Minimal Narratives – Liminal Narratives, or Film in the Paradigm of Interfaces Cover Image

Narracje minimalne – narracje liminalne, czyli film w paradygmacie interfejsów
Minimal Narratives – Liminal Narratives, or Film in the Paradigm of Interfaces

Author(s): Andrzej Gwóźdź
Subject(s): Media studies, Theory of Communication, Social Informatics
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: visibility; surface; figure of terminal; apparatus;

Summary/Abstract: TikTokization has become not only a media fact, but – like everything related to the web– also a socio-cultural one. Being on TikTok has become a symbol of cultural energy of the web,conditioned by its exposed position within both the media themselves and mobile applications.Also within strictly film, offline (cinema and television) or streaming practices, one can nownotice a trend towards telling stories in the manner inspired by the features TikTok is the epitomeof: minimizing narratives in favor of small stories (micronarratives) or the aesthetics of palimpsest.Such narratives situated between different orders of visibility, in reference to Thomas Elsaesserand Malte Hagener (inspired by the concepts of Victor Turner and Arnold van Gennep), I defineas liminal. It is a type of visibility in which – owing to the presence of screen messages of vari-ous electronic devices in the film diegesis (and thus also non-cinematic and non-TV dispositives:smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc.) – the filmic “window on the world” is replaced by the surfaceof another screen, into which the viewer enters through subsequent visual interfaces of the film. Asa result of this type of screen change, the traditional filmic “window on the world” is replaced bythe figure of terminal which film represents with all its apparatus or refers its content to the worldof image, thus neutralizing the image contact that is not specific to the film and making it invisibleas an area of transition.A number of visual orders, switches and apparatuses in the discussed films (Cam, Spree, Netflixseries Emily in Paris) are constantly exchanged in the space of the viewer-observer drift – fromoverview to insight, creating an interface circuit of being in contact with screens. In this way, filmcreates an unstable position of the subject entangled in a network of quasi-social relations, beingitself their fictitious representation.

  • Issue Year: 60/2024
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 324 - 338
  • Page Count: 15
  • Language: Polish
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