User:Janis Klimanovs/Term 3: my factory/Reading/Notes about Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folk Tale, University of Texas Press: 1968 (USSR 1928)

Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folk Tale

Quotes from Vladimir Propp text:

And what of the structure of nonfolkloristic materials? If there is a pattern in a culture, it is by no means necessary that it be limited to only one aspect of that culture. Quite the contrary. Culture patterns normally manifest themselves in a variety of cultural materials.

Propp's Morphology may also have important implications for studies of thinking and learning processes. To what extent is the structure of the fairy tale related to the structure of the ideal success story in a culture?

This work is dedicated to the study of fairy tales. The existence of fairy tales as a special class is assumed as an essential working hypothesis. By “fairy tales” are meant at present those tales classified by Aarne under numbers 300 to 749. This definition is artificial, but the occasion will subsequently arise to give a more precise determination on the basis of resultant conclusions.

We observe that, actually, the number of functions is quite limited. Only some 31 functions may be noted. The action of all tales included in our material develops within the limits of these functions. The same may also be said for the action of a great many other tales of the most dissimilar peoples. Further, if we read through all of the functions, one after another, we observe that one function develops out of another with logical and artistic necessity. We see that not a single function excludes another. They all belong to a single axis and not, as has already been mentioned, to a number of axes.

Discussions:

Finding the methodology of things, how You make the rules for methodology; Semiotic and linguistic: structuring things, develop functions, the question is if these kind of rules can be adapted in cinema and other things? Umberto Eco and Propp are from the same school, analyzing structure elements, so You can write an algorithm on the functions; collect the components and create a structure;

analysis - take things apart, deconstruct; meaning and syntax; formalism and structuralism - can you create something without an structure?

If we go back to the object of analysis: fairy tails were collected during the romantic period, the idea to collect them, was idea of 19th century, for nationalism, in order to prove the culture existence; there is not just the collection but also production, for example the mermaid from Hans Cristian Andersen, who wrote the tale being alone, and than it became a tale of folk; there are a lot of writers, fairy tail obsession was the first attempt for collective creativity generating versions of tales; where do we find other ideas in popular culture: music, folk songs, blues;

collective creation of people: open source? can it be?

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/04/wales-hollywood-doomed/

how industry can be destroyed and collective/connective creativity can replace it; computer generated films from blender foundation, fairytale like and imitating pixar animation movies; pop art: industrially produced things are dropped into the common culture;

19th century philology and how they analyzed folk tales, philology said that these folktales were in chaos, they had no particular structure, because most literature and art in that period of time was made by strict rules what and how you should paint, make art or write; The picked scenes were discussed under strict rules, because there were supposed to be allegories - you could see the depictions, metaphors.. there were always connections between folk and the bible; Caravago run in to trouble because he used prostitutes for church scenes;

Screenwriting nowadays: three act thing, arriving from Aristotel just a bit simplified; poezis in greek means making; for painters it was emblematic, emblem books, where you need to follow the rules for example to make a piece;

aestezis - perception; its about aesthetics, and not by rule books or any other frames; there were no longer allegorical subjects, it was thanks to the french and american revolution, the collapses of bourgeoisie the works were judged more from the aesthetically way of perceiving a work;

what happened with pop right now, it is not like that, but there are strict rules that you need to stick with, in writing scripts, songs or whatever, thing are formally built for to fit in certain frames;

Literature:

Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics

Cloude Levi-Strauss

Roman Jakobson - russian formalism school, idea that was linked to the avant-garde art; member of russian futurist group of poets; the poems were multilingual, in different languages; Essay Linguistics and Poetics;

Velimir Chlebnikov famous poem about laugh and the created versions of laughter that reflects to the idea of creating database of versions; Kruchenykh wrote the libretto for the Futurist opera Victory Over the Sun

Black squere of Malovich and how it generated a new movement which becomes a module for new things asceticism modernist revolution;

Norton Anthology of Literary theory and Criticism; all the essays can be find in this book;

Hidden link between Propp and Oulipo: http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/oulipo/ocompend.htm the content is defined by the structure; comparing to Propp, experience is left out because changing words in the text we loose the content, because it changes according to the meaning of things. In Propp's text he is replacing bits and looking for similar bits, creates the same story just with categorized content which actually has the same meaning as the original one;

Is there a way to break out rules with making more rules? You can't escape rules.. anyway you need to stick with some kind of rules;

I Ching online http://www.eclecticenergies.com/nederlands/itjing/virtuelemunten.php

you can use it for to make decisions in work, like for example John Cage being super irrational and improvising things;

The question is, if randomize is not the same formalism? Abstract painting, 12tone operas, abstract writing from Oulipo;

Structuralist filmmakers from 60s and 70s like Michael Snow, Wavelength, Peter Gidal, Peter Kubelka experiments with film medium but also with film material it self, of the celluloid;

http://mediebol.stu.cofc.edu/dogmemanifesto.htm

Dogma rules: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95

comparing to Gondry who is using the hollywood structure, dogma has the same strict rules and structure but totally different in methods;

It is complex to structure these turns in 20th century, but we can see the parallels nowadays in our connective culture;

Discussion with Paolo Davanzo & Lisa Marr ECO park film community and Esther Urlus over community filmmaking

+what are the mechanics of artistic production? what are the hidden things? frameworks are important because if you have too many choices people get confused, in the beginning of learning something, it is easier to stick to one particular frame, but be free in making decisions into this frame and make own decisions during the process;

Notes about the factory reset:

• • • the beauty of meaning, it depends of the age group, and the technology they grow up with;

in factory the model is pretty closed and perfect, you don't have any space in between that can be filled with mistakes and unconscious decisions that can actually make the work happen, create the magic;

it depends of the aim for the work;

Production process - question is coming first before the process.. Technology is controlling you too much, stop ceasing about technology, think more about the conceptual consistency;

+make a prototype how it should work even not creating the outcome result.. it's not about the outcome so much than about concept it self, idea and process, how it goes..

an great idea can be also a simple issue from our daily life that can be transformed into an artwork of a factory reset;

• • • our ideas and possible projects are getting framed more and more within every lesson that we have, the common ideology seems to be trying to put us in one place and be participants of creating a general factory reset of a huge factory and our personal ideas will work for it as single motors which are pushing the main machine;