May
2014
Reading Week 7 – Frankham
Frankham considers how list-like structures can be used to create artistic materials and can aid in creating new connections and new levels of complexity. She states that, “certain documentary projects use non-narrative form as a way to prompt dialogue between the spectator and the work.” (Frankham 2013, p.137).
Frankham explores how lists alienate the elements of a project and how the connections between these elements (i.e. in and out keywords in Korsakow) can create something with more complexity and meaning than may have been originally intended. She proposes that these list-based artworks lend themselves towards online exhibition, as they move beyond linear narratives and allow for interactivity between the user and the creator.
Specifically, in relation to Korsakow, Frankham considers how these interactive web-docs can be considered a montage, or a “complex system of linking discrete objects” (Frankham 2013, p.142). She discusses the how the multiple connections that can be created allow for different interpretations and a more poetic approach to documentary.
The two things that stuck out most for me in Frankham’s reading were:
• Frankham’s discussion for how “potential for a more keenly felt and critical engagement may be enabled by relinquishing absolute control over the way the work is read” (Frankham 2013, p.144). In my personal experience with Korsakow, I’ve felt that the little amount of control I’ve had over how the audience perceives my work is frustrating. As an author or creator, you often struggle to predict how the audience will react to your work, and with Korsakow you have even less of a guessing ability.
• Frankham proposes that interactive web-docs can be seen as a more active and present form of creating media, as more of a thinking process than one which has been previously thought out. The sentence which caught my attention was when Frankham discusses the benefits of lists, exploring how lists “follows the structure of memory, impulse and flashes of association”. This inspired me to come up with an idea for the final Korsakow project we are undertaking this semester.
Frankham’s discussion of interactive web-docs, such as those created through the Korsakow program, and how they reward both the creator and the reader with deeper levels of complexity, was particularly interesting to me as it allowed me to further understand how the Korsakow program can be used.