THREADS
an approach to narrative applicationWhere much theory is concerned with the word, the sign, the symbol, THREADS is concerned only with the story. It focuses on the statement as opposed to the tools used to make the statement, the wall rather than the brick. Here I mean to indicate the difference in potency between the word "bird" and the words "the bird flew". The story is where real energy is held. We can indict language itself, but that's like blaming the hammer for the house. Tools are given power only by the user.
DEFINITIONS
language n. Abbr. lang. 1. a. The use by human beings of voice sounds, and often written symbols representing these sounds, in organized combinations and patterns in order to express and communicate thoughts and feelings. b. A system of words formed from such combinations and patterns, used by the people of a particular country or by a group of people with a shared history or set of traditions. 2. a. A nonverbal method of communicating ideas, as by a system of signs, symbols, gestures, or rules: the language of algebra. b. Computer Science. A system of symbols and rules used for communication with or between computers. 3. Body language; kinesics. 4. The special vocabulary and usages of a scientific, professional, or other group: "his total mastery of screen language camera placement, editing and his handling of actors" (Jack Kroll). 5. A characteristic style of speech or writing: Shakespearean language. 6. a. Abusive, violent, or profane utterance: "language that would make your hair curl" (W.S. Gilbert). b. A particular manner of utterance: gentle language. 7. The manner or means of communication between living creatures other than human beings: the language of dolphins. 8. Verbal communication as a subject of study. 9. The wording of a legal document or statute as distinct from the spirit.
narrate v. narrated, narrating, narrates. 1. a. To tell (a story, for example) in speech or writing. b. To give an account of (events, for example). See Synonyms at describe. v. intr. 1. To give an account or a description. 2. To supply a running commentary for a movie or performance.
story n., pl. stories. 1. An account or a recital of an event or a series of events, either true or fictitious. 2. A usually fictional prose or verse narrative intended to interest or amuse the hearer or reader; a tale. 3. A short story. 4. An incident, experience, or subject that furnishes or would be interesting material for a narrative: "He was colorful, he was charismatic, he was controversial, he was a good story" (Terry Ann Knopf). 5. The plot of a narrative or dramatic work. 6. A report, a statement, or an allegation of facts. 7. a. A news article or broadcast. b. The event, situation, or other material for such an article or broadcast. 8. An anecdote. 9. A lie. 10. Romantic legend or tradition.
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We can see by the definitions of these words that they are related - not absolutely, but loosely tied, somehow interwoven. We desire to conceive, understand: to offer meaning, and to communicate that meaning - we use the tools of language : words, symbols, signs to communicate meaning. These tools are to account for reality. To offer an account is to tell a story, and to hold an account is to believe in it.
We are constantly telling stories, and it is these stories that compose our identity, as well as culture and society at large.
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A PERSON tells a story: it is her IDENTITY A GROUP tells a story: it is their CULTURE A SOCIETY tells a story : it is HISTORY
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IDENTITY, CULTURE, and HISTORY are the stories we tell ourselves and each other.
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FACT or FICTION?
Here it's interesting to note that the dictionary definition of story includes both "a statement of fact" and "a lie". It is clear within our systems of communication that the truth of a story is far less relevant than it's strength. Which is to say that the significance of a story has much less to do with it's proximity to fact than it does with it's inherent strength, i.e. how well, or how much, the story is understood. A shared narrative is a strong narrative.
The popularity of Urban Myths is a widespread example of fictions disguised as fact, how we are seeking a strong story, and not necessarily a true one. These tales somehow get repeated over and over again, spreading like "memes". (http://www.memes.org)
Examples of the blurred line between truth and fiction in contemporary media are abundant, with the proliferation of "reality TV" such as Cops, semi staged Ôbloopers' and the emergence of documentary-like fiction such as The Blair Witch Project, or Ôfactualized' accounts such as the Cohen Brother's Fargo. This is not to say that the blurred line between fictional and factual narrative is a condition of modernity: it has always been the case. The significance of a story has always had to do with how compelling, how coherent, how repeatable it is.
The more experience of reality we have the more we know that it is not coherent, ordered and just. And yet the stories we tell about reality are lush with morals and structure. Stories beg to be coherent, while reality is not. This is precisely why the strength of a story has little to do with it's factuality. With a strong narrative we can impose our own order on reality.
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So, what constitutes a strong story? Our focus and attention to it. How many people believe it. A story isn't strong because it is printed in bold type on the facade or a publication, it is strong because we read it and we discuss it.
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Did George Washington chop down a cherry tree? Was there ever a meal shared in thanks with the Native Americans? It doesn't matter because we only use these stories to illustrate or reinforce an idea. And if the story no longer supports our ideals, we change it.
Where is the value of a Van Gogh painting? Is it in the canvas, the paint, or the image represented? More likely the value lies in the story that goes along with that piece, and the larger story we tell about the life of Vincent Van Gogh.
And it is true, too, that the story about the life of Vincent Van Gogh reinforces a larger narrative about brilliance and insanity, as well as being a chapter in a story we call Art History. We are beginning, now, to expose the layered nature of narrative...
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NARRATIVE SIGNIFIERS
Like simulation ( or a signifier ) a story is often not about itself, per se, but it refers to a narrative "at large". The most current example of this societally is the little Elian headlines where the media continually obsesses over a non-story. Custody battles are fought constantly in this country and internationally, yet we embellish in this smoke screen story because it is a reinforcement of the larger story of historical conflict between the U.S. and Cuba. The larger story itself was feeling tired, so we created an advocate story to give vibrancy to the dying issue.
And what I've done by addressing it here is reinforce the strength of the Elian Custody Story. I have tended to it, fed it, reinforced it. The initial impulse was to illustrate how stories are layered and refer to other larger and smaller stories, and now we've arrived back to a previous point: that the strength of any story results from our attention to it.
(This principle could be called THREADS or TUMBLE-WEEDS, depending on one's level of cynicism).
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The statement "a story's strength depends on our attention to it" is not to suggest that ignoring unpleasant happenings will make them disappear. But it is our approach to a story that gives it life, our understanding and creativity in our attention to a narrative that allows for that narrative to be transformed. Like Stuart Hall's theory around decoding, we have a distinct autonomy within these networks of narrative.
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SCALE
Narrative can be examined from anywhere on the scale of perspectives: macro to micro. At any moment we can focus on a different level of narrative perspective:
- the subpersonal (the inch worm casually snacked on a piece of grass)
- the personal (I rode my bike to the free jazz concert in the park)
- the cultural (after the hymn we took communion)
- the societal (today proposition 21 was passed)
- the global (the dinosaurs could not survive the ice age)
We also tell truly microscopic stories (the cell mutated), as well as macroscopic ones (the supernova became a black hole). While these are scientific examples it is still clear that such narrative perspectives are not exclusive to the modern age - the perspective of science only begins where religion and mythology left off.
We constantly toggle back and forth between these perspectives. I sip my coffee, then shoe away a housefly, as I read the front page of the New York Times. In that instance, and every instance, I am swimming in narrative. From the insignificant to the very significant and back again. I could tell you the story of the coffee, the fly, or the headline - it only depends on where my focus lies.
Like a photograph in a frame, all at once it tells the story of the subject, the background, the photographer, the film company, and the maker of the frame. It also tells the story of the tree that the wooden frame was taken from. Etceteras. The picture in the frame is the evidence of a magnitude of branching stories. More stories remain untold than told, like trees falling in the forest. The story we experience is usually based on our previous knowledge, an already established relationship. These are the stories we focus on, while a million other stories surround us at every moment.
Where my focus lies. This constitutes my identity.
Where our focus lies. This constitutes our culture.
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FABRIC
I could tell you the story of my family. I can also talk about my love life, or my career. We can see immediately how these stories can be viewed simultaneously from multiple narrative perspectives. The story of my family is about me, yes, but it is about others as well, and it is also part of the larger story of California, and of the United States. The story of my career is about me, too, but it also tells the story of new media and it's influence within society.
My story, like threads, are fibers that weave in and out of larger and smaller stories, creating a fabric of narrative. We are within a network of symbols, yes. But isn't it more accurate to say that, as far as consciousness is concerned, we are within a woven pattern of stories?
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ILLUMINATION
"Oh, you went to Maybeck High School, too?"
In this instance an interwoven thread has been illuminated. It has been revealed that our stories coincide, and there is resonance.
Illuminating how our stories coincide is an enriching experience. Narratives mirror and support each other. Shared narratives make stronger threads. And these threads, these stories, wholly constitute what we define as our culture.
There is a problem in seeing how our stories coincide, because we are nearly always blinded by the personal narrative perspective. We go to the corner store to buy a stick of butter, and that is our story of going to the store. But when we begin to take that journey less personally it becomes clear how many hundreds of other stories exist simultaneously within that same space/time.
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Perhaps a version of Lacan's "Decentering"?
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TOP STORIES
Who came up with this phrase? Why must the stories that are fed to us by the media be our "Top Stories"? It's as if the stories we provide for our selves are submissive to the ones produced by the media, and we hegemonically seek our narratives elsewhere. Any night on the local news there is a flood of affirmations for our worst societal fears: violence, crime, and disaster. We must realize the stories that remain untold: our own daily news is more real than TV, and generally healthier...
I'd like to, for a day, become a news show producer.
"Today's Top Story... Mrs. Johnson harvested her tomatoes and made a wonderful marinara sauce to accompany her angel hair pasta. The Johnson's ate a very nice dinner together, while their two children exchanged stories about what happened to them at school that day. No one was injured or killed. In financial news, Julian lent Melissa five dollars..."
Or publish a newspaper called, simply, The Good News? Aren't we ready for that yet? It's all around us. Or, perhaps it should be called Bottom Stories.
The power of hypereality is that it provides narrative. Hypereality is just another version of reality, a flood of stories offered to us for a price. Media offers us a production, polished tales in the form of movies and news. We digest it like junk food, and receive little nourishment. Yet all around us, all around us... we are rich in narrative, if only we pay attention.
Perhaps this is the reason my creative work lately has taken on a folk quality. I'm tired of the grandiose. I'm tired of "action". Give me the mundane, the banal. I'd like to do a documentary on a cracked piece of the side walk.
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NARRATIVES AT LARGE
When stories take on a greater-than-personal perspective, for example a national perspective, they diminish in validity. Their relationship to a reality (or any single persons relationship to reality) has weakened. Any one who has ever been written about can attest to this fact. In the act of putting a narrative up for exhibit the story has been altered.
Altering a story is commonplace and not necessarily an injustice, but loosing the sense of personal within the narrative can become hazardous. In the act of widening our focus range on a story we distance our self from the personal, and when we distance our selves from the personal we distance our selves from responsibility. This is when a narrative is "at large".
We are drowning in examples. Anytime we discuss an event where masses of people are concerned, we are discussing narratives "at large". Whether it's the outbreaks of violence at Woodstock III or the Gulf Non-War, when we discuss it from a macro-perspective we have lost sight of any single persons accountability. But if we begin to get a closer range on any personal story within that larger context - truer meaning and truer experience is exposed.
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ARTISTIC APPLICATION
As an artist I'm highly motivated to provide an example of how to create and enlarge our own stories. Art merged with technology can be used to help switch the channels, to turn the pages, to illuminate narrative coincidences of people around us, and to enact and strengthen these stories. A virtual environment, as we have found, is not enough. We can use these tools in an actual real-time/space context.
EXAMPLES
To foster the actual is to encourage real time/space interactivity. Imagine an event where people are present who have agreed to bring their own stories, rather than simply consume a prepared story? This is an event where our stories interact and begin to speak to each other. I'm not talking about some open-mic night either. Check it out...
You receive an invitation. You RSVP via a website. There is a form on this website where you can enter as much or as little about your current narrative as you choose. It can be truth or fiction, you decide. Enter your name, or an alias identity. Enter your occupation, or your ideal occupation. (Tanya the Private Investigator? Great!) What songs have you been listening to lately, what themes have been reoccurring in your life? Be creative, remember: it's your story!
You receive a magnetized ID card that gives you access to the event. Upon entering the venue a sensor at the door reads your card, the number on the card refers to a file in a relational database. The card has been read, the file has been accessed, and suddenly your name (or alias) is being projected on a screen for the entire venue to see. You enter the room to light applause and instant recognition, "Tanya, we're so glad you could make it!"
I also like the idea of incognito performers who have studied the data. "Hi Tanya! There's someone I think you should meet!" Or the musical act has incorporated your words into their song, or perhaps they are playing a song you wrote! Information, media, and themes you have provided are incorporated into the event everywhere, weaving with media provided by other guests. Look, Tanya, a quote from your datafile is being projected on to that wall! This party, this story, has to do with your identity. And our identity. Not one that's been manufactured for us. Some drama in the story is acceptable, as well as intrigue and mystery. Of course this event can be done well, with a sense of subtlety and style, or it can be done maladroitly. To me aesthetics are still a factor in art. Call me old fashioned.
The above example is kind of an Artistic Utopian Vision with obvious pitfalls. Anytime you require the buy-in of others prior to the completion of work you are inviting considerable obstacles. But there are smaller, subtler ways to creatively bring our own narratives to the surface. Here's one concept: imagine a small set consisting of a Polaroid camera on a tripod, a backdrop, and a chest full of props. Participants can take a series of pictures utilizing the props. The results are like frames in a storyboard, or a photographic comic book. (Of course you don't really need the props, backdrops, or tripod). I discovered last year that Polaroid's are the perfect tool for instantaneous visual storytelling because of the space provided for written text at the bottom of the photograph, like a storyboard: Frame 1, Frame 2, etc.
Of course there's all kinds of art and media that already focuses on our 'bottom stories', such as folk art, and documentary film making. These art forms are precious because they give attention to and therefore strengthen the most fragile threads within our social fabric. I would like to suggest now that if we as a culture began to change our focus from TOP STORIES to BOTTOM STORIES, that somehow the power and influence that dominant stories have over us would also diminish. Imagine if we suddenly switched our heroes from The Superman to The Laborer?
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note: the subsequent projects of nonchalance, including oaklandish and the liberation drive-in, did much to actualize this concept of bringing localized "bottom stories" to our attention.
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ILLUSTRATIONS
It was spring and I rode a bicycle along Lakeshore Drive on the way to a Latin jazz concert in the park. I rode loosely, letting the bike sway, humming a sentimental love song, the same sappy verse repeating, "been so long, been so long since I felt like this..." I didn't know many of the words, I was pleased enough with the melody, over and over again, "been so long, been so long..."
Roxanna rode her bike in front of me, and sometimes followed. At Buckingham Fountain we instinctively began circling round, like a spontaneous cycling ballet. I wondered what it would look like from an aerial view; two cyclists circling the fountain 180 degrees apart, leading and following synchronously, switching paths, continuing in formation through the rose gardens, and on.
Then we were there. Lying on the grass at Grant Park. A Latin jazz orchestra played the good stuff from the band shell, nice and easy like, and I lay back on the lawn looking at the skyline. It was dusk. Color reflected back from the city's monoliths, pink hot orange glowing from the facade of each building. Beyond, the sky blue deepened. I was at peace, caring about nothing beyond the wide grass that I lay upon and the music around me.
What took me away from this moment? What separated me from the peace I had felt just a moment before? It was The List. The List of "to do's" that will creep up on an unoccupied mind. Today The List included many sub-tasks of a large internal web project I was engaged in at work, an upcoming self-evaluation, some appointments, you know... The List. These are the usual distractions that impend on a lax consciousness, the perpetual noise that motivates people to Do. To me it sounds like this: "oh yeah, tomorrow I have to do X, as well as parts a, b, and c." Then I mentally schedule X in all it's parts, as thoughts then lead me to semiconsciously plan the administration of tasks Y and Z, etc.
That is what took me away from the moment. I became aware that I had been stolen from my simple music filled dusk. I understood 'what', and then considered 'why'. Why I have to do X, Y, Z. Why were these things so important that they could distract me from a perfect music filled dusk?
I looked around. Roxanna was lying down with her eyes closed. There were thousands of people around, none of them paying attention to me. One man a hundred feet off was talking on his mobile phone. What was so important to this guy that he, too, would be distracted from the perfect dusk? Yes, he must have an important list as well. Then I looked at every one else: they, too, must have lists.
I looked back to the sky, richer in red. A plane made it's way slowly. Of course it only looked slow to me on the ground, in reality the plane was traveling at a very high rate of speed. I imagined the passengers on that plane: a woman quieting her child, a man paying attention to the spreadsheets on his lap top computer. The stewards hustling, the pilots concentrating, an obese person taking up two seats. Yes, the people on that plane also had important lists. But could they imagine me, thousands of feet below worrying about my list? Probably not. Most likely they had their blinders on, focusing only on their own daily agendas. But suddenly my blinders were off. I could see how important every body's list must appear, all those people on the plane, all these people in the park, all those individuals still working and living in the buildings surrounding me, and the ones living and worrying on the other side of town, and in Philadelphia and Guam. Everyone walking around with big lists. Of shit to do. Big plans. Agendas. Bills and mortgages, report cards, job interviews. I empathized with them, each of them.
And my list disappeared. I was for a moment released from my personal world viewpoint, and granted what I can only call infinite perspective. I looked back at the sky and saw the evening's first star, and it appeared for that moment to be racing toward me.
What was this list after all? What would the consequences be if I suddenly dropped the document management project, or all my appointments? Personally, perhaps some repercussions, but overall? Nothing. The other 6 billion people would go right on with their business, and nothing would change from the macro-world viewpoint. So what if I instantaneously walked away from my entire professional and personal life? What would exist then? Everything else, that's what. Yet, still my sense of flow and freedom can be continuously inhibited by the microworld viewpoint, or the "personal world view", those blinders that make our daily endeavors take on inaccurate proportions.
Why our ambition takes on these proportions is a another discussion. A Marxist will attribute it to alienation, a Buddhist might describe it as the human condition. Either way, I feel it's universal.
No, I did not immediately quit my job and begin running across the country like Forest Gump. But I did enjoy the rest of my evening basking in the splendor of this perspective, freed from the distraction of self importance. The jazz played, and the night fell. I went into my job the next day with an afterglow that people observed and asked about. At first I tried to explain.
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Joseph was a story teller. He'd talk on end, telling me about the west side of Chicago in 1920's, how he worked all the hotels, and then drove an 18 wheeler cross country. He missed the horseraces which he hadn't been to in over 9 years, and his son and grandchildren lived in Arizona.
Every two weeks I would reintroduce myself to this guy, and he'd tell me the same stories again. He was 92 - never remembered my name yet somehow had the facilities to recall the '99 White Sox Schedule. My assignment was to visit him in the home, up in the 50th block of North Broadway. His bed shared a room with six old men on the third floor of a high rise - one in a series of highrises, hundreds of huge seniors homes all along one street. Almost everyone in there would try to talk to you.
I'd walk home thinking about Joseph's stories, looking up at the rows of little windows that were stacked 50 floors high on each side of the street for miles.
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BACK TO THE THEORY
Baudrillard was right when he suggested that the real has weakened, and within hypereality each story only serves to perpetuate a current overall model. But which scale was he really discussing? He was discussing narratives 'at large'. These are the fabricated stories where any sense of the personal, any sense of accountability has been diminished. With technological ability we have broadened our scope, widened our perspective, and with this comes the 'death of the real'. I believe though, when we begin to narrow our focus again from the meta-personal back to the personal we experience an astounding rebirth of the real.
It is on an individual scale that true narratives are formed. When I say true, I do not mean factual, but somehow valid. They are valid because we have absolute autonomy within them, we are the encoders.
A simulation IS a story. Hypereality, like any other version of reality, is a product of narrative: like all narrative; somehow fiction, somehow fact. The world hasn't actually gotten smaller, there hasn't really been a compression in time/space... these ideas are threads.
We are telling our selves a story - made up of smaller ones.
Reality is collective, and within these weaving narratives there is autonomy.
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further studies: the ethics of street art
