Transmedia - a Place of Negotiation in Conditions of Hybridity and Change

This research introduces the concept of ‘transmedia’ as a framework through which to observe the ways that media and particularly new media are experienced and discussed as art and social subjects. It follows in depth three specific theoretical trajectories: new and digital media; art and mapping; and art and the (scientific) model. It considers five historical case studies: Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk and Festspielhaus; Mondriaan and De Stijl; Le Corbusier and the Philips Pavilion; Klüver, E.A.T. and the Pepsi-Pavilion and; the V2_Institute for Unstable Media. These case studies are exemplar rather than comprehensive but chosen for their comparative relationships for the theory and practice of ‘transmedia’. The research attempts to take the understanding of ‘trans’ and ‘transmedia’ beyond that of technological collaboration or cross- or multi-media innovation by exploring the interrelationship between artworks and their effects in the ‘lived-in world’. This involves a socio- anthropological dimension of meaning examined through application of models defined by Don Handelman and engages a general debate on the concept of the model as understood by Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze. The theoretical aim is to establish a multi-viewpoint theoretical approach based on the dynamic concept of the ‘Walker’ or ‘Flâneur’ replacing single viewpoint categorization, a concept also to be applied to the reading of the Thesis itself. This is coupled with the concept of ‘thickening’ as proposed by Clifford Geertz with its implication of interaction between multi-layers of meaning. The research seeks to define a ‘liquid’ form of understanding and analysis capable of approaching the complexity of art that crosses media and discourses as may be understood using the concept of the lattice or the rhizome of Deleuze. This research is about the ways artists and to a degree scientists deal with and endure new meaning and comprehend and construct the world. Here ‘transmedia’ is proposed as a method or strategy, a theory, model or map, providing a framework of understanding in conditions of hybridity and change.

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