The Big Triangle and panel transitions

Jack Masters · Post by **Jack Masters** » Fri Oct 12, 2001 7:39 am

<img src="http://castlezzt.net/bigtranstriangle.gif">

Sorry about the low quality of the panel transition examples.

While reading through UC again, mostly the sections on panel transitions and the big triangle, I decided to put the panel transitions ON a big triangle, and I ended up with this. Any thoughts?

Sean Frost · Post by **Sean Frost** » Fri Oct 12, 2001 7:50 am

I want to put some of them higher on the triangle, toward the abstract point. Things like Subject to Subject, for instance, seem to me to be moving in that direction.

Tim Mallos · Post by **Tim Mallos** » Fri Oct 12, 2001 8:14 am

And Aspect to Aspect. These connections are more subjective, require the viewer to bring a lot more to the "reading". Seems more abstract.

T

Max Leibman · Post by **Max Leibman** » Fri Oct 12, 2001 9:28 am

Great idea! Very interesting. It's like treating McCloud's brain as if it were LEGO blocks and re-arranging them. I like.

I would be interested to see a more filled-in triangle, showing a range of abstractions rising up from each panel transition. Aspect-to-aspects that are very obvious and literal could be at the bottom, then more obtuse and unusual ones could succeed above it on the way towards abstraction, for instance.

Doc MacDougal · Post by **Doc MacDougal** » Fri Oct 12, 2001 11:37 am

Could we perhaps get a specific definition for each of the terms as they are being used in this context? Words like "subjective" and "objective" can be coloured in many different ways, after all.

I was wondering if there are other things you could put on the triangle to organize transitions. Perhaps a model of the relationships between time, space, and concepts in transitions? Perhaps a dialectical model based on whether a transition builds on, destroys, or creates new ideas? Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis.

This is really neat.

Doc.

Jack Masters · Post by **Jack Masters** » Fri Oct 12, 2001 8:00 pm

Sean: Strange. Subject to subject seems pretty concrete to me. When we watch people talking, we often look back and forth between their faces. It kind of troubles me as well to see the middle of the triangle so empty, but only Non Sequitur seemed ABSTRACT at all, when I got down to it. Please note that I mean pure abstraction here as apposed to iconic abstraction. Scott's triangle had realism, iconic abstraction, and pure abstraction, but mine has objective and subjective at the bottom instead, because I can't really see any of the six transition types as inherently iconic or non-iconic.

Tim: And Aspect to Aspect. These connections are more subjective, require the viewer to bring a lot more to the "reading".
So I put it in the subjective corner.
Seems more abstract.
The definition of abstract I use here means "not representing or imitating external reality in any way". All the transitions besides Non Sequitur make some sort of rational sense. In your every day life, you experience things as moment-to-moment. If you cut out the periods where nothing much happens, and seperate things into descreet events, you get action-to-action. When something happens outside our field of view, and we change our field of view to look at it, we have subject-to-subject. When we make rational connections across time and space, we have scene-to-scene, and when we make rational connections about concepts rather then events, we have aspect-to-aspect. When you have something, and then something with no rational connection to it whatsoever, you have non-sequitur.

Max: Thanks!
In my chart, I only represented the six fundamental TYPES of panel transitions, (although not very artfully) but I'd certaintly love to see a triangle with increasingly tenuous logical connections of the bottom five types leading upwards. You should make one!

Doc:Could we perhaps get a specific definition for each of the terms as they are being used in this context? Words like "subjective" and "objective" can be coloured in many different ways, after all.
Good idea:
Objective - Resembling the events and connections of the outside world. Moment-to-moment seems the most objective, because it represents only time, and represtents it the most directly.
Subjective - Having a mental or personal connection, rather then spacial or chronological one. Aspect-to-aspect seems the most subjective, because the aspects have a logical connection by way of human concepts rather then ordinary proximity or cause and effect.
Abstract - Not representing or imitating external reality or rational logic in any way.
I was wondering if there are other things you could put on the triangle to organize transitions. Perhaps a model of the relationships between time, space, and concepts in transitions?
As Scott pointed out, most of the transitions can show extreemly varied amounts of time and space. Still, I suppose some limits remain. You should try that out, it has to lead to SOMETHING interesting.
Perhaps a dialectical model based on whether a transition builds on, destroys, or creates new ideas? Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis.
I don't think transitions, by their nature, can do anything but connect two other ideas. This connection may spark new ideas, but all types of transition seem to have this ability. I would find a transition that can destroy ideas very interesting indeed.
This is really neat.
Thanks!

_________________
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[ This Message was edited by: Jack Masters on 2001-10-12 20:00 ]

Doc MacDougal · Post by **Doc MacDougal** » Sat Oct 13, 2001 12:12 am

Thanks for the operational definitions. Good to know what we mean when we say "objective," for example, since some would argue that no image can be TRULY objective because it was created by someone who chose what to put in, what not to put in, etc.

A thesis-like transition connects ideas, such as an action-to-action that connects one moment to another. A antithetical transition would be a true non sequitur, the complete randomness of which defies and destroys any attempt to create meaning. A synthetic transition would be one that creates a new idea not found in either image by placing them together--Eisensteinean montage territory.

Doc.

Jack Masters · Post by **Jack Masters** » Sat Oct 13, 2001 5:13 am

A thesis-like transition connects ideas, such as an action-to-action that connects one moment to another.

Action-to-Action generally connects actions, but I see what you mean.

A antithetical transition would be a true non sequitur, the complete randomness of which defies and destroys any attempt to create meaning.

An attempt on the part of the reader, I would assume, as the author intended to make a non-sequitur. I would have to disagree with this one. Certaintly people can attempt to make a logical connection between the panels and fail, indeed we must, as the human brain constantly tries to understand things. Panel transitions can not "destroy" this attempt. Only RESIST it.

A synthetic transition would be one that creates a new idea not found in either image by placing them together--Eisensteinean montage territory.

All transitions do this. If you have two pictures next to eachother, and you see a connection, or lack of connection between them, that conceptual connection or lack of connection counts as an idea, by my standerds at least. If you have a fork in one panel, and a picture of Alfred Bester in the next one, you'll see the differences between them. Differences you couldn't see if you had nothing to differentiate between.