We currently live within a world where technical advancements are aimed to simulate ‘reality’ as best it can, specifically within the arts and entertainment industry. In a current interview at CinemaCon, James Cameron (director of the 1991 film Titanic, and 2010 Avatar) states that “the future of digital cinema is in 60FPS (frames per second),” as oppose to the conventional 24FPS which has been the standard for film and video since movies began, (Billington). Cameron, being already a huge advocate for the technological advancement of 3D cinema, explains that, “if watching 3D in cinemas is like looking through a window, making the jump to 60FPS was removing that window” (Billington). This concept of the ‘window’ that Cameron describes is the medium itself being hid as far from view as possible in order for it not to hinder the world of the experience. We intentionally trick ourselves into believing the experience we are given for the benefit of entertainment. We do this not only with films, but also with books and through the Internet, by cellphones, skype, texting, television, etc. It seems that we demand devices and mediums that draw do not draw any attention to themselves, which therefore creates a more beneficial experience using that device. In this essay, I have chosen to research and investigate an opposing school of thought, dedicated in embellishing self-reference and termed ‘meta’. Within this paper I will explain the concept of ‘meta’ and how it is relevant in works throughout history. In forming an understanding of the concept I wish to focus my attention to two relevant artists who use ‘meta’ heavily within their works counteracting the idea of “removing the window”. I will looks at the works of Irish novelist Flann O’Brien, specificialy his debut novel At Swim-Two-Birds, making adjacent comparisons to modern screenwriter and director Charlie Kaufman. In both cases we have artist that create works that do not hide from the medium in which they exist, but rather communicate the technical aspects employed by the medium itself, creating an even more relevant form of communicating realism. This concept greatly coincides with the communication philosophies of Marshall Mcluhan to which I will connect the concept of ‘meta’ as a further extension to his philosophy “the medium is the message,” from his book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964). Understanding the importance of ‘meta’ within the works of relevant artists allows for a thorough look into how self-reflexivity communicates the medium to the audience. This form of communication, opposite to the “hidden window” technique that Cameron expresses and is over abundantly beholden in current technological society, creates a more realistic and expressive relationship between the audience and the medium.
As unconventional as the term ‘meta’ sounds, its existence as a form of communication has been around since Aristotle, though not in the same context as it is today. The term itself comes from the Greek word μετά meaning: “after”, “beyond”, “with”, “adjacent”, “self”. The contemporary understanding of the concept comes from the last definition: “self”, and when used as a prefix such as in “metafiction” it would indicate that it is about its own category, in this case fiction that would self reference the devices of fiction, within itself (Oxford). This contemporary understanding first came into place under the study of Willard Van Orman Quine, and American philosopher and logician who, in 1937, devised the word “metatheorem” which explained that meta was “an X about X”(Quine, pg. 145-152). From Quine, spawned various reputable figures who often turned to meta forms within their works such as Douglas Hofstadter, an American academic whose column in the Scientific American Magazine entitled Magical Themas drew on heavy influences of Quine’s meta concept. One column in particular Hofstadter created a book, which he titled “A Review of This Book”, a self-referential concept and paradoxical one. Hofstadter explains the concept of this work:
“…Reviews of This Book, is just a fantasy of mine. I would love to see a book consisting of nothing but a collection of reviews of it that appeared (after its publication, of course) in major newspapers and magazines. It sounds paradoxical, but it could be arranged with a lot of planning and hard work. First, a group of major journals would all have to agree to run reviews of the book by the various contributors to the book. Then all the reviewers would begin writing. But they would have to mail off their various drafts to all the other reviewers very regularly so that all the reviews could evolve together, and thus eventually reach a stable state of a kind known in physics as a “Hartree-Fock self-consistent solution”. Then the book could be published, after which its reviews would come out in their respective journals, as per arrangement.”
(Jenner)
Apart from its perplexing forms in science and mathematics, the meta concept grew as an application used greatly in literature. As I addressed earlier in the paragraph, the concept of “metafiction” elucidates itself within itself, stating to its reader that they are reading a work of fiction. Examples of this run as early as Homer’s Odyssey and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, both stories that have the writer within the story telling the story. Other contemporary works that exercise concepts of metafiction include James Joyce’s A Portrait of a Young Man as an Artist (1916), most of the works of American novelist Paul Auster, Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novella A Clockwork Orange, many of Stephen King’s work including Misery (1987), Secret Window, Secret Garden (one of four novella’s in Four Past Midnight in 1990), and various books from his Dark Tower series, to name a few. With each of these works, there begs the question as to how self-reference effects the work, and what does it communicate to the audience reading. To properly examine this idea, I have chosen to narrow my focus to the specific works of a single author whose writing has delved deep into the metafiction concepts addressed by many of these other authors.
The author in particular, which I have chosen to look at specifically, is Irish novelist and satirist Flan O’brien (pen name for Brian O’Nolan), whose body of work deal greatly in metafiction concepts. O’brien’s first novel, At Swim-Two-Birds (1939), was hailed by writers such as Graham Greene, James Joyce, and Anthony Burgess for it’s “self-awareness” and it’s depictions of “literary traditions” (Hopper, pg. 54). Michael Cronin looked specifically at the metafictional concepts of At Swim in his article “Mental Ludo: Ludic Elements in At Swim-Two-Birds", stating, “Contrary to what Benstock argues, what post-independence Ireland needed was not less but more of the type of playful, self-aware writing being proposed by Flann O'Brien in At Swim-Two-Birds. ... We would all be very much poorer without Mad O'Brien's narrative chessmen,” elucidating both his relevancy amongst post-modern writers and his craft for metafictional storytelling (Cronin, pg. 51). The story itself is a Menippean satire, which follows an unnamed writer who creates a web of fictitious plots and characters throughout the story, equal to the story that he is placed in. As we read the story, O’brien uses the concept of the ‘story within the story’ to keep the audience in realization that even the plot of the writer (our central character) is fictitious. On top of this, O’Brien breaks the fourth wall constantly by using omniscient italicized heading to either navigate through different plots, or to footnote words, thoughts, or actions of the characters used comically as such: “I was compelled to secrete my suite beneath the mattress because it was offensive to at least two of the senses and bore an explanation of my illness contrary to that already advanced. Two sense referred to: Vision, smell.” (O’Brien, 23). No longer is the framework of the narrative disguised but rather used as a point of the story in allowance of a further investigation of the work. O’Brien promotes the ideals of metafiction by allowing the reader to not only understand the plot and themes of the story, but communicates to them the art and technique of the medium as well. Furthermore, O’brien deconstructs conventional narrative time-lines using his metafictional devices as justification. Whereas, in conventional fiction we are slated to the current chapter and everything that has happened in previous chapters is considered ‘past events’ within the narrative and everything in the rest of the book is considered ‘future events’. Because At Swim is specifically about a writer and the majority of the book consist fictional plots that he is currently writing, the linearity of conventional narratives does not exist. For example, on page 43, in a plot line created by the main character is a scene that involves a trial of one of his fictitious characters named Dermot Trellis. Dermot Trellis is also a writer and in this trial he is being accused (among other things) of not supplying his characters with enough self-awareness to sustain themselves. Mr. Trellis is asked why he did not use any sort of “magical” literary device to appear before his character to at least give the character his name and identity. Mr. Trellis responds “I do not know,” and “I suppose I fell asleep”. Later, however, on page 50, we are shown the scene in which the character that Mr. Trellis created, named John Furriskey, comes to life and questions his own identity. In this plot, an omniscient apparition does appear and gives Furriskey his name, (we are to conclude that it was Mr. Trellis). As it would seem at this point in the novel (the ‘trial of Mr. Trellis’ does explain itself in the second half) that O’Brien has created two alternate realities: one where Mr. Trellis does communicate to his creation and another where he does not. This is not the case, however. O’Brien is using his own “magical” literary devices to show the reader the revisability of writing within the written work itself. By doing this the medium itself, in this example the written work, becomes the subject of discussion. As we follow the book we witness events that we would expect to be ‘past events’ become revised and turned into new events. This is justified because within the technical world of writing a novel, revisions can and do happen. O’Brien is therefore allowing us to focus on how the medium (in his case written fiction) distorts reality and by using (and I would even go as far to say abusing) the devices within said medium communicating the differences with actual reality.
Marshall Mcluhan, in his book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Mcluhan discusses in great detail the unique distortions that each medium creates on the message it is transmitting and that the focus of study should look at such distortions. Mcluhan takes a look at print, comics, the printed word, photographs, the press, telegraph, the typewriter, the telephone, the phonograph, movies, radio, and television (to name a few), and looks at the ramifications of transmitting a message through each medium creates. Similar to the meta concept, and dissimilar to Cameron’s “hidden window”, Mcluhan understood the message must be viewed within the context of how it is transmitted through the medium it is transmitted by, in order to be fully aware of the message you are receiving. Such as the case in O’Brien’s At Swim, O’Brien uses the narrative of the story to disclose the ‘distortions’ or devices used to create the story, thus making the medium the message. The fact that O’Brien has the ability to write, erase and revise is the subject of distortion and commentary that O’Brien is making. We as an audience should be aware that though we are following a linear narrative, there was much at work; many revisions and expulsions, required in making this narrative, so therefore, O’Brien makes them the point of focus. By Mcluhan’s theory, had At Swim been a radio play, or a movie, O’Brien would have manufactured a different commentary on its media form. Such is the case with screenwriter and director Charlie Kaufman who uses the meta concept to comment on film as a medium.
Similar to O’Brien, Kaufman is not the first use meta within his works; the subject of ‘breaking the fourth wall’ had been a matter of discussion since the beginnings of filmmaking itself. During the time of the Lumiere brothers, films most often identified their audience through the film because film at the time was a spectacle of technological innovation. It wasn’t until the development of continuity and editing that film began to hide the fact that they were films. Come 1910, the earliest precursor to Cameron’s “hidden window” mentality took hold. Though throughout various era’s of film history came artists who chose to ‘break the forth wall’ and reconnect the audience to the idea that what they are watching is a work of technical innovation. Jean Luc-Godard communicated this idea in many of his films including Breathless (1960) and Pierrot Le Fou (1965), many of the works of Agnes Varda, amongst others. The reason I chose to make Kaufman my focus is because he is the most recent of the ‘meta school of thought’ and concentrates all of his films on the subject. In his 2002 film Adaptation, Kaufman puts himself within the story to show the struggles of writing the script the eventually becomes the film that we are watching. In the story, Charlie Kaufman is given a novel in which he must adapt into a screenplay. We watch as he utters his ideals at the beginning of the film, “I just don’t want to ruin it by making it a Hollywood thing. I don’t want to cram in sex, or guns, or car chases, or characters overcoming obstacles and succeed in the end,” then watch as the script “tragically” (in Kaufman’s own words), succumbs to the conventions of a Hollywood narrative. Kaufman’s commentary is on the medium of film bottle-necking the creation of the story, or as said earlier, ‘distorting’ the message: Kaufman’s script. With all artists who take to using the meta concept within their works, their commentary is that the audience must be aware of the medium in which they choose to transmit their message, thus the audience has a better understanding of the conclusions the artist is making. This even goes beyond that of the arts and entertainment world. As Marshall Mcluhan philosophized, the medium in every form distorts the message, whether it be on the internet, through your cellphone, etc. We now live in a world where information is being transmitted to us in every way and form. In Mcluhan view, “the purpose of media studies is to make visible what is invisible: the effects of media technologies themselves, rather than simply the messages they convey. Media studies therefore, ideally, seeks to identify patterns within a medium and in its interactions with other media.” (Mcluhan). From his argument in New Media, Mcluhan states, “technologies are to words as the surrounding culture is to a poem: the former derive their meaning from the context formed by the latter.” (Mcluhan). The ‘meta’ concept is the device, which allows us to view the medium within the framework of the message gathering a more complete image then without.
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate the importance ‘meta’ has within the technological world we live in today. Lance Strate, in his essay The Medium is the Memory states, “Over the long history of our species, we have extended our collective memory in a variety of ways: through language and art, through oral tradition and mnemonics, through writing, typography, photography, film, audio and video recording, and through digital media,” realizing the weight that technology carries in properly transcribing and archiving our existence (Strate). If we follow Cameron’s “hidden window” concept, and hide our technology for the benefit of making the experience “more real” than we are neglecting the distortion factors that these technologies have on the message we are receiving. No longer will these technologies be ways to transmit a message, truthfully, but rather distort the message to a degree that we would no longer care to know. The ‘meta’ concept, used first by Aristotle, then broadened to all various forms of media outlets, allows the audience to view the message without forgetting the medium in which the message is being transmitted. This, in essence, allows the message to reach its audience clearly and allow the audience to experience a truer reality than that offered by hiding technology.
Work Citation
Billington, Alex. “CinemaCon: James Cameron Demos the Future of Cinema at 60 FPS.” Firstshowing.net. First Showing LLC, 04,04, 2011. Web. 4 Apr 2011
Definition of “Meta” found at: http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0514040#m_en_gb0514040
Quine, Willard Van Orman. “Logic Based on Inclusion and Abstraction.” The Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 2, No. 4. December 1937, pp. 145–152
Jenner, Andrew. “Reviews of “Reviews of This Book” An Unusual Book.” Reenigne Blog (np): n. pag, Web. 22 Mar 2011 <http://reenigne.org/blog/review/>/
Cronin, Anthony (1989), No Laughing Matter: The Life and Times of Flann O'Brien, New York, pg. 51.
Hopper, Keith. Flann O'Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-Modernist, (1995), Cork: Cork University Press. Pg. 54.
O’Brien, Flann. At Swim-Two-Birds. 2nd ed. London, England: Penguin Classics, 1967. Print.
“The Medium is the Message,” by Marshall Mcluhan, reprinted from Understanding Media: The Extension of Man (1964), MIT Press.
“Marshall McLuhan: The Modern Janus,” by James C. Morrison, reprinted from Perspectives on Culture, Technology and Communication (2006), Hampton Press, Inc
McLuhan, Marshall. "Introduction," Explorations in Communication,edited by Edmund Carpenter and Marshall McLuhan (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960)
McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962)
Strate, Lance. “The Medium is the Memory.” Library and Archives Canada (2007): n. pag, Web. 1 Apr 2011
Babe, Robert. “Mcluhan and the Electronic Archives.” Library and Archives Canada (2007): n. pag, Web. 1 Apr 2011
“An Alternative Current in Surveillance and Control,” by Aaron Doyle, reprinted from The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility, edited by Kevin D. Haggerty and Richard V. Ericson (2006), University of Toronto Press.
“The Culture of Surveillance,” by Vincent P. Pecora, reprinted from Quantitative Sociology 25, no. 3 (2002), Human Sciences Press.
