theoryor, why we did this.digital proppWhen Propp created his theories of structural analysis in the 1930's it is unlikely that he foresaw the advent of the computing and information age, yet his concern with structure and the modularity of his construction of narrative anticipate that of computing models and languages today. Additionally, writing has increasingly become electronic writing, filtered and mediated through the interface of the computer. Thus with this in mind, it seemed only appropriate to choose the computer as the environment in which to explore both Proppian structural analysis and contemporary rewritings of tales.
I. structural analysisThe Proppian Fairy Tale Generator explores both the possibilities and pitfalls of strict Proppian analysis through its implementation. Propp asserts that any combination of his functions will create a viable story. By implementing the generator to do just that, we challenge Propp's assertion. The generator works by randomly choosing a possible interpretation of a function and stringing them together to create a story. The result is usually an oddly coherent narrative, flitting in and out of focus, but with large parts of it obfuscated and obscured. It is in these holes, this slippage that Proppian analysis fails.Proppian analysis also fails in the lack of consideration given to other such literary devices as voice, tone, and theme all of which are as vital to the construction of a compelling narrative as structural events. With two writers creating the content from which the generator could draw, it was necessary to inscribe upon the generator content the trajectory of one story as well as a general tone and narrative voice. Thus, our generator really deals only with the elements of one tale. To force cohesion onto the generator, we had to create a sort of meta-narrative that utilized all the functions.
II. remappingReturning to the failure of Propp's theories to create a seamless narrative, the preset function highlights the holes left in the narrative when one reduces it to strict functions and events. In the tales generated, characters appear and disappear from one passage to the next, resolutions occur without the conflict ever happening explicitly. The user must extrapolate the events that occur between the passages outputted. By remapping existing tale types onto our meta-narrative, the generator points to this lack, and to the gaps between the seams by giving the user a familiar tale-type with which to compare the resulting narrative.The generator also remaps the act of storytelling onto the computer. In the oral storytelling tradition, while the structure of the narrative may remain the same, particular elements may change slightly depending on the audience or the story teller. So too, the generator does not really generate new, 'original' tales each time, rather it generates variations of one tale. This also highlights the fallacy behind the notion of the 'original' tale. Through the malleable nature of oral storytelling, it is impossible to identify one version of a tale as 'true' and original.' Likewise, there is no original tale in our generator.
III. electronic (re)writing+ collaboration as authorshipThough Propp's theories elide issues of the mark of the author, in so doing they also point to how in the era of word processing and the world wide web traditional models of authorship are changing. The position of the authoritative author is quickly being replaced by a more fluid and collaborative hypertextual model. In many cases it is no longer clear just who is the author, nor is it always a concern. Our generator raises these questions of authorship. Who is the author of the tales generated? Are the people who wrote the functions from which the tale is generated the author? Is it the user who selects the structure of the tale? Is it the computer who ultimately decides what is seen? One could argue that it is the creators of the function content who have authored the tale, they have inscribed a trajectory and narrative outside of which the tale cannot deviate. On the other hand, one could argue that they merely set-up a library from which the user, the real author, selects and creates the tale. Yet one also cannot ignore the fact that in the end, it is the computer that truly chooses what is seen by using a random number to determine which option is presented. Finally, one could argue that the author of the code of the script itself is the author for creating the rule structure within which all these interactions take place.We would like to posit the generator as an example of a more collaborative model of authorship, one in which writer, user, and computer all perform indispenable roles in the creation of the tale.
+ selection as creationIn his book "The Language of New Media," Lev Manovich describes all new media as based on a database structure onto which narratives are inscribed. Indeed, in the contemporary model of hypertext, the narrative is formed by the traversal of the user through the database. Our generator too is a narative database. But rather than traversal creating narrative, it is selection that determines the narrative that arises.This emphasis on selection and combination as a means of creation is a hallmark of our postmodernist and digital culture today. With the increasing sentiment of "it's all been done," emphasis is shifting from the creative endeavor as a purely original effort to one that draws from pre-existing signs. Meaning is created from juxtaposition, creation becomes selection. There is no innocent eye, culture does not exist in a vacuum, indeed, all creative acts are socially and politically situated. Manovich points to this in his chapter "The Operations" in which he discusses how we live in a culture of cut-and-paste and a series of selective operations. Selection as creation is not merely symptomatic of digital culture alone, but postmodernist culture at large. It thus fascinates us that Propp created his theories at the height of modernist enlightenment thought. In an effort to find an essentialist structure and truth, he unwittingly anticipated the postmodernist model of inherently meaningless signs.
+ writing as programmingIt is also fascinating to see the parallels between Propp's system of writing and that of writing code today. The modularity of Propp's theories is remarkably similar to the emphasis on modularity within computing culture. The object-oriented programming model and Propp's theories both rely upon independent, self-functioning modules that can be combined and recombined to create a cohesive whole. Even stranger, Propp chose to call the elements of narrative that he identified 'functions.' In many programming languages (including the one in which the generator is authored -- javascript) a function is an operation, combinations of functions create an algorithm which is a sort of computer narrative in and of itself.Even within the higher-level environment of a piece of word-processing software in which coding is not readily apparent, language is subjected to several layers of filtering, mediation, and retanslation as it passes through the various levels of the computer; as it passes from the writer's text to scripting language, to binary bits and signals and back again. In his article "There is no Software," Friedrich Kittler says that "we do not know what our writing does." Here he is referring to how we are unaware of how the computer distorts what we write, in a sense the computer rewrites everything we input several times over. In addition to this, the generator illustrates another way in which through electronic writing, we do not know what our writing does. When writing the content of the generator we attempted to control to a certain extent the themes and elements of the narrative in order to produce a coherent story. Ultimately however, it is impossible for us to predict what will happen to our words. We do not know which functions the user will select, nor do we know which implementations of the function the computer will output. In a very real sense, we have lost control over our words. Our rewriting is itself continuously rewritten. Furthermore, by placing the generator on the world wide web, we have made it accessible to anyone with an Internet connection and a 4.0 browser or higher. Our words may be taken, repositioned, and reformatted. As part of the cultural database we do not know in what form they may manifest themselves or in what way they may be reappropriated. This is the nature of the electronic environment.
IV. fairy tales and electronic cultureThrough this project we have attempted to explore how Propp's theories translate into our postmodern society and how the rewriting of tales can be impacted by our electronic culture. We find that fairy tales still hold a currency today, that the fundamental themes, elements, and structures are still compelling. But they have also shifted, distorted and reformed. Our generator is one way in which they have done so. In it's creation, we hope to speak to these distortions and discover what forms they take.top |
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