TU Dresden, Fakult at Sprach-, Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften, Institut f ur Anglistik.

Intermediality

Synopsis for the Seminar

Modernism Across Media and Arts

Dr. Sigrun Meinig

Eingereicht am 08.06.2010 von Alexander M uller Matrikel-Nr: 3265725

Introduction

Since many artists work intuitively, they are able create art which, in a specic way, is totally new to mankind. Therefore it does not come as a surprise that scholars always lack behind in describing what artists do, in giving a profound theoretical background on how to analyse the respective artworks. This is also the case with intermediality: In the beginning of the 20th century writers started to open up to other media in their literary works, many artists started to work in dierent types of media rather than following the traditional careers of a poet, musician, actor etc. only. But the theoretical background is still in the process of being established. When the rst intermedial phenomena emerged, they were studied as a subcategory of the already established disciplines (e.g. literary studies, theatre studies etc.). This scattered form of research is the reason why there are no unied denitions and terms to describe intermedial phenomena. Also, ndings in one discipline were rarely applied (or even perceived) by the other disciplines [Rajewsky, 2002, p.2] The intermedial turn [Wolf, 1999b, p.2] in the middle of the 90ies was a rst attempt to unify and bring together the research of intermediality from the dierent disciplines. Intermediality developed into a recognized perspective of research and became independent of the individual media-bound disciplines. I will try to shed some light on the basic concepts of intermedial research in this paper, starting with core denitions, motivation of intermedial research and give a distinction from intertextuality in the end.

Denitions

In order to talk about intermediality we rst need to dene the term media. The narrow denition of media is a technical or institutional channel of communication [Rajewsky, 2002, p.7]. But there is also a broader denition: Media are characterized by the usage of one or more channels for sending and receiving a message and utilization of one or more semiotic systems [Wolf, 1999a, p.40]. This broad denition has the advantage that we can dene multi-channel artefacts which make use of multiple semiotic systems as an independent, separate type of media. For example, lm uses both the visual and the audio channel with the broad denition we can see lm not only as a combination but as an individual form of media. Other examples of media include television, theatre, ne arts (paintings, sculptures, installations) and music. Let us turn to the central concepts of intramediality, intermediality and transmediality now. Intramediality is a term to describe phenomena which make reference within one type of media (as the Greek prex intra for within already suggests). The most prominent example is that of intertextuality, where the understanding of a text depends on the knowledge of one or more other texts [Albersmeier, 1995, p.2]. References among lms or TV-shows are also a common experience. Intermediality, on the other hand, deals with all phenomena that transgress

boundaries of media, i.e. phenomena that operate between dierent types of media [Rajewsky, 2002, p.12] (again, the Greek prex inter for between is a clue). However, note that these references do not happen in a vacuum; all phenomena exist within a specic medial context [Paech, 1998, p.17]. Examples for this category will be discussed in more detail below. We call phenomena transmedial or metamedial when they refer to a certain aesthetic or form of discourse which is independent of the specic medium. For example, a parody can be realised in dierent media through the usage of media-specic means, while the genre of parody itself is not bound to any type of media (note the Greek prexes trans = through and meta = above). Another example for metamediality can be found in Virginia Woolfs To the Lighthouse. The ekphrasis1 of Briscoes paintings are actually meta-aesthetic reections: The mentioning that [Lily] had made no attempt at likeness (p. 52) mirrors the a-mimetic aesthetics used by the Bloomsbury group (Roger Fry, Clive Bell) but also by Woolf herself in the creation of To the Lighthouse. This is exactly what is meant by metamedial reference: You learn about the text through descriptions of pictures and painting processes within the text itself [Wolf, 1999b, p.49].

Parts of intermedial research

After dening the central terms I will now turn to intermediality in more detail. There are three parts of intermedial research: combination of media, transfer of media and intermedial reference [Rajewsky, 2002, p.15]. A combination of media stands for the addition of two distinct types of media in order to create a specic impression. It is also called poly- or plurimediality or fusion of media. Most of the time one medium dominates (e.g. there is more text than illustrations in an illustrated novel) but sometimes the media types have relatively equal shares in the resulting piece of art (e.g. sound art). A transfer of media is the interpretation of an artwork in a medium dierent from the source. The intermedial aspect is the transformational process from one semiotic system into another. The most prominent example is lm adaptation of a novel, but there are also other phenomena like creating a computer game inspired by a lm, musical interpretation of ction or interpreting a novel as a table-top game. Last but not least, there is intermedial reference, where only one medium is materially present, but meaning is created through the (facultative) focus on elements/structures of another type of media. The reference is realised through the media-specic means of the target piece of art. For example, a novel could refer to a whole semiotic system of a type of media (e.g. lm), to a sub-system
1 Ekphrasis (from Greek ekphrazein meaning to describe) is a literary description of a visual work of art [Merriam-Webster, 2010]. For example, a poem could be concerned with describing a statue, or a novel may include detailed descriptions of paintings (as it is the case here). Sometimes the visual source is ctitious (as are Lilys paintings). Cl uvers denition accounts for this fact: [Ekphrasis is] the verbal representation of a real or ctitious text composed in a non-verbal sign system. [Cl uver, 1997, p.26]

(e.g. Hollywood lm) or to an individual piece (e.g. Jurassic Park). Other examples of intermedial reference include narrativization of lm, writing in a lmic style and ekphrasis1 . Of course, certain works of art can be allocated to multiple categories. For example, a lm adaptation can be seen as a combination of media because it makes use of multiple semiotic systems, but a lm adaptation is also a transfer of media from novel to lm, and it will likely make intermedial references to its source text [Rajewsky, 2002, p.17]

Goals of intermedial research

Broadly speaking, scholars of intermediality are interested in the interplay of media. The actual questions of interest depend on the specic category one operates in. For the eld of combination of media, one could be interested in questions like: How can sound and art be combined, what forms and functions are available? What eect does the combination of sound and art have on the recipients experience of space and art? Keep in mind that scholars of intermediality always ask for the gain that comes from the combination, for synergy eects that the individual media types cannot achieve on their own [Rajewsky, 2002, p.18]. In the eld of transfer of media, scholars are especially interested in continuity and change that results from semiotic, technical and organizational dierences between source and target media. Media-specic conditions, conventions, possibilities and limits of source and target media make transformational processes necessary. These transformational processes result in restriction and omission of parts of the source (e.g. streamlining a story for lm adaptation), but also creation and extension of the original (e.g. inventing visual details for a lm adaptation). Scholars are also interested in the selection process that goes with transfer of media: What characters/events have been deemed to be central to the story? [Rajewsky, 2002, p.23] In the case of intermedial reference, one is interested in possible forms and functions of reference to other medial systems or products of that system: How can one type of media make reference to the other? For example, how can a literary text make reference to elements or structure of a symphony?

Distinction from intertextuality

The term of intertextuality has been widely accepted since the 90ies, but which phenomena belong to that category is still hotly debated: Intertextuality is the theory of reference between texts. This denition is undisputed, whereas the kind of references we subsume under intertextuality are subject to discussion [Pster, 1985]. There are almost as many denitions for intertextuality as there are denitions of text [M uller, 1996]. This citation by M uller enables us to understand why some people use the terms intertextuality and intermediality interchangeably: If intertextuality deals with relations between texts, and we

use a broad denition of text, then we are talking about relations among media hence we can use the term intermediality [Rajewsky, 2002, p.43]. But one can go even further and say that every manifestation of language is intertextual. Mikhail Bakhtin (18951975), a Russian scholar of language and literature, developed his concept of dialogism which states that every utterance is lled with echoes and reverberations of other utterances [Bakhtin et al., 1986, p.91]. All words we use are enriched with intentions and accents of other speakers [Bachtin and Gr ubel, 1979, p.169]. Julia Kristeva, a French-Bulgarian linguist and scholar of cultural studies, builds upon Bachtins concept and suggests a dialogical relation of all texts among each other [Aczel, 2004, p.241]. Consequently, she calls this phenomenon intertextuality and claims that every text consists of a mosaic of citations, that every text is an absorption and transformation of another [Kristeva, 1972, p.348]. We can see that Kristeva is not interested in nding explicit or implicit references among texts, but that for her intertextuality is an inherent feature of all texts. It is an universal and ahistoric feature of texts2 that questions authorial intentionality and autonomy of the subject. However, it is now generally accepted to use intertextuality only for a narrow denition of text, and intermediality for phenomena that cross media boundaries.

Conclusion

As we have seen, intermediality can be derived from the common concept of intertextuality. Intertextuality is an intramedial phenomenon source and target of the reference are of the same type of media, e.g. text A relates to text B . As soon as the media type of source and target diers, we speak of intermedial reference: When lm C relates to text A, or text B references painting D we witness intermediality. Understood in this way, the development from intra- to intermediality seems to be a natural expansion since it means to cross boundaries (of media) and seeing the bigger picture of art. I hope to have provided the reader with a brief overview in the eld of intermediality and related concepts. For further reading I strongly recommend [Rajewsky, 2002], both a very useful introduction and critical review of the development and current status of intermedial research.

2 Kristeva uses a broad denition of text; for her, text means every cultural system and every cultural structure [Pster, 1985]. Note that already Bakhtins dialogism applies not only to manifestations of language but also to thought: He suggests that every thought is a recombination of (own and others) previous thoughts and can only be comprehended by relating it to those previous thoughts.

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