Eroica / Grammar

August 31, 2000

Dear All,

As agreed on this past weekend, I'm attempting to put together a "Grammar for Eroica." First a word of introduction so that if I maim this, others can better realize the intention.

I see two main reasons for constructing a grammar. One has to do with the fact that we are not working within an established genre. Except for CEREMONY we haven't seen anything much like what we're doing with EROICA, creating a serious hypermedia fiction for CD-ROM, combining plot, text, voice, music, images, interface-hyperlinked. So we are not working against generic restraints. There's no "resistance" in the medium. By that I mean we are not butting up against the things that great artists before us have done in this genre. Therefore we have to create our own constraints, our own resistance, our own genre. Hence the need for a grammar. In this regard, we have already done some important work. We have established a strong structure of things that users can and cannot do in navigating the piece and in experiencing individual screens. Now, we agree, we need to decide on some things that we authors will and will not do in putting together the various elements of the work.

A second reason for a grammar, closely connected to the first, is the matter of style. Hypermedia artists have a huge array of artistic possibilities to deal with. If they don't exercise careful choices but just throw everything in but the kitchen sink, then you get the kind of shapeless amateurish stuff you see on lots of hypermedia web sites. By choosing certain effects we can establish a style. I've often heard dancers refer to choreographic style as an "idiom," as though careful selection of body movements was analogous to careful selection of diction and syntax in the world of language.

I'll take a crack at giving the style of EROICA a brief description. Everybody can argue with it. THE STYLE OF EROICA IS ONE OF TIGHTLY CONSTRAINED DRAMATIC AND PSYCHOLOGICAL INTENSITY AND COMPLEXITY, BATHED IN A OVERALL AURA OF DARK TONES. If that's right, then there's nothing in our "idiom" that would lead to laughing comedy, to absurdism, to metafiction (art about making art), or no doubt to various other contemporary styles or modes you might think of. My point is again that a style and its grammar establishes limits and thereby an intensity of effect. In the grammar below, though I have tentatively nixed several effects, the thing most determinative of style is not so much WHAT elements are used as HOW they are used.

Enough prelude!

A GRAMMAR FOR EROICA

Note: effects tend to slop over. I mean some of what can be done to an image can be done to music, e.g., fade, repeat. So, the following categories of effects aren't really discrete or neat. I am fully aware that, given the powerful resources for Flash, this partial grammar represents only a fraction of the effects that Ben and Cort can apply. Their absence here does NOT mean that I'm suggesting not using them, but is only an effect of my ignorance. I would expect them to show us many "grammatical" elements that I have omitted. We can add them to the grammar.

1. Some things that can be done on arriving at a screen: A. Silence B. Black screen C. White screen D. Full or partial image E. Full or partial music F. Full or partial text G. Full or partial voice H. Interface absent (nix)

2. Sequencing A. Assemble the screen element by element B. Open full and disassemble element by element C. A rhythm of mixed appearances and disappearances D. Screen opens at some rate from left to right or vice versa (nix) E. Screen blossoms from center out (c.f. vanishing point) F. Screen rises from bottom or falls from top G. Screen is tessellated (not element by element but as if tiles)

3. Things that can be done to a whole screen A. Zooms in or out (cf. pan) B. Masks of semi-transparency C. Color shifts D. Washes E. Changes in intensity or direction of light F. Rotation (nix for whole screen, OK for individual elements)

4. Things that can be done to individual images A. Anything in 3. above. B. Animation (to be used very carefully) C. Different arrangement of layered parts D. Different foregrounding and backgrounding E. Stutter or pulsing effects (nix) F. Posterize or emboss (nix)

5. Things that can be done to fully compiled music A. Changes in dynamics (including faders) B. Segmentation (mainly to fit desired screen duration) C. Repetition D. Changes in tempo (nix) E. Addition of reverb F. Overlays or any distortion of pitch (nix)

6. Things that can be done to voices A. Anything in 5 above, including the nixes B. "Musicalization" (Jose if he wants)

7.Things that can be done to texts A. Because text is also image, it supports virtually everything in 3 and 4 B. Changes in font or color, italics, bold, etc. C. Scrolling effects D. Coordination with voice and music (VERY IMPORTANT)

As I suggested above, we should think of EROICA as having a distinctive overall style or idiom, just as a tale by Kafka or a film by Fellini or a dance by Cunningham or a late Beethoven quartet. (I think we have all been very impressed with the underlying unity of style in Lynn's images and Jose's music.) Even so, each episode or movement within a work, while maintaining that overall style, still requires an individual modulation or variation on the style. Consequently, below I have tried to sum up briefly the "modality" or effect that I think each of the 7 screens of Vienna 1 aims at.

MODALITIES

Vienna 1:1 (Tics) A solemn oath infused with a totally sincere if venomous repulsion. Very deliberate but intense cadence. Nothing fast or jerky.

Vienna 1:2 (Hinterland) Acerbic clever mockery that despite itself modulates at the end toward an almost rapt feeling of admiration. Suggests more dynamism and change in all elements than 1:1.

Vienna 1:3 (Jew) Bettina's indictment deepens, the face truly monstrous racially and theologically. Thrusting and cutting. Profound spiritual peril.

Vienna 1:4 (Beethoven) Eva's retort even sharper than Bettina's indictment. Definite elements of grotesque, not just attitudinal (anti-Semitic) but physical (tic, St. Vitus Dance). Agitated, fierce.

Vienna 1:5 (Doppelganger) Introspective and sensual at the same time. The image here is unlayered, I think. In any case, there would likely be only subtle movement here. Lilting, seductive.

Vienna 1:6 (Engorge) Again, subtle but more direct temptation than in 1:5, more insistent, more threatening to J's art

Vienna 1:6 (Myth) All lines have 4 beats. Keep effects rhythmic and yet witchy. Counterpoint the narrative intro with the quoted words of the familiar spirit, which are cynically and obscenely prophetic.

I hope all this if nothing else is suggestive enough to lead to better formulations by the rest of you.

As ever,

Gene