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5.20 |
It is like the re-represented behaviour that Richard
Schechner explores in both his performance theory and
theatrical production. He examines how
"strips of behaviour" are decontextualized
and processed in the "twice behaved"
behaviour of ritual or performance. (Between theater and
anthropology) Strips
of behaviour can be
slowed down, speeded up, juxtaposed. Narrative
can reach great complexity through multiple track
variations, through operating on many sequences.
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5.20 |
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5.21 |
The pathways between perception and narration are
particularly evident in non-linguistic narrative.
Set in the context of general semiosis, narration
crosses sensory modalities. This does not explain
how a series of events becomes a sequence.
Sequences arise from learning. They develop from
bodies attempting to preserve and process
knowledge. Sequences disentangle
synaesthesia. For example, teaching children to
count aloud on their fingers is enhanced by the
introduction of slight pauses. The teacher
touches the child's finger, pauses, voices a number,
pauses, and makes eye contact with the child, pauses,
makes eye contact with the touching fingers. The
pattern which consists of tactile sensation, oral
marking, aural sensation, and concludes with an
invitation to shift to a visual mode, can of course be
varied. With two or more teachers the potential
for variation increases: sequences can be assigned
either solo or group performance and can be distributed
according to sensory modality. One teacher
voices, an other points, the child connects.
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5.21 |
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This example is offered not to suggest that sensitivity
to narrative is conditioned by mastering the art of
counting but to stress that narrativity may have strong
ties to multi-sensory multi-player situations in that
both are instances of coordination games.
Furthermore, sequences incorporate adequate redundancy
into learning and communicative situations. The
episodic character of sequences (something happened at
a certain time) creates expectation. As well, the
choric potential of sequence manipulation provides for
intersubjective participation in knowledge production.
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5.22 |
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As a coordination game, narration has two
functions: memory work and problem solving.
The story can serve as a template whose slots allow for
the addition of more bits of knowledge. The story
becomes a key for typological readings.
Interpretation produces a grid for storing and
recalling information.
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5.23 |
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Approached as an algorithm, the story is a series of
steps for developing a solution to a problem. The
story models the movement between a source and a
target, between current conditions and desired
outcome. Interpretation is construction.
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5.24 |
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5.25 |
Conceiving story as storage and story as algorithm is
the key to imagining a sensorium that is more than
merely receptive, to theorizing one that is interactive
in regards to its modalities and its environment.
The stumbling block in imagining such a sensorium has
been proper theorizing of the means of translating from
one modality to another. Verbal language seemed
to be the best candidate. However it privileged
sight and hearing, the distance senses, over those of
closer contact: smell, touch, and taste.
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5.25 |
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5.26 |
In re-evaluating the closer contact senses, especially
their action under conditions of distress or extreme
pleasure, one discovers that the sensorium not only is
a receiver but also a dispatcher of information.
The senses are not only receptors. The senses
also transmit. By their operation the senses
provide events for interpretation. The blinking
of eyes, the cocking of an ear, the flicker of a
tongue, all signal.
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5.26 |
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5.27 |
The human senses, whatever their number and relations,
produce events. Events can be connected.
This production of events can be experienced, can be
induced, can be guided. Memory plays a major role
in this process. Attention can be alternatively
devoted to percept and to the act of perception.
The possibilities for metacommentary are connected to
the possibilites for memory. Cognitively this
allows humans to preserve the trace of something
happening at a certain time. Events connected in
a series of episodes lead to narratives. The
transformation of discrete somatic signals into
sequences begins to explain cross-modal encoding.
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5.27 |
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5.28 |
Although not dealing with sequences, Alexander Alland drawing upon the work of Charles Laughlin and Eugene d'Aquili, Biogenetic Structuralism, suggests that anatomical and physiological factors enhancing cross-modal association are responsible for the emergence of conceptualization ("Roots of Art" 13-14). Developing an anthropology of art, Alland posits an aesthetic-cognitive function for which he offers the term transformation-representation. His notion is allied to narrative or sequence processing. He argues: Art is an emotionally charged and culturally central storage device for complex sets of conscious and unconscious information. Structure guards information in well-ordered and easily retrievable forms. It also allows for a certain amount of variation (transformation) without loss of total information or organization. Transformation is something that is likely to occur by accident, but it is also likely to be part of the aesthetic game in which playing with form is a major element. Transformation without significant changes in over-all structure keeps the game exciting at the same time as essential information is guarded. (Artistic Animal 41).
As form is to storage and circulation, sequence is to
narrative and narration.
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5.28 |
