Fictional Characters and Figures (Imagined to Exist) in Actual Contexts

Le résumé fourni par la source

Building on the concept of the pre- and meta-narrative transmedia figure from before, this chapter investigates some of the conceptual tensions between characters and aspects of media texts that are generally considered non-fictional on top of non-narrative: representations of company mascots, figures on street signs as well as in other functional contexts of everyday life. A feature that most of these non-narrative character/figure representations share is that audiences are encouraged to imagine these beings within the actual spacetime settings in which the representational materials (images and signs, statues and costumes, toys and interfaces) are located. They are designed to “overlay” the actual environment in which they are represented as a kind of interface between real spaces and audiences’ imagination. The chapter first investigates “working characters/figures” on signage and other informational media in public spaces that do present a form of storyworld or at least a represented situation distinct from the observer. Then it explores how characters or figures can function without any such represented context, instead looking at observers “directly” through a kind of breach of the “fourth wall.” Third, this chapter addresses how mascots are used in theme parks and public events where an audience is encouraged to imagine themselves interacting with characters, before concluding with some critical remarks on the rhetorical functions of such representations in digital interface design. In all these contexts, the allusion to personalized agency creates an intentional “blackbox” to obscure the actual distribution of technologically, institutionally, and socially distributed agency.

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