Abstract
Among the maps of places of origin considered in this study, more than fifty contain elements of montage, i.e. drawings in which heterogeneous entities are juxtaposed, producing a semantic gap. In the majority of such drawings, the authors went beyond the mere juxtaposition of different elements to realize more radical editing operations, adapting creatively to the representation of one’s place of origin composition techniques borrowed from popular genres and media. Some drawings, for instance, include the reproduction of a series of photographs; others imitate graphic visualization techniques (e.g. zooming) or comics; others include a legend, i.e. a list of symbols with an explanation of their meanings. The techniques used in these maps, this chapter suggests, can be considered examples of intermedial editing. The chapter’s aim is to analyze these drawings focusing on the montage and imitation techniques used by their authors. The first part of the chapter investigates these compositional processes from a theoretical point of view, combining a semiotic perspective with insights from other disciplines. In particular, the reflections on the aesthetic aspects of montage (paragraph 2) are connected to enunciation theory (paragraph 3). By integrating the concepts of montage, practice of the enunciation (praxis énonciative) and bricolage, it will be possible to consider these drawings under a common descriptive frame (paragraph 4). The second part of this chapter will be devoted to the analysis of the maps, which will be ordered according to the level of complexity of their montage procedures (paragraph 5): starting from degree zero – which corresponds to an atypical use of the elements of the map – we shall then focus on the use of color and text, and finally concentrate primarily on those cases that present the imitation of different media devices, genres and visualization techniques.
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Notes
- 1.
With the term isotopy semiotics indicates the recurrence of semantic marks that gives coherence of a text. Therefore, it is possible to indicate the processes of semantic gap, often described as rhetorical mechanisms (Group μ 1992), using the notion of allotopy.
- 2.
For an explanation of the criteria adopted in collecting the drawings for this study, see chapter “Introduction”, to this volume, in particular paragraph 2. All the contributors to this volume have worked on the same corpus of drawings, from which a specific group has been selected in this chapter.
- 3.
The nature of the iconic sign has been the object of a very heated debate, centered on the degree of similarity or conventionality of visual signs with respect to the objects they represent. See Eco (1997), Polidoro (2015), Nardelli (infra).
- 4.
A reinterpretation of Eisenstein’s theoretical work is today at the center of an important aesthetic movement which looks beyond cinema to focus on the issue of media archive and, more generally, on visual experience. On this topic, see Aumont (2005), Bordwell (1993), Montani (1999, 2010), Somaini (2011).
- 5.
In Nonindifferent nature (1964) Eisenstein broadens the scope of his reflections. Here he describes montage as an effective process because it works in accordance not only with the syntax of human thought – in particular with the “internal dialogue” theorized by Eisenstein’s friend Lev Vygotskij in Thought and Language (1934) – but also with the laws of nature. Eisenstein postulates a structural similarity between works of art and organic phenomena. The effectiveness of the montage processes could therefore be justified by its connection with the biological features common to all living beings.
- 6.
We are referring to the well known distinction between Model Reader and Model Author proposed by Umberto Eco in Lector in fabula (1979). These two concepts do not indicate empirical readers and authors, rather textual strategies that emerge from the work and that text itself contributes to construct.
- 7.
In order to study these structures of mediation, Benveniste has identified a formal apparatus of enunciation, comprising of those elements of language that acquire meaning only with reference to the actual situation of enunciation, e.g. personal pronouns (I, you, he), temporal and place deictics, verb tenses.
- 8.
- 9.
Bolter and Grusin (2000) have elaborated the concept of remediation to indicate three media tendencies: the presence of one medium inside a representation realized by another medium; the competition between old and new media; the cases of media simulation. In our opinion the weakness of this classification lies in the fact that one single concept refers to three very different phenomena. For a critique of the concept of new and old media, see Natale (2016). On this subject see also Eugeni (2015).
- 10.
According to geographical classifications there are two kinds of maps: those that adopt a hodological point of view, and those that adopt a chorographic one. While the former represent a place according to the point of view of a subject and in relation to his experience, the latter represent a geographical area more impersonally, adopting a point of view from above (see Bonazzi and Frixa in this book). Despite this technical classification, the majority of the subjects interviewed has identified the idea of “map” with the impersonal and chorographic representation. It is significant that several of them, after drawing a hodological map, have found it necessary to point out that their intention was not to draw a geographical map. The choice not to draw an impersonal map can be interpreted as a decision on the part of the subject of the enunciation to distance himself from a model perceived as predominant.
- 11.
- 12.
This image evokes the cinematographic technique of the split-screen, in which different scenes are showed simultaneously thanks to the division of the screen in separate sections. Three of the images that compose this drawing confirm this impression, because they portray movement: the fire of the fireplace in the first, the dog in the third and the bicycle in the fourth. As we will see, a representation that gives the impression of simulating one or more media genres in an incomplete way is a constitutive feature of our sub-corpus. For now, it should be noted that in both hypotheses (photographic series and split-screen) the statute of the simulated image seems to be photographic.
- 13.
- 14.
This oscillation between private and public dimensions confirms the distinction proposed by Pozzato in her essay in this volume, (chapter “Genres of Maps of Places of Origin: A Semiotic Survey”) between the axis of social space and the one of individual space. In this case, the opposition between the two is not solved, although there is an attempt to achieve a synthesis between them.
- 15.
With regard to the mechanism of pars pro toto, see Eisenstein (1937), pp. 128–129; eng. trans.
- 16.
This method was widely used in Renaissance painting. It was typically employed in the predelle, i.e. those images which surround the main representation and usually narrate the life of the biblical character.
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D’Armenio, E. (2018). Intermedial Editing in the Representations of Places of Origin. In: Visual and Linguistic Representations of Places of Origin. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68858-9_2
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