_Pull of The[ory] Narrative + P[H]ush of The Context_


[or:click.on.a.deer.icon]

[This article uses a threading system. Thread 1 comments + critiques the notion of narrative. The 2nd Thread lyrically describes the Endless Forest project. Intertwine at your (peri)leisure].

Narrative [in the sense described in_link] houses engagement. Context (ditto) manifests as the "incomprehensible other". Inverse-narrative manifests certain under-realities that connect + engage interaction [latent, intuitive, reactive potentialities that can subtly guide/govern cultural or nodal shifts].

[the.ebony.screen.is.plained.around.a.tiny.curled.roan.curve.
on.closer.inspection, it.has.an.antler.set.
it.is.a.deer.
ur.symbolic.game_ic[on].avatar.token.]

Narrative is reliant on biological projections [survival, chronology, echo of reproductive possibility thru "boy-meets-girl/boy-loses-girl/boy-gets-girl" looping], hero rites-of-passage action_realities + physical constraint adherents [ie Campbellesque structuring]. A Narrative pull is pervasively strong, sinking into entertainment/artistic/cultural good-vs-evil polarisations/portrayals + etched over a "willing-suspension-of-disbelief" audience skin. Narrative stretches pervasively through institutionalised vehicles of the [b(lue)]red-state-veined USA political hegemonic climate + its 1st-world hierarchical trickle_down fx [ie utilised as a life-style governance tool emptied and soiled by cardboard rhetorics + masked_villain vs hero polarisations]. Pulling threads through a gruelling history of morality/chapter playing + ethics spewed into easily recognisable meaning form, narrative operates along codified, sanctioned strategies in order to justify acceptable, status-quo comprehension [and life-forming] trajectories.

[c.licking.the.token - deer.standing.action.
left-click - starting.a.sensory.engine.
forest.audio.bleeds.into.constructed.game.graphics.
other.multi.play(d)e(e)rs.iconically.spot.the screen.
we.enter.the.Endless.Forest.]

Flipping the emphasis coin towards interpretation through Context creates instances of stripped, personalised, introspective encounters replacing the conventions, ease + predictability of narrative structuring. Contextual analysis allows for immediacy of experience as opposed to hollow structure of once-removed-fictionalised narrative parameters.

Narrowband approach to information production + reification: email lists such as fibreculture, nettime and empyre - closely align themselves with this linear information/discussion trajectory. This closed communication approach is the opposite of the notion and execution of communication holism. Contextual orientations may be offensive to those immune to more open-ended approaches to meaning construction. Narrative dependents/advocates need to locate their traditionalist-tilted perspectives inside established frameworks. Those advocates of narrative [rational adhesive] stick to theory/chronology/linear/rational/Socratic method/reason, allowing no discourse reactions beyond these channels. They expressly will not relate to the possibilities of context [contextualisation is viewed as pointless, limitless, chaotic, disordered, risky/experimental]. This indicates the antithesis of nodal [free-form branched context-feeding], which often seemingly digresses from [rather than towards] an associated train of thought.

[3rd.person.perspective.click.shift.
4-legged.cgi-roaming.thru.a.boundaried.looping.space.
running.thru.birdsong+flower.fields+(ename).ruins
holler/bellow>tree.rub>sniff.a.deer>delicately.sit.via collapsing.folding.chair_like.legs]

Narrative is equated with substance + the meat and marrow of acceptable storytelling. Context lies between the known + unknown, between comprehensible platforms of information + exposure to rawness of possible comprehension + potential alienation. Context allows for b-grade identifications + theoretically unattractive actualities of poesis. In fictionscapes driven primarily via narrative, meaning is derived via a mimicking mechanism that apes interconnectedness via a truncation of experiential echos. The distilling aspect of this process makes Context a poor, invalid comprehension cousin by Narrative standards.

Narrative is like a bland, dry version of a true empathetic connection/perception. It is used easily as an entertainment-engine + Canon-prop; as social patterning glue; as a ratified/institutionalised construct embedder which acts to rigidly strap meaning into dictated/expectation protocols. Context allows/encourages ethereal meaning construction; for curiosity-use/plucking/selection; for taking comprehension elements + creating specific versions guided by concepts of otherness via anti-or-non-polarised storylines.

[interaction.stri(ations)ctures.produce.variations.
no.beginnings.or.humanoid.tainted/dictated endings.here.
animal.code.shifts.thru.body.language.postures.
intent.morphs.2.action|action.translated.via.Context.

float + morph.]

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Tom Silvers says This is a great review by ]MEZ[ about [push+pull] - 20/04/07