FTVMS219 - critical evaluation

Manovich’s definition of narrative and database argues they are each contrasting, entirely separate views of the world (225). While database supposedly provides an unordered list of items, narrative focuses on the cause and effect relationship between those items (225). My creative project seeks to prove there is a connection between narrative and database, specifically in their relation to reconstructing memory, a connection that raises questions surrounding how we view and mediate memory.

The chosen memory, my experience at the sixth form ball, reflects the wider universal narrative of the Cinderella fairytale, while my main means of remembering this memory was through files stored on my computer, a database. My choice of storybook and computer to represent the narrative and database are arguably quite literal interpretations, but to ascertain the connection between them I believe this simple approach works most effectively. The conventional storybook narrative structure is depicted through footage from classic Walt Disney film Cinderella (1950), cross dissolving to reveal my own constructed fairytale novel. By using Cinderella to book end the piece, there is a definite beginning, middle and end, following Carlin’s narrative logic of “what will happen next” (136). This is complicated by the use of the computer as a database, informing and advancing the story’s narrative. The constant return to the computer files relates to Carlin’s database logic – “when we return this time, what will be different” (136). The act of interrupting the flow of the page-turning narrative to swap to the computer screen makes the construction of this memory reflexive and self-aware. Being a self-conscious representation of a memory, the database-narrative hybrid (Kinder quoted in Carlin 135) comments on the dialogic relationship between the two supposedly “natural enemies,” (Carlin 135) as the narrative relies on the database to inform the story, while the database needs the narrative to direct its search.

The screen recording of locating images within the file labelled ‘MEMORY’ suggests human memory processes function like a database, recalling fragments without a sense of connection. However, each image is connected by a key term, for example, ‘Young Girl,’ which then relates back to the narrative established in the storybook. The intentionally vague narrative allows for multiple interpretations and leaves out many key facts, such as character names, making it universal but impersonal. The database is used to filter through those multiple interpretations, such as ‘Prince’ referring to both the musician and Hamlet, while the mouse, or my mind, chooses which fits the memory of my ball the best. The collective memory of the fairytale of Cinderella is contested as personal memories sourced from a private database individualise the narrative.

The song, A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes, reinforces the Cinderella narrative as it is lifted from the film, but its placement within the video challenges the conventional and recognisable fairytale ending. By placing the spoken words “Oh that clock…Killjoy…time to start another day,” with the image of “And they lived happily ever after,” the happy ending is contradicted and questioned. The song executes what the database of images has been actively suggesting, that the narrative is manipulated and not accurately representative of the truth – it is subjective. Just as I can choose what images to place in the storybook, the ending of Cinderella can be altered to seem like a daydream, challenging the end title of the film that states “The End.”

When narrative and database combine to reconstruct a memory, like of my sixth form ball, the remediation allows for a wider range of alternative narratives through access to multiple fragments within the database, providing a progressive view of memory. Narrative alone can be seen as universal, but also exclusive and impersonal, in terms of representing memory – imagine only viewing the slides that are ‘storybooks’. Database may reflect the process of human recollection more accurately, but denies the chance to connect these recollections – the screen recordings alone and unordered would make no sense. But used together to reconstruct memory, we are made aware of the process of remediation, which allows us to question the memory, the past and the process itself.

Bibliography

Carlin, David. “Poetic Witnessing in the Archive: The Database Narrative of Life After Wartime.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 24.1 (2010): 131-43. Print.

Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2001. Print.