Papers by Eric Rutgrink
As we scan the current field of Transmedia storytelling 1 , there is one medium that seems to hav... more As we scan the current field of Transmedia storytelling 1 , there is one medium that seems to have become something of a staple storytelling ingredient. The Walking Dead, Start Wars, Assassins Creed, Clockwork Watch, The Niantic Project to name a few, all have pivotal story elements developed or extended through the use of comic strips. It seems these story-worlds thrive in the comic strip environment. But is this phenomenon simply due to the current audience demographic for Transmedia storytelling (TMS) -namely younger people with whom comic strips have always held an appeal 2 , or is the comic medium uniquely suited to the very concept of TMS?
Thesis Chapters by Eric Rutgrink
For McLuhan, space is ‘perceived’, and hence always ‘functional’ or functioning within a world of... more For McLuhan, space is ‘perceived’, and hence always ‘functional’ or functioning within a world of human perception. Lefebvre meanwhile considers space more philosophically and materialistically. His is a logico-epistemological theory of space. For him, space is a product that can be ‘understood’ – space is absolute or abstract, descriptive or social, and therefore always has a level of meaning or intentionality. But neither theory makes much allowance for a gap that is meaningless, a gap that still affects the meaning and perception of space; a gap that is not assigned meaning by either the designer or the builder, but is the concern of both – that appears between drawing board and environment, the screen resolution and the physical realm.
Henri Lefebvre theorises that representations of space are part of our experience of space, and not separate to it. He shows that representations function within a social production of space and therefore involve political intent. However, he is reluctant to theorise the gaps between his own dialectic. Marshal McLuhan meanwhile helps us understand that the way we experience representations of space effects the way we perceive real space – that whatever the intent, there is also a perception that is determined through the use of media. But while an apolitical perception of space is essential in order to understand its production, until it is re-grafted into the social production of space, it remains ‘simply physical events in an abstract sensorium’, of little value to sociologists or spatial historians.
As time and space is compressed into Mcluhanesque hallucinogenic forms of cold media (in the electronic age), when translated into a continuous, multi sensual tactile space, mosaic gaps become gaping voids of meaningless space. A type of ‘para-space’ appears in practico-sensory space that is filled by either social mechanisms or institutional strategies (Michel Foucault) or user tactics (Michel De Certeau). Ulises Ali Mejias provides further support to new media’s mosaic nature, introducing the concept of a paranodal space resulting from a network logic that is biased towards low intensity interactions. And Alexander Galloway shows that the interface, as a simulator of the metaphysical, is an allegory to the social, where the gaps prove insulative and political.
This thesis argues that a new concept of paraspace is necessary to understand the effect representations of space have upon the spaces they represent – a concept that plays a significant
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Papers by Eric Rutgrink
Thesis Chapters by Eric Rutgrink
Henri Lefebvre theorises that representations of space are part of our experience of space, and not separate to it. He shows that representations function within a social production of space and therefore involve political intent. However, he is reluctant to theorise the gaps between his own dialectic. Marshal McLuhan meanwhile helps us understand that the way we experience representations of space effects the way we perceive real space – that whatever the intent, there is also a perception that is determined through the use of media. But while an apolitical perception of space is essential in order to understand its production, until it is re-grafted into the social production of space, it remains ‘simply physical events in an abstract sensorium’, of little value to sociologists or spatial historians.
As time and space is compressed into Mcluhanesque hallucinogenic forms of cold media (in the electronic age), when translated into a continuous, multi sensual tactile space, mosaic gaps become gaping voids of meaningless space. A type of ‘para-space’ appears in practico-sensory space that is filled by either social mechanisms or institutional strategies (Michel Foucault) or user tactics (Michel De Certeau). Ulises Ali Mejias provides further support to new media’s mosaic nature, introducing the concept of a paranodal space resulting from a network logic that is biased towards low intensity interactions. And Alexander Galloway shows that the interface, as a simulator of the metaphysical, is an allegory to the social, where the gaps prove insulative and political.
This thesis argues that a new concept of paraspace is necessary to understand the effect representations of space have upon the spaces they represent – a concept that plays a significant
Henri Lefebvre theorises that representations of space are part of our experience of space, and not separate to it. He shows that representations function within a social production of space and therefore involve political intent. However, he is reluctant to theorise the gaps between his own dialectic. Marshal McLuhan meanwhile helps us understand that the way we experience representations of space effects the way we perceive real space – that whatever the intent, there is also a perception that is determined through the use of media. But while an apolitical perception of space is essential in order to understand its production, until it is re-grafted into the social production of space, it remains ‘simply physical events in an abstract sensorium’, of little value to sociologists or spatial historians.
As time and space is compressed into Mcluhanesque hallucinogenic forms of cold media (in the electronic age), when translated into a continuous, multi sensual tactile space, mosaic gaps become gaping voids of meaningless space. A type of ‘para-space’ appears in practico-sensory space that is filled by either social mechanisms or institutional strategies (Michel Foucault) or user tactics (Michel De Certeau). Ulises Ali Mejias provides further support to new media’s mosaic nature, introducing the concept of a paranodal space resulting from a network logic that is biased towards low intensity interactions. And Alexander Galloway shows that the interface, as a simulator of the metaphysical, is an allegory to the social, where the gaps prove insulative and political.
This thesis argues that a new concept of paraspace is necessary to understand the effect representations of space have upon the spaces they represent – a concept that plays a significant