Posts Tagged ‘narrative’

The internet as a database

In this week’s readings, Manovick describes the internet as a database with no beginning, middle and end. Databases store data that is utilised in the digital space for organisation and ease of retrieval via search engines.

I tend to agree that the internet in itself does not follow traditional narrative structure as a book would. The internet does not follow a story. It is made up of a collection of various websites, that contain their own stories and narratives within.

Databases stored in print form, such as encyclopaedias, still have a narrative structure, as they are arranged for example alphabetically by topic. This can be true to the internet too, as stories within the overall database are arranged in their own narrative sequence. It may not be the overall internet that is a narrative, but there are narratives within the big database.

 

Narrative is a collage

All rights reserved: Nathan Penlington

All rights reserved: Nathan Penlington

In the reading this week from David Shiels, he talks about how narrative is a collage, as parts of the story are stuck together to make a narrative. The parts of this narrative do not necessarily make sense on their own, but together form a meaning.

This made me think of the choose your own adventure books I read as a child. As a whole, narrative makes sense as the pieces that you choose to read form a story. Although on their own, the pieces with no context and no story are complete nonsense.

I liked the imagery that Shiels used to describe a mosaic piece. A mosaic piece is formed together by broken tiles and gives new meaning to the original object/s. I might have to consider narrative in a new light now.