In media res : a point in time
In
media res is
a latin expression refering to a narrative form used by Homer in the
Iliade and which consist of plunging into a past situation, at
any point in time, to further develop a story related to a chain of
events. He was the first to introduce a non-linear narrative process
in greek literature. Since then, many artists explored non-linear
creative paths in literature, but also in music composition and in
visual arts. For exemple, the painter Francis Bacon ounce described
his learning and creative paths as "accidentals", sort of
serendipitous,
undetermined ways of developing his paintings. In communication
sciences, these processes serves to develop knowledge, programs or
systems that will generate and interprete informations from various
sources or origins and elaborate meaning or contents from different
signs, symbols, images, sounds or texts - kind of stochastic
process that integrate multiple aspects or dimensions of language.
The
world we are living in cannot be described, explained or understood
within a linear/positivist vision or perspective (Weltanschauung).
Information and communication sciences have changed our perception of
it and the way we understand our societies. Time of a click, we enter
a media world (virtual) and find ourselves at the centre of a
learning/creative process that is re-designing the patterns of
knowledge and of our social experience. The dynamic of our relations
to the others and to the world is altered and is opening new passages to social change.
Changing
perspectives
Inverse
perspective was used in Byzantine art to create a learning process
"seeing and reading images". In the 20th century, cubists used it
to break the traditional linear perspective into multiple, fragmented
viewpoints, all of them being seen at the same time - illustrating
the multiple possible equations and multiple ways of developing our
knowledge and composing with different realities. Since the 1980′s,
many artists are using mixed-media or multi-media supports and
technics to create similar communication dynamics.
In
linear perspective (conventional media) the vanishing point is
located in front of the person/spectator. His/her vision is built
focusing on it and framed in a unidimensional space/time relation to
an object (text and/or image). On the contrary, inverse perspective
create a communication dynamic that open-up to a multidimensional/multipolar vision of the world. The reader/viewer is no longer
framed in a pre-determined/pre-established path or program or in a
passive/captive situation listening or receiving information, like it
is the case with conventional media. He or she is now able to engage
in a media experience and to compose with the technologies borned out
of "cyberscience" to develop his/her own learning/creative paths
and communication networks. It also allows him/her to go apart (aside
or beyond) conventional systems to develop and webcast contents and
interact with others.
JF