Database Cinema - Implicit/explicit

Implicit/explicit

The semiological theory of syntagm and paradigm (originally formulated by Ferdinand de Saussure and later worked on by Roland Barthes) helps to define the relationship between the database-narrative opposition. In this theory the syntagm is a linear stringing together of elements while at the paradigmatic each new element is chosen from a set of other related elements. In this case, the elements in syntagm dimensions are related in praesentia: it is the flow of words we hear, or the shots we see. On a paradigmatic dimension the elements are related in absentia: they exist in our minds or stuffed away in a database. To quote Manovich: “the database of choices from which narrative is constructed (the paradigm) is implicit; while the actual narrative (the syntagm) is explicit”. In New Media projects, this is reversed according to Manovich. The paradigmatic database is tangible, while the syntacmatic narrative is virtual.

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