narrative.
Spatial Montage: “My boyfriend came back from the war” an online interactive hypertext work illustrating a database where instead of split screen, a continuous flow where you’re designing the spatial narrative in a linear structure. Whereas here, the viewer can change and have choices to change the piece determining it non linear. This doesn’t just come in one way, you can choose options.
