Lars Elleström | Linnaeus University (original) (raw)

Papers by Lars Elleström

Ekphrasis, 2020

The aim of this paper is to investigate the transmediation of scientific articles to very differe... more The aim of this paper is to investigate the transmediation of scientific articles to very different media types, meaning that the form and content of scientific communication is transformed into other forms of communication-more precisely works of art or entertainment, as exemplified by the media type feature film. The focus is on transmediation of narratives and truthfulness. Specifically, the discussions centre around narratives of human actions changing the environment on a global scale. Such narratives are vital to scrutinize because they concern the conditions of future human existence. To make the discussions truly relevant, the complex issue of truthfulness in communication is also included. Different media types can be, and are often expected to be, truthful in different ways, and because of media differences it may well be the case that narratives and their truthfulness are corrupted in transmediation. Whereas communication in general has many widely different purposes, its function is sometimes essentially to get things right-to represent certain things truthfully. Therefore, it is imperative to explore the capacities of different media types to narrate truthfully. The paper starts with explications of some of the core concepts of the investigation-transmediation, narration and truthfulness-and continues with a discussion of general media differences between scientific articles and feature films. This is followed by a brief analysis of a scientific article ("The 'Anthropocene'", published by Paul J. Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer in 2000), a somewhat longer examination of the transmediation of this article to a feature film (The Day after Tomorrow, directed by Roland Emmerich and released in 2004) and a conclusion.

Beyond Media Borders 1, 2020

This chapter is a significantly expanded and improved version of ‘The Modalities of Media: A Mode... more This chapter is a significantly expanded and improved version of ‘The Modalities of Media: A Model for Understanding Intermedial Relations’ from 2010. It suggests an elaborated theoretical framework for distinguishing the multimodal character of media products, which are understood as those entities and phenomena that make inter-human communication possible. It offers a foundational model for describing and analysing the most basic similarities, differences and interrelations among all conceivable forms of media. The chapter also explains some basic mechanisms for categorising media products into media types and the intricate nature of media borders: how they are identified, construed and crossed. Finally, it broadly discusses two general intermedial perspectives: media integration and media transformation.

Beyond Media Borders 2, 2020

This is the closing chapter in the two-volume Beyond Media Borders: Intermedial Relations among M... more This is the closing chapter in the two-volume Beyond Media Borders: Intermedial Relations among Multimodal Media. It begins with a brief summary of the achievements of the previous contributions, including Lars Elleström’s introductory piece “The modalities of media II”. This is followed by more extensive explanations of three concepts that are central for many of the chapters in the volumes, but not elaborated in the opening chapter: adaptation, narration and language.

Bildgestalten. Topographien medialer Visualität, 2020

This article consists of a brief overview of my view on the role of the human body in communicati... more This article consists of a brief overview of my view on the role of the human body in communication. This view is very much informed by the fact that mind and body are profoundly interrelated. After a few words on how I conceptualize communication (Elleström 2018), I will highlight the body as a producer of media products, the body as a media product, and the body as a perceiver of media products. Finally, I will elaborate on the body in the mind perceiving media products.

Transmediations: Communication Across Media Borders, 2020

In this survey I will first place transmediation within the broader frames of intermediality and ... more In this survey I will first place transmediation within the broader frames of intermediality and transmediality and then recapitulate some of my ideas on transmediation. I will also continually relate all the chapters in this volume to my conceptual framework and to each other. However, it is not my task here to indulge in in-depth discussions of the chapters; I will instead pick out some relevant features in them that make comparison and overview possible.

Scripta Uniandrade, 2018

The article will center on the necessary but always problematic notion of media borders, which ha... more The article will center on the necessary but always problematic notion of media borders, which has since long been scrutinized by intermedial studies. My initial observation is that it is impossible to navigate in one's material and mental surrounding if one does not categorize objects and phenomena; without categorizations everything would be a blur-difficult to grasp and to explain. However, categorization requires borders, and borders can and should always be disputed. The area of communication is not an exception: on one hand it is necessary to somehow categorize media into types, and on the other hand it is not evident how these categorizations should be made. My aim is not to argue in favor of or against certain ways of classifying communicative media, but to try to explain some of the functions and limitations of media borders. I argue, in brief, that there are different types of media borders and hence different types of media types; if these differences are not recognized, the understanding of media categorization will remain confused. Whereas some media borders are relatively stable, others are more subject to change; therefore, media borders can be understood to be both identified and construed. However, in the end virtually all media borders can be bridged over through our cross-modal cognitive capacities.

Semiotica, 2018

The aim of this article is to construct a model that demonstrates how human communication, involv... more The aim of this article is to construct a model that demonstrates how human communication, involving all kinds of media, may not only correspond to but also put us in contact with what we perceive to be the surrounding world. In which ways is truthfulness actually established by communication? To answer this, the notion of indices is employed: signs based on contiguity. However, an investigation of indices’ outward direction – creating truthfulness in communication – also requires an understanding of their inward direction: establishing coherence. To investigate these two functions, further concepts and various elementary categorizations are proposed: it is argued that there are several types of contiguity and many varieties of indexical objects, which invalidates the coarse fiction–nonfiction distinction.

Meanings & Co.: The Interdisciplinarity of Communication, Semiotics and Multimodality, 2018

The article delineates a model of communication among human minds that is designed to work equall... more The article delineates a model of communication among human minds that is designed to work equally well for all kinds of nonverbal and verbal significance. The model thus allows for detailed analysis of and comparison among all varieties of human communication. In particular, the transitional stage of communication, which is termed the media product, is thoroughly developed and conceptualized in terms of mediality and semiosis. By way of mapping basic media dissimilarities that are vital for differing communicative capacities, the model explains both how various sorts of significance can be transferred among minds, and why they cannot always be realized. The article furthermore suggests a semiotic framework for conceptualizing the familiar notion that communication is also strongly predisposed by surrounding factors such as earlier experiences and cultural influence.

Semiotica, 2018

The aim of this article is to form a new communication model, which is centered on the intermedi... more The aim of this article is to form a new communication model, which is
centered on the intermediate stage of communication, here called medium. The
model is intended to be irreducible, to highlight the essential communication
entities and their interrelations, and potentially to cover all conceivable kinds of
communication of meaning. It is designed to clearly account for both verbal and
nonverbal meaning, the different roles played by minds and bodies in communication,
and the relation between presemiotic and semiotic media features. As a
result, the model also pinpoints fundamental obstacles for communication
located in media products themselves, and demonstrates how Shannon’s
model of transmission of computable data can be incorporated in a model of
human communication of meaning.

Iconicity in Language and Literature, 2017

Our minds are capable of perceiving similarities not only within the same but also across differe... more Our minds are capable of perceiving similarities not only within the same but also across different sensory areas and different cognitive domains. Iconicity is representation based on similarity, and cross-modal iconicity, which is an extremely widespread phenomenon, should be understood as iconicity that crosses the borders of different kinds of material, spatiotemporal, and sensorial modes, and, furthermore, the border between sensory structures and cognitive configurations. For instance, a visual entity may resemble and thus iconically represent something that is auditory or abstractly cognitive. The aim of this semiotic study, substantially based on empirical findings in psychological, cognitive, and neurological research, is to suggest a general theoretical framework for conceptualizing cross-modal iconicity and relating different kinds of mono-modal and cross-modal iconicity to each other. Its chief argument is that perception and conception of images and metaphors should be understood as the two extremes in a continuum of iconic representation where cross-modal iconicity bridges the apparent gap between mono-modal, sensory-based iconicity and cognitive iconicity. It offers an outline of material, spatiotemporal, and sensorial modes and their interrelations; a thorough account of cross-modal iconicity; a conceptual structure for charting degrees of similarity and iconicity with the aid of cross-modality; an array of examples illustrating the continuum of iconicity from image to metaphor; and a brief discussion of the notion of image schema as an explanatory factor for cross-modal iconicity.

Palabra Clave, 2017

A broad variety of media traits are transmedial in the sense that they can, to a certain extent, ... more A broad variety of media traits are transmedial in the sense that they can, to a certain extent, be transferred among media that differ in fundamental ways. This article presents a new theoretical framework for studying media transformation, which should be understood as transfer of transmedial characteristics. The goal is to explain how meaningful data are changed or corrupted during transfer among various media. Initially, I launch a few fundamental theoretical distinctions concerning the creation of meaningful media data. The most fundamental distinction is that between mediation and representation. Whereas mediation is the material prerequisite for representation in media, representation should be understood as a semiotic operation, that is, the creation of meaning in the mind. On the basis of this division, I also distinguish between two kinds of media transformation: transmediation and media representation. The article then continues with a section about the transmedial basis. All media have basic and universal (material, sensorial, spatiotemporal and semiotic) properties that are shared to some extent. Furthermore, media form compound characteristics (such as narrativity) that are more or less transmedial, which means that they can be transferred among media to some extent. Finally, a model for analyzing media characteristic transfer is sketched.

The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studies, 2017

The aim of this essay is to investigate the relation between adaptation and intermediality and to... more The aim of this essay is to investigate the relation between adaptation and intermediality and to demonstrate why adaptation studies would profit from a broad intermedial research context. A list of ten ways of delimiting the notion of adaptation within the broader field of intermediality is presented and thoroughly discussed. The goal is to pinpoint border zones of adaptation that are only partly recognized as such by adaptation scholars. It is argued that failing to reflect on these borders ignores relevant neighbor disciplines, and that insufficient attention to related theoretical fields reduces the possibility for adaptation studies to produce research that is relevant for a broader range of phenomena and a broader field of scholars. The essay also briefly investigates some core issues of intermedial research, and hence of adaptation studies, and summarizes some vital notions that are helpful for investigating essential similarities and differences among media and for capturing the material and semiotic conditions for adaptation.

Orbis Litterarum, 2016

This article argues for the advantage of applying the analytical perspective of “visual iconicity... more This article argues for the advantage of applying the analytical perspective of “visual iconicity in poetry,” rather than trying to delimit the problematic old category of “visual poetry,” which has been understood to be a type of poetry that deviates from normal poetry in and through its visual characteristics (for instance, poems looking like physical objects). However, all written poetry is obviously perceived by the eyes, and the notion of visuality has proven to be insufficient for accommodating the features of “visual poetry”; it is visual iconicity rather than simply visuality that must be investigated.

Whereas visuality is a sensory category, iconicity is a semiotic category consisting of meaning created by way of resemblance. When these two categories are conflated in poetry studies, so that visuality is understood to be the same as or to automatically include iconicity, or when iconicity is not recognized as a decisive notion for understanding how meaning is created in visual (written) poetry, the result is confusing. I therefore argue that all media, including art forms, must be understood as being based on four media modalities (essential categories of media traits): the material modality, the sensorial modality, the spatiotemporal modality, and the semiotic modality. Media differ in one or more of these four modalities. Some are visual, others are auditory, some are spatial but static, others are spatiotemporal, some are primarily based on conventional signs, others are based on iconic signs, and so forth.

Written poetry is generally based on conventional, verbal signs, but most poems are also iconic to some extent; and not only poems that are categorized as “visual.” Visual iconicity in poetry can be based on, for instance, empty spaces between words and between verses, lineation, typeface, letter size, and word order. Since there are many types and degrees of iconicity, I present a semiotic framework based on the idea that meaning can be produced by all kinds of resemblances between visual, auditory, and cognitive structures (abstract relations that form concepts and ideas in mental space). Visual iconicity in poetry is a specific part of this rich field of iconicity.

Finally, I analyze two poems that differ in their visual iconicity. No scholars refer to Sylvia Plath’s “I Am Vertical” as “visual,” but in addition to being visual this poem possesses a certain level of iconicity. Eugen Gomringer’s “Wind,” on the other hand, is a standard example of so-called visual poetry. Also this poem is certainly visual, even though it is not visuality but strong iconicity that sets it apart from poetry such as Plath’s. In fact, what is generally but misleadingly referred to as “visual poetry” is actually characterized by extensive iconicity.

Iconicity in Language and Literature, 2015

This article demonstrates an analytical approach that might be used as a method for disentangling... more This article demonstrates an analytical approach that might be used as a method for disentangling the manifold iconic layers and aspects of written literature. The goal is to make a clear and practice-oriented presentation of some of the most overarching types of iconicity, based on the assumption that iconicity – as representation in general – must be understood in terms of both sensory activity and cognition. One specific literary text, Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death” (1862), is analyzed as an example via a broad field of iconic traits, structured as visual, auditory, and cognitive iconicity. Although applied to a visual, literary text, the delineated method may be extended to any other kind of medium, taking into account relevant sensory properties and
cognitive aspects.

The American Journal of Semiotics, 2014

The aim of this article is to adapt Peirce’s semiotics to the study of media and arts. While some... more The aim of this article is to adapt Peirce’s semiotics to the study of media and arts. While some Peircean notions are criticized and rejected, constructive ways of understanding Peirce’s ideas are suggested, and a number of new notions, which are intended to highlight crucial aspects of semiosis, are then introduced. All these ideas and notions are systematically related to one another within the frames of a consistent terminology. The article starts with an investigation of Peirce’s three sign constituents and their interrelations: the representamen, the object, and the interpretant. A new approach to the interrelations of these three sign constituents is then suggested and manifested in a distinction between representation and neopresentation. This is followed by a critical discussion of Peirce’s three types of representation – iconicity, indexicality, and symbolicity – and their interrelations, which sets the stage for a presentation of what is referred to as the material and mental representation (MMR) model. This model aims to illuminate the problematic relation between material and mental facets of signification triggered by media and art products and other material things and phenomena.

Translatio: Transmédialité et transculturalité en littérature, peinture, photographie et au cinéma, 2013

In this article, I will firstly sketch a fundamental distinction between representation and media... more In this article, I will firstly sketch a fundamental distinction between representation and mediation, or, more specifically, between representation of media and transmediation. After that, I will discuss media characteristics that can be called “transmedial”, meaning that they can be successfully transferred from one medium to another. The aim is to establish a framework from which to develop a comprehensive theory of transmediality that has the capacity to include a wide range of phenomena that are characterized by transfers of media characteristics. To date, there has been no systematic account of all these phenomena. Existing research is characterized by compartmentalization, which does not favor a general understanding of transmedial relations. Most existing studies focus either on only a few media and their specific interrelations, or on limited study areas such as adaptation and ekphrasis. At the present time, adaptation is probably the most vigorous research area dedicated to the study of transmediality.

Adaptation Studies: New Challenges, New Directions, 2013

The overall ambition of this article is to investigate transformations of media from a basic, the... more The overall ambition of this article is to investigate transformations of media from a basic, theoretical point of view, and to place adaptation within that context. Instead of defining adaptation from an internal perspective, I will work through a set of crucial media notions, eventually reaching an idea of how adaptation can be understood in relation to and as part of transmedial issues at large. My aim is not to criticize the multifaceted field of adaptation studies as such, or to evaluate or interpret its objects of study, but to point at possible and hopefully prolific ways of widening the field’s frames of reference.

Iconicity in Language and Literature, 2013

This article is part of a larger research project that aims to identify a methodical way of inves... more This article is part of a larger research project that aims to identify a methodical way of investigating iconicity in the immensely rich field of media, which includes art and other kinds of communication. The first part of the paper focuses on the intimate connection between sensory perception and cognition and sketches a basis for analyzing multimodal iconicity (which involves, for instance, several sensory modes or several spatiotemporal modes). The second part scrutinizes Peirce’s notions of image, diagram, and metaphor and argues that these three types of iconicity should be seen as a continuum that ranges from sensorially ‘strong’ to ‘weak’ iconicity and from cognitively ‘simple’ to ‘complex’ iconicity. The third part of the paper analyzes some examples of multimodal iconicity, with specific emphasis on spatiotemporal multimodality (for instance, spatial signs representing temporal objects, such as graphs representing population growth); earlier semiotic research has not dealt with this subject in a systematic way.

Cultura: International Journal of Philosophy of …, 2012

This article aims to show that so-called Mail Art (art distributed via the international postal s... more This article aims to show that so-called Mail Art (art distributed via the international postal system) is based on five paradoxes. These paradoxes, which correlate to how Mail Art is distributed and exhibited by means of changing technologies, its aesthetics, its democratic ideals, and its transnational character, explain how Mail Art has emerged and been constructed as an artistic medium on the stage of world cultures. While the paradoxes of Mail Art are specific for this particular medium, I argue that all media types are more or less marked by inherent paradoxes. The fact that Mail Art includes all kinds of material, sensorial, spatiotemporal, and semiotic modes makes it an unusual art form, but here it is primarily meant to be an example of the ambiguous ways in which media types in general are delimited and defined.This article aims to show that so-called Mail Art (art distributed via the international postal system) is based on five paradoxes. These paradoxes, which correlate to how Mail Art is distributed and exhibited by means of changing technologies, its aesthetics, its democratic ideals, and its transnational character, explain how Mail Art has emerged and been constructed as an artistic medium on the stage of world cultures. While the paradoxes of Mail Art are specific for this particular medium, I argue that all media types are more or less marked by inherent paradoxes. The fact that Mail Art includes all kinds of material, sensorial, spatiotemporal, and semiotic modes makes it an unusual art form, but here it is primarily meant to be an example of the ambiguous ways in which media types in general are delimited and defined.

Iconicity in Language and Literature, 2010

Iconicity consists of mimetic relations between form and meaning. This article is based on the ... more Iconicity consists of mimetic relations between form and meaning. This article is based on the notion of ‘spatial thinking’ and it is argued that there is no form without meaning, and that all meaning has some sort of form. Two fundamental distinctions are used. The first is Charles Sanders Peirce’s well-known division into three types of iconicity: image, diagram, and metaphor, which is extended to include ‘weak’ and ‘strong diagrams’. The second is a distinction between ontologically different appearances of signs: visual material signs, auditory material signs, and complex cognitive signs. A two-dimensional model illustrating the relations between these two distinctions is presented. The model is based on the assumption that iconicity, to a certain extent, is gradable, and it shows that the field of iconicity includes many phenomena that are not generally seen as related, but that nevertheless can be systematically compared. It also shows, among other things, that the ‘metaphor’ and the ‘weak diagram’ are singled out by the capacity of miming across the borders both between the visual and the auditory, and between the material and the mental. The main argument of the article is that iconicity should be understood not only as “form miming meaning and form miming form”, but also as “meaning miming meaning and meaning miming form”.

Ekphrasis, 2020

Beyond Media Borders 1, 2020

Beyond Media Borders 2, 2020

Bildgestalten. Topographien medialer Visualität, 2020

Transmediations: Communication Across Media Borders, 2020

Scripta Uniandrade, 2018

Semiotica, 2018

Meanings & Co.: The Interdisciplinarity of Communication, Semiotics and Multimodality, 2018

Semiotica, 2018

Iconicity in Language and Literature, 2017

Palabra Clave, 2017

The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studies, 2017

Orbis Litterarum, 2016

Iconicity in Language and Literature, 2015

The American Journal of Semiotics, 2014

Translatio: Transmédialité et transculturalité en littérature, peinture, photographie et au cinéma, 2013

Adaptation Studies: New Challenges, New Directions, 2013

Iconicity in Language and Literature, 2013

Cultura: International Journal of Philosophy of …, 2012

Iconicity in Language and Literature, 2010

In this essay, depictive aspects of meaning, thinking, and concepts, as employed in philosophy, p... more In this essay, depictive aspects of meaning, thinking, and concepts, as employed in philosophy, psychology and neurology, are related to an analysis of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. In the interpretation of this novel, the notion of spatial thinking is developed in the context of visuality and rhythm.

O objetivo deste artigo é construir um modelo para demonstrar como a comunicação humana, envolven... more O objetivo deste artigo é construir um modelo para demonstrar como a comunicação humana, envolvendo todos os tipos de mídia, pode não apenas corresponder,
mas também nos colocar em contato com a nossa percepção do mundo que nos rodeia. De que maneiras a verdade é realmente estabelecida pela comunicação? Para responder a isso, emprega-se a noção de índices: sinais baseados em contiguidade. No entanto, uma investigação dos índices na sua dimensão externa – criando a veracidade na comunicação – também requer uma compreensão da sua dimensão interna: criar a coerência. Para investigar essas duas funções, alguns conceitos e várias categorizações elementares são propostas: argumenta-se que existem vários tipos de contiguidade e muitas variedades de objetos indiciais, o que invalida a distinção grosseira entre ficção e não ficção.

Tekstualia, 2019

The article will center on the necessary but always problematic notion of media borders, which ha... more The article will center on the necessary but always problematic notion of media borders, which has since long been scrutinized by intermedial studies. My initial observation is that it is impossible to navigate in one’s material and mental surrounding if one does not categorize objects and phenomena; without categorizations everything would be a blur – difficult to grasp and to explain. However, categorization requires borders, and borders can and should always be disputed. The area of communication is not an exception: on one hand it is necessary to somehow categorize media into types, and on the other hand it is not evident how these categorizations should be made. My aim is not to argue in favor of or against certain ways of classifying communicative media, but to try to explain some of the functions and limitations of media borders. I argue, in brief, that there are different types of media borders and hence different types of media types; if these differences are not recognized, the understanding of media categorization will remain confused. Whereas some media borders are relatively stable, others are more subject to change; therefore, media borders can be understood to be both identified and construed. However, in the end virtually all media borders can be bridged over through our cross-modal cognitive capacities.

Anais. X Seminário de Pesquisa II Encontro Internacional VII Jornada Intermídia, 2018

Este artigo se concentra na necessária – mas sempre problemática – noção das fronteiras das mídia... more Este artigo se concentra na necessária – mas sempre problemática – noção das fronteiras das mídias, que há muito tem sido examinada pelos estudos intermidiáticos. Minha observação inicial é a de que é impossível transitar no ambiente material e mental de determinado sujeito sem categorizar objetos e fenômenos; sem as categorizações tudo seria um borrão – difícil de entender e de explicar. No entanto, a categorização exige fronteiras, e as fronteiras podem e devem sempre ser questionadas. A área de comunicação não é uma exceção: por um lado, é necessário categorizar as mídias em tipos; por outro lado, não fica claro como essas categorizações devem ser feitas. Meu objetivo não é argumentar a favor ou contra certas formas de se classificar as mídias comunicativas, mas tentar explicar algumas das funções e limitações das fronteiras midiáticas. Argumento, resumidamente, que existem diferentes tipos de fronteiras de mídias e, portanto, diferentes tipos de mídias. Se essas diferenças não forem reconhecidas, a compreensão da categorização das mídias permanecerá confusa. Enquanto algumas fronteiras midiáticas são relativamente estáveis, outras estão mais sujeitas a mudanças; portanto, as fronteiras das mídias podem ser entendidas como sendo tanto identificadas quanto construídas. No entanto, no final, praticamente todas as fronteiras das mídias podem ser superadas por meio de nossas capacidades cognitivas cross-modais.

Degrés. Revue de synthèse à orientation sémiologique, 2018

Cette communication s’inscrit dans le domaine de la communication humaine et se base sur l’idée q... more Cette communication s’inscrit dans le domaine de la communication humaine et se base sur l’idée qu’esprit/cognition et corps sont intimement interdépendants. J’aborderai les points suivants, qui seront considérés comme étant corrélés. 1) Le corps comme producteur de produits média. Toute communication commence par l’« esprit d’un producteur », situé dans un corps, qui, d’une manière ou d’une autre, génère un produit média, qui devrait être entendu comme l’entité intermédiaire rendant possible une communication entre esprits. 2) Le corps comme produit média. Les produits média sont nécessairement matériels d’une certaine manière, ce qui implique qu’ils soient des entités ou des processus physiques. Ils peuvent être des corps organiques, des entités non organiques, ou une combinaison des deux. 3) Le corps comme percevant des produits média. L’« esprit du percevant » ne peut entrer en contact avec le produit média d’aucune autre manière qu’à travers la perception sensorielle, qui est un phénomène éminemment corporel. 4) Le corps dans l’esprit percevant les produits médias. Lorsque des corps acquièrent une fonction de produit média, ils agissent comme signes – des « représentamens » dans la terminologie de Peirce. Toutefois, des corps peuvent également être des « objets » de signification ; ils peuvent être représentés. La communication peut donc impliquer la représentation de corps et objets concrets. La communication peut également impliquer la représentation d’entités plus abstraites telles que des concepts, idées, intentions, et relations ; mais bien qu’abstraites, de telles notions mentales sont, dans une large mesure, ancrées dans l’expérience de nos corps interagissant avec le monde environnant.

Bildverstehen: Spielarten und Ausprägungen der Verarbeitung multimodaler Bildmedien, 2017

Resor i tid och rum, 2013

Захід – Схід : основні тенденції розвитку сучасного порівняльного літературознавства : [антологія] / Науковий проект, загальна редакція Л. Грицик Zakhid--Skhid: Osnovni tendent–s–ii rozvytku suchasnoho porivni–a–l’noho literaturoznavstva. Antolohii–a–, 2012

Medialitet, intermedialitet og analyse, 2012

Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

This open access book is a methodical treatise on narration in different types of media. A theore... more This open access book is a methodical treatise on narration in different types of media. A theoretical rather than a historical study, Transmedial Narration is relevant for an understanding of narration in all times, including our own. By reconstructing the theoretical framework of transmedial narration, this book enables the inclusion of all kinds of communicative media forms on their own terms. The treatise is divided into three parts. Part I presents established and newly developed concepts that are vital for formulating a nuanced theoretical model of transmedial narration. Part II investigates the specific transmedial media characteristics that are most central for realizing narratives in a plenitude of different media types. Finally, Part III contains brief studies in which the narrative potentials of painting, instrumental music, mathematical equations, and guided tours are illuminated with the aid of the theoretical framework developed throughout the book. Suitable for advanced students and scholars, this book provides tools to disentangle the narrative potential of any form of communication.

Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

Why are some kinds of information and qualities possible to transfer from one medium to another t... more Why are some kinds of information and qualities possible to transfer from one medium to another type of medium, whereas others resist intermedial transfer? This basic question guides the investigations in Media Transformation of communicative phenomena that are in a way self-evident and yet highly complex and difficult to explain. The book is a methodical study of the material and mental limits and possibilities of transferring information and media characteristics among dissimilar media. Whereas media such as speech, gestures, writing, music, films, and websites are clearly different, they also have common traits that enable systematic comparison. Elleström proposes a theoretical model for pinpointing the most vital conceptual entities and stages of intermedial transfers and illustrates how the model can be used in practical analysis.

Bucknell University Press, 2002

Divine Madness provides a theory that enables the concept of irony to be transferred from the lit... more Divine Madness provides a theory that enables the concept of irony to be transferred from the literary to the visual and aural domains. Two stories are being told. One is a story of how literary conceptualization has conquered the fields of the other arts and the other is a story of how literary conceptualization, conversely, has been successively relativized. Elleström provides a survey of the historical roots of the concept of irony as well as a discussion of two hermeneutical "options": irony as a mode of oral communication and irony as a mode of literary expression. The author examines how irony is classified and how it is used as an interpretive strategy rather than a "textual trait" intended by an author. Other concepts such as paradox, mysticism and deconstruction are also evaluated in terms of their relation to irony. Elleström concludes by demonstrating that ironic interpretations of not just music are intimately connected to norms, values, and even political stances that tend to be hidden behind an allegedly objective terminology - a terminology that has its roots in the comprehension of irony as an intentional, oral phenomenon.

Palgrave Macmillan, 2020

This open access book promotes the idea that all media types are multimodal and that comparing me... more This open access book promotes the idea that all media types are multimodal and that comparing media types, through an intermedial lens, necessarily involves analysing these multimodal traits. The collection includes a series of interconnected articles that illustrate and clarify how the concepts developed in Elleström’s influential article The Modalities of Media: A Model for Understanding Intermedial Relations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) can be used for methodical investigation and interpretation of media traits and media interrelations. The authors work with a wide range of old and new media types that are traditionally investigated through limited, media-specific concepts. The publication is a significant contribution to interdisciplinary research, advancing the frontiers of conceptual as well as practical understanding of media interrelations. This is the first of two volumes. It contains Elleström’s revised article and six other contributions focusing especially on media integration: how media products and media types are combined and merged in various ways.

Palgrave Macmillan, 2020

This open access book promotes the idea that all media types are multimodal and that comparing me... more This open access book promotes the idea that all media types are multimodal and that comparing media types, through an intermedial lens, necessarily involves analysing these multimodal traits. The collection includes a series of interconnected articles that illustrate and clarify how the concepts developed in Elleström’s influential article The Modalities of Media: A Model for Understanding Intermedial Relations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) can be used for methodical investigation and interpretation of media traits and media interrelations. The authors work with a wide range of old and new media types that are traditionally investigated through limited, media-specific concepts. The publication is a significant contribution to interdisciplinary research, advancing the frontiers of conceptual as well as practical understanding of media interrelations. This is the second of two volumes. It contains a concluding article by Elleström and seven contributions concentrated on the issue of media transformations: how media characteristics are transferred and transfigured among various media products and media types.

Routledge, 2020

This collection offers a multi-faceted exploration of transmediations, the processes of transfer ... more This collection offers a multi-faceted exploration of transmediations, the processes of transfer and transformation that occur when communicative acts in one medium are mediated again through another. While previous research has explored these processes from a broader perspective, Salmose and Elleström argue that a better understanding is needed of the extent to which the outcomes of communicative acts are modified when transferred across multimodal media in order to foster a better understanding of communication more generally. Using this imperative as a point of departure, the book details a variety of transmediations, viewed through four different lenses. The first part of the volume looks at narrative transmediations, building on existing work done by Marie-Laure Ryan on transmedia storytelling. The second section focuses on the spatial dynamics involved in media transformation as well as the role of the human body as a perceptive agent and a medium in its own right. The third part investigates new, radical boundaries and media types in transmediality and hence shows its versatility as a method of analyzing complex and contemporary communicative discourses. The fourth and final part explores the challenges involved in transmediating scientific data into the narrative format in the context of environmental issues. Taken together, these sections highlight a range of case studies of transmediations and, in turn, the complexity and variety of the process, informed by the methodologies of the different disciplines to which they belong. This innovative volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars in multimodality, communication, intermediality, semiotics, and adaptation studies.

Iconic Investigations: Iconicity in Language and Literature, 2013

The contributions to Iconic Investigations deal with linguistic or literary aspects of language. ... more The contributions to Iconic Investigations deal with linguistic or literary aspects of language. While some studies analyze the cognitive structures of language, others pay close attention to the sounds of spoken language and the visual characteristics of written language. In addition this volume also contains studies of media types such as music and visual images that are integrated into the overall project to deepen the understanding of iconicity – the creation of meaning by way of similarity relations. Iconicity is a fundamental but relatively unexplored part of signification in language and other media types. During the last decades, the study of iconicity has emerged as a vital research area with far-reaching interdisciplinary scope and the volume should be of interest for students and researchers interested in scholarly fields such as semiotics, cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor studies, poetry, intermediality, and multimodality.

Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

Media Borders, Multimodality, and Intermediality is a collection of essays that have found their ... more Media Borders, Multimodality, and Intermediality is a collection of essays that have found their final forms in dialog with each other. The initial question that was posed was simply ‘what is intermediality?’ To answer this question, one must also ask what a medium is, and where we find the ‘gaps’ that intermediality bridges. Clearly, the supposedly crossed borders must be described before one can proceed to the ‘inter’ of intermediality. We also set out to investigate how the two notions of intermediality and multimodality, rarely discussed together, are related. The aim was to facilitate communication and theoretical cross-fertilization over the borders between the esthetic disciplines, media and communication studies, linguistics, and so forth.

ediPUCRS, 2021

TEXTO. IMAGEM. SOM. Ainda que para alguns estudos essa tríade não seja problemática, definições p... more TEXTO. IMAGEM. SOM. Ainda que para alguns estudos essa tríade não seja problemática, definições para esses termos são fundamentais para o diálogo entre as diferentes áreas que se interessam pelo significado dos produtos de mídia – expressão de Lars Elleström para textos em suas diferentes manifestações. Como Diretor do Intermedial and Multimodal Studies na Linnæus University, Elleström focaliza justamente nessa perspectiva interdisciplinar da Intermidialidade e em seu potencial para fornecer uma terminologia e uma abordagem capazes de abarcar a enorme diversidade das relações intermidiais. Neste ensaio, ele se concentra no conceito de mídia, modalidade e modo, oferecendo um texto basilar para todos aqueles que não apenas se interessam pelas relações intermidiais, mas também àqueles que estudam a Comunicação em geral, como pesquisadores de Cinema, Jornalismo e Literatura.

EdiPUCRS, 2017

Collection of articles by Lars Elleström edited by Ana Cláudia Munari Domingos, Ana Paula Klauck ... more Collection of articles by Lars Elleström edited by Ana Cláudia Munari Domingos, Ana Paula Klauck and Glória Maria Guiné de Mello, containing Portuguese translations of:
“A Medium-Centered Model of Communication” by Rafael Eisinger Guimarães;
“The Modalities of Media: A Model for Understanding Intermedial Relations” by Glória Maria Guiné de Mello;
“Material and Mental Representation: Peirce Adapted to the Study of Media and Arts” by Sabrina Schneider;
“Adaptation within the Field of Media Transformations” by Ana Cláudia Munari Domingos;
“Adaptation and Intermediality” by Erika Viviane Costa Vieira;
“Transfer of Media Characteristics among Dissimilar Media” by Ana Paula Klauck;
“The Paradoxes of Mail Art: How to Build an Artistic Media Type” by Ana Paula Klauck.

APRESENTAÇÃO Lars Elleström é professor titular de Literatura Comparada na Linnaeus University,... more APRESENTAÇÃO

Lars Elleström é professor titular de Literatura Comparada na Linnaeus University, Suécia. Escreveu e editou vários livros, dentre eles Media Transformation: The Transfer of Media Characteristics Among Media (2014) e Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality (2010), que versam sobre o modelo proposto pelo autor para o estudo da transferência de características entre diferentes mídias. Para chegar a este modelo, o autor realizou vários e diferentes estudos, publicando uma grande quantidade de ensaios e artigos, alguns dos quais encontram-se traduzidos neste volume. Elleström trabalha também com estudos sobre gênero e semiótica, tendo como objetos, por exemplo, a poesia e a ironia, mas seu interesse principal são os Estudos de Intermidialidade.
Elleström coordena atualmente a International Society for Intermedial Studies – ISIS, entidade fundada em 1996, da qual participam os mais importantes nomes desta linha de pesquisa. As relações entre as diferentes formas de arte, em seu sentido mais amplo, e as mídias, a partir de um contexto cultural, são o foco principal das pesquisas empreendidas. Seu objetivo é a promoção e a difusão dos Estudos de Intermidialidade nos âmbitos de pesquisa e pós-graduação por meio de conferências e seminários nacionais e internacionais.
Uma das principais contribuições da International Society for Intermedial Studies é a criação de uma rede internacional de grupos de pesquisa . Entre eles, encontra-se o grupo Intermídia: Estudos sobre a Intermidialidade , certificado pelo CNPq e liderado pela professora doutora Thaïs Flores Nogueira Diniz (UFMG) e pelo professor Claus Clüver (Indiana University), do qual alguns tradutores dos textos que integram este livro são membros.
O Centro de Estudos Intermidiáticos e Multimodais – Centre for Intermedial and Multimodal Studies (IMS) – da Linnaeus University, liderado por Lars Elleström, é um ambiente interdisciplinar, que concentra estudos de literatura comparada, comunicação social, linguística, música, cinema e arte. De modo a fomentar investigações da intermidialidade, esse espaço de trabalho transdisciplinar ainda pouco comum é essencial para uma pesquisa abrangente que viabilize a elaboração e o desenvolvimento de modelos conceituais possíveis de serem aplicados em diferentes campos do saber, que é exatamente o que o professor Lars Elleström nos oferece nos artigos compilados neste volume.
Os estudos sobre mídia e intermidialidade realizados por Elleström respondem a uma necessidade cada vez maior de se pensar (ou repensar) o que se entende por mídia, as relações entre as mídias e as construções e transformações de sentido advindas dessas relações. Em tempos em que muitas atividades humanas têm sido midiadas por máquinas e tecnologias eletroeletrônicas e digitais, termos como transmidialidade e intermidialidade têm aparecido em diferentes áreas de pesquisa. E, assim, vários campos têm como objeto de estudo os sentidos representados pelo termo mídia.
Sentido e representação são palavras necessárias para que se possa trazer à baila a multiplicidade de interpretações a partir dessas diferentes perspectivas de análise. No entanto, não parece haver discrepâncias que possam anular ou mesmo colocar em choque aquilo que se pretende significar com a palavra mídia em seu sentido mais amplo. O que há, mesmo a partir de estudos de um mesmo campo, como o da Comunicação, é a necessidade de formalizar conceitos a partir dos próprios objetos, estabelecendo modelos que possam ser utilizados por todos os investigadores. A mídia cinema é analisada a partir da Semiótica e da Literatura Comparada, por exemplo, dentro dos estudos de Adaptação, sem que haja coesão em relação à terminologia referente aos objetos e fenômenos que ambas colocam sob suas lentes. O termo mídia ainda hoje parece deslocado dentro dos estudos literários, para quem o livro é o suporte tradicional, por assim dizer, da literatura. E assim acontece com derivações e variantes que advêm das investigações para as quais a midiação, a representação, a travessia e a transformação de sentidos ocorrem a partir de mídias.
Durante muitos anos, a partir da Literatura Comparada, e com travessias entre os estudos de Comunicação, Semiótica e Linguística, Lars Elleström tem arduamente procurado entender as distintas relações entre as mídias a partir das ideias de midialidade, representação e transmidialidade, defendendo o campo da Intermidialidade como aquele que pode abarcar todos esses fenômenos que, como o próprio nome explicita, ocorrem entre as mídias. Neste livro, reunimos o resultado de vários de seus estudos, que propõem terminologias, modelos e metodologias de análise dos fenômenos entre mídias que, finalmente, podem servir a diferentes tipos de investigação sem que seus limites e interesses sejam obliterados.
Em “Um modelo de comunicação centralizado na mídia”, a partir daqueles propostos por Shannon (1948), Jakobson (1960) e Schramm (1971), Elleström dá forma a um novo modelo, que destaca as entidades essenciais da comunicação e a amplia para a transmissão humana de significados, pensando noções como a de valor cognitivo e propondo diferentes modos de compreender a mídia a partir do seu entendimento como espaço intermediário. Em “As modalidades da mídia: um modelo para compreender as relações intermidiais”, ele dá seguimento à proposição de padrões para a análise das relações entre as mídias, agora, mais especificamente, as mídias artísticas e suas diferentes modalidades, ou seja, a material, a sensorial, a espaçotemporal e a semiótica, como fundamentos que permitem que as mídias sejam percebidas de diferentes maneiras. Nesse artigo, ele explicita mais detalhadamente os três aspectos das mídias como mídias básicas, mídias qualificadas e mídias técnicas, de modo a amparar diferentes perspectivas de estudo.
A leitura de “Representação material e mental: Peirce adaptado aos estudos das mídias e das artes” traz imediatamente o reconhecimento do volumoso trabalho de análise e cotejamento da obra de Peirce, cujo status é fragmentário e, algumas vezes, contraditório. A partir de vários textos do notório semioticista, Elleström descreve sua funcional e produtiva tricotomia, tomando-a como base para a reconstrução de noções básicas para os estudos das mídias e das artes em sua interação, no Modelo de Representação Material e Mental – RMM.
Em “Transferência de características das mídias entre mídias diferentes”, o autor nos mostra como as possibilidades de travessia de dados significativos entre as mídias têm relação com aquilo que ele chama de características transmidiais. Aqui, ele estabelece as distinções fundamentais entre midiação e representação e, a partir delas, diferencia também dois tipos de transformação das mídias, a transmidiação e a representação.
Esses modelos propostos para a compreensão do universo das mídias e das artes, que podem funcionar como metodologias de análise, são a referência para os estudos estabelecidos nos artigos seguintes, “A adaptação no campo das transformações das mídias” e “Adaptação e intermidialidade", textos em que o autor trata de uma das áreas mais pesquisadas dentro dos estudos de transferências transmidiais: a adaptação. Em ambos os textos, além de estabelecer a área da transmidialidade como uma perspectiva analítica, Elleström defende sua colocação dentro do campo mais amplo da Intermidialidade. No primeiro texto, utilizando-se das distinções por ele estabelecidas nos textos anteriores – entre midiação e representação – ele distingue dois tipos de representação, a simples e a complexa, quando a noção de mídia qualificada e produto de mídia faz mais sentido e quando o reconhecimento de um perceptor mostra-se um importante elemento de análise. Ainda neste artigo, a tricotomia de Peirce ganha novos contornos, para denotar diferentes processos de representação – a descrição, a ilustração e a indicação. No segundo artigo, o autor traça limites para o campo de estudos de intermidialidade, identificando zonas fronteiriças da área da adaptação através da análise de semelhanças e diferenças entre as mídias e suas condições materiais e semióticas.
No último artigo, “Os paradoxos da Arte Postal: como construir um tipo de mídia artística”, o autor analisa especificamente a Arte Postal em um exemplo interessante e complexo de como compreender um tipo de mídia a partir de paradoxos que lhe são inerentes. Para o autor, a Arte Postal inclui todos aqueles tipos de modos que ele descreve em um dos outros textos deste livro – o material, o sensorial, o espaçotemporal e o semiótico.
A abordagem de Elleström sobre mídia e suas inter-relações traz novas perspectivas aos estudos desse campo, propondo conceitos e ampliando o sentido de muitos estudos que por anos serviram como base para as pesquisas na área, e não evita o diálogo, a contraposição e mesmo novas possibilidades de análise. Através de especificações conceituais, muitas vezes repetidas a partir de outras perspectivas, Lars Elleström estabelece alguns dos limites dos estudos de Intermidialidade e, sobretudo, dá-nos ferramentas para compreender as relações entre as mídias não apenas a partir de suas características próprias mas também em vista dos diferentes aspectos da percepção das artes e seus produtos, colaborando de forma importante para investigações advindas de diferentes campos que têm nas mídias e suas relações seus objetos de pesquisa.

Ana Cláudia Munari Domingos
Ana Paula Klauck
Miriam de Paiva Vieira

Foreign Literature Studies, 2021

Lars Elleström, Professor of Comparative Literature at Linnaeus University, Sweden, leads the Li... more Lars Elleström, Professor of Comparative Literature at Linnaeus University, Sweden, leads the Linnaeus University’s Centre for Intermedial and Multimodal Studies (IMS) and chairs the board of the International Society for Intermedial Studies (ISIS). He has written and edited several books, including Divine Madness: On Interpreting Literature, Music, and the Visual Arts Ironically (2002), Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality (2010), Media Transformation: The Transfer of Media Characteristics among Media (2014), and Transmedial Narration: Narratives and Stories in Different Media (2019). He has also published numerous articles on poetry, gender, irony, semiotics, and in particular intermediality. In this interview, which took place on January 28, 2020 when Ou Rong was a visiting researcher at Linnaeus University, Elleström discussed the necessary expansion of Interart Studies to Intermedial Studies, some key concepts of Intermidal Studies, major approaches to Intermedial Studies, academic evaluations on intermedial scholars, the beneficial interaction between Intermedial Studies and literary studies, and the history of ISIS. At the end of the interview, Elleström wishes to see more Chinese and Asian scholars to participate in the international exchanges of Intermedial Studies.

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 2018

This interview was made within the framework of the Exploratory Research Project, Rethinking Inte... more This interview was made within the framework of the Exploratory Research Project, Rethinking Intermediality in Contemporary Cinema: Changing Forms of In-Betweenness, PN-III-IDPCE-2016-0418, funded by a grant of the UEFISCDI (Executive Unit for Financing Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation), Romania.

Between, 2020

Lars Elleström needs no introduction to intermediality and comparative literature scholars. Massi... more Lars Elleström needs no introduction to intermediality and comparative literature scholars. Massimo Fusillo and Mattia Petricola had a conversation with him just a few weeks before the publication of his new, major theoretical work. The conversation discusses the evolution of Elleström's theory over the last decade, his formation and influences, Peirce's semiotics, the history of intermediality, and the notion of media literacy.

Beginning from the 1990s intermediality has not only been a highly productive concept that genera... more Beginning from the 1990s intermediality has not only been a highly productive concept that generated a great deal of analyses and theoretical writings that contributed to the understanding of media hybridity and interart connections, but has also proved to be a somewhat nebulous term that semiotics and media studies repeatedly attempted to define and categorise once and for all, or quite the contrary, that was “opened up” through different philosophical approaches. Moreover, our immersive experiences within an environment dominated by digital media, as well as discourses regarding media archaeology, convergence, the interconnectedness of humans and technology, art and life, etc., continually shift our vantage points and challenge us to rethink intermedia or interart relations in the context of the complex new relationships that define our contemporary culture. The aim of this series of in-depth interviews is to perform a kind of informal “archaeology” of researches connected to questions of intermediality through presenting trajectories of thought that lead to the diversity in the state of the art in intermediality studies today. In each of these interviews, I would like to present different methodologies and topical issues that have been addressed by researchers working in various places of the world. I have asked three of the most renowned scholars (Lars Elleström, Lúcia Nagib and Joachim Paech) whose works have had a wide-reaching impact in the field, to explain what drew them to the study of intermedial phenomena in the first place and how they see the relevance of intermediality and its most important questions today. I also wanted to find out how their different cultural or theoretical backgrounds have informed their work.

Interdisciplinary Italy Blog, 2020