Beyond Transmedia: What to Expect from Hyper-Complex Ecology of the Medias?

Abstract: The present article aims at analyzing transmedia under the scope of complexity and the systemic theories developed by Edgar Morin, Mário Bunge and Jorge Vieira. Therefore, what we have in mind is to understand how that net of cross-medias works and articulates itself, so we can later measure the possible narrative designs and the role of the reader/spectator/user in this new plural, diverse and multimodal context. The article comes to the conclusion that the fundamental role of transmedia will be met, in fact, in the education of future generations much more akin to the hyper-complex ecology of the medias.

Everywhere the main fact is growth and increasing complexity.  

Charles S. Peirce

Introduction

The present stage of the so called transmedia narrative is similar to the period in which Cinema, for example, still did not have its conventions, rules and standardization in terms of language and means of communication. In fact, groping and imbued by the process of trial and error, this new way of telling stories in the new medias is not reduced to the movie theatres and/or the traditional TV stations; it expands, gravitates, plunges and moves through different sources, links, and driveways: the so called multi-platform of the medias (JENKINS, 2009: 138). Therefore, it is more sensitive in providing the multiplicity of points of view and collateral experiences to a spectator who wishes to explore, reap and discover information about the record of the characters and the plots in which these are immersed in and intertwined with (JENKINS, ibid.: 184).

Thus, what shapes this new form of narrative is the same found in the hyper-text and in the hyper-media: alinear, multi-dimensional, interactive and flexible (SANTAELLA, ibid.: 310). This occurs because the spectator/interactor/user changed; he is no longer the once “passive” one; nor the one that sticks to selecting and getting hold of the content of the medias, but one who seeks/investigates/explores information: how such scene was made and the technical processes involved; who is responsible for the film and his previous films; the declarations of the director and cast in the social network, magazines and newspapers; to which other works and fictional universes is such story related; which communities are interested by the film and how to exchange information such as that; what specialized sites talk about the film, and so on and so forth. Matter of fact, this new spectator does not enter a movie theater nor does he access a TV series, without obtaining enough information to decide to do it. Thus, in an encyclopedic manner; it is by exploring different sources that this spectator – whose access to the vast field of mediatic products and from different countries makes itself notorious in the web – articulates himself and makes his choices.

Sensitive to these transformations underway, the Wachowski Brothers provided, in 2003 -, with the release of the cinematographic sequences, Matrix: Reloaded and Matrix: Revolutions -, an experience in cross-medias that allowed this new spectator to perform what he was used to doing in the web: to explore it. By combining games, stories in comics, animations and websites around the narrative that supports the Matrix trilogy, the directors promoted that which was essential to the matching of the poetics of the cinema with the hyper-text: “The greater the interactivity, the deeper will be the experience of immersion of the reader, an immersion that expresses itself in its concentration, attention, and understanding of information.” (SANTAELLA, ibid.: 310)

As Jenkins clarifies (ibid.: 136-137), to watch and access the franchise of Matrix is not an experience that is easy and/or open to any reader; it demands a trained exploratory profile, used to detours and interconnections, for in each scene, dialog, eye exchange, characters, scenarios, words, and figures in distinct objects of the scene, phase, mission, animation, narrative and esthetics, one can face a knot, a bridge, a link of access to deeper experiences. It is this informational design that guides the possibilities in the way of that user/spectator and which confers him the necessary opening for his development – co-authorship –, his jacking in and intense relationship (SANTAELLA, ibid.: 311; JENKINS, ibid.: 180).

Especially, it is the plurality of crossed sense and exhibition in the different integrated works that will allow this spectator to be fascinated and to give himself to the journey (SANTAELLA, ibid.: 315); therefore, the work does not clam up in one sole semantic axis, but provides and encourages the multiple visions of information ( SANTAELLA, ibid.: 314) – context, plot and characters – while it will be up to the spectator to decide which way to take and up to where he wants to go. Jenkins highlights: “What the Wachowski brothers did was to unleash a search for meaning; they did not determine where the public would find the answers.” (JENKINS, ibid.: 176).

Much criticism related to the project imposed by the Matrix franchise emphasized that everything was nothing but a marketing ploy to make more money, or still yet, that the movies sinned for the lack of narrative autonomy – that is, they did not have the rules of redundancy found in the classical methods of script structuring that descend, in one way or another, from Aristotelian poetics –, for, to understand certain scenes, it was necessary to play the game Enter the Matrix, to watch the animations in the Animatrix series and read the comics, and that, as Jenkins observes (ibid.: 148), something movie critics, used only to going to current multiplex movie theatres and going back home without having to go beyond, did not admit.

Thus, like the posture of critics that highlight the nobility of the theatre, of the novel, and of music, in reference to the cinema, in the beginning of the XX century, the criticism leveled at the trans-mediatic narratives – the hyper-textual and hyper-mediatic ones – seemed to rehearse an old obsolete song in defense of the “purity” of cinematographic discourse, still using either the apparatus theory, or of the textual analysis concerned with the film itself. Thus the obsolescence of those theories (see STAM and SHOHAT apud RAMOS, 2005: 417), in the face of a work that opens itself to navigation for other works which are complementary, whose nexus travel in an inter-changeable process of meaning.

Matter of fact, in line with the central theme of Matrix, the criticism that was made – still in line with the approaches linked to the cinematic apparatus – in reference to the simulations arose when one glimpsed at that inter-relation triggered by the dynamics of the multi-platform, for, by expanding the playful experience of the films to other mediatic interfaces, the franchise seems to reaffirm that those fictional worlds which were created by the cultural industry are more and more spread and keen on subjecting the spectator – all the time and everywhere – detaching oneself from the physicality of the world and to live in a world of dreams created by capitalist logic. Yet, this apocalyptic criticism does not seem to notice that the playful exercise of detachment from reality toward various other worlds which happens when we read a book, listen to music, watch a theatre play, for example, is something fundamental to mental activity. In fact, it seems quite clear that it is necessary in the exercise of formulating hypotheses. Matter of fact, as Vieira illustrates (2007: 26), “there is, in every scientific hypothesis, degrees of fiction; therefore, what makes a hypothesis more apt to be adopted is the degree of coherence with reality”.

Peirce is even more daring: “Our capacity of guessing (of formulating hypotheses) corresponds to the powers of flying and of singing of birds, that is, it is for us what these are to them: the most daring of our merely instinctive powers.” (PEIRCE apud SANTAELLA, 2004: 105) Thus, the instinctive process of formulating hypotheses is similar to that of playful experience objectified by the esthetic fruition of a work of art. Thus, by exploring possible worlds (see VIEIRA, 2008: 78), such process allows that ideas gather and generate new perspectives, new looks, new rearrangements, discharging into the conduct of a person, changing his or her sensitivity. As Santaella highlights:

The works of art are not only ambiguous embodiments of qualities of feeling, but kinds of wisdom, of a kind that talks to sensibility, at the same time that it invites reason to integrate itself playfully to feeling (SANTAELLA, 2000: 151).

What happens is that this kind of esthetic fruition, mediated by trans-mediatic logic, opens the mind to a context of navigation punctuated by multimodal architectures of information (SANTAELLA, 2007: 216); it is their criss-crossed unfolding that allow the expansion and the semantic re-directioning, objectifying the mind toward fertile ground for the playful exercise grounded upon multi-tasks, self-corrections, and by hyper-complexity.

Similar to the semiotic process which happened in the beginning of the 20th century, in which that which was internalized as daily languages of the metropolitan had materialized in the language of the cinema (see SANTOS, 2008), trans-media narrative is only the outer side of something that is already internalized in the daily experience of such spectator, the internet user immersed in cyber-culture and in the culture of mobile and interactive media. As Vieira states (2008: 98): “It seems more or less evident that there is a parallel between the evolution of artistic activity and the evolution of other activities of knowledge. I think that we all agree that art is a form of knowledge. It is a superb way of elaborating reality.”          

1. On Poetics, Ecologies and Archipelagoes

What basically shapes trans-media are the interactions (MORIN, 2008: 105) between the medias. Such interactions configure themselves as systemic, that is, there is a set of means of communication as specific functions that interact and integrate shaping a fictional universe.

This interaction between specific medias and its interaction, immersed in a unique and dynamic universe, shapes an active organization – system – whose procedural matrix is forged by the multiform and relative play among diversity, variety, antagonism, detour, rupture, equilibrium, order and disorder. Thus, a simplifying holistic vision that a trans-media is an harmonic whole is here put in cheque from the very beginning. Because “(...) the ideia of system is not only harmony, functionality, superior synthesis; it brings in itself, necessarily, dissonance, opposition, antagonism.” (MORIN, ibid.: 154)

Indeed, there is a great deal of instability and risk in the configuration and activation of a trans-media; from the initial stage of the production of a script or the DNA of the story – from the choice of the idea to the development of the characters and crossed stories –, through the pre-production that implies budget, choice of a specialized team, cast, structuring of medias, research and esthetic definitions, and approach strategies and construction of different domains and bonds, etc. Until one gets to the issue of the reception with the public, for the return on investment depends on that acceptance which, above all, means profit and power of reinvestment in new productions, generating a permanent cycle or a productive chain, supported not only by this stage of production, but by a tripod made up of distribution and promotion, set into motion exactly to disseminate it, pulverizing it and making it available to the largest amount possible of spectators/users.

By observing the instability and risk as crucial elements within that poetic-productive chain, it is possible to understand that trans-media has to try to balance and organize these disorders not only by means of a configuration of its – nonlinear, multi-dimensional, interactive and flexible – language and poetics, as well as by a structurization of its production, distribution and dissemination.

Thus, in its ontological bias, trans-media is produced by means of an organization which is plural, multiform and diverse, varies in character, whose active unity establishes and maintains itself – acquires existence – by the multiplicity of interactions, complementations and intercommunications through which the medias, with its specificities, functions and esthetics, are able to supply, produce, develop, and transform. Therefore, “(...) its diversity is necessary to its unity and its unity is necessary to its diversity.” (MORIN, ibid.: 147) 

Thus, trans-media is born in complexity – for it needs other medias to exist – and it generates complexity – for by triggering different medias with their specificities – languages and esthetics – it enlarges the semiotic horizon of the fictional universe in vogue –; thus, as soon as that ecology of medias establishes itself, it inaugurates a process of eco-dependence and puts the question of mutual collaboration/cooperation between them under the axis of the concept of complementarity. (MORIN, ibid.: 183)

Therefore, a trans-media cannot be seen as coming from only one media, but from a set of knots, bonds, links, terminals, gateways of access or medias, whose specificities and functions complement, fit well with, and retro-act in a recursive poly-circuit (MORIN, ibid.: 231), whose dynamics operate around concessions, cooperations and associations among the participating competences – cinema, social networks, comics, animation, etc. –; thus, each media – online and/or off-line – has  its particularities and is immersed in its own characteristics, in terms of language and esthetics, which  collaborates/cooperates/complements with the whole, trans-media.

In fact, that complex unity by means of which the trans-media structures itself depends on an eco-organization (MORIN, 2005: 35-42), whose dimension holds a temporal nature, that is, an organization that occurs in time (VIEIRA, ibid.: 93) and whose logic revolves around temporal processes, which in turn, hold transformations, fluctuations and inter-semeiosis.   

According to Vieira (ibid.: 89), there are three fundamental classifying parameters to observe in a system: its capacity of permanence, its environment, and its autonomy. Still within this perspective, for a system to consolidate as such, there are parameters called hierarchical or evolutionary, that is, which depend on the time factor to establish themselves, so outlined: composition, connectivity, structure, integrality, functionality and organization, all permeated by a parameter that can appear since the first stage: complexity. Thus, a system is characterized by its temporal process and its capacity to grow and develop. The complexity of such temporal movement happens by means of the diversity of connections that occur in favor of the survival of the system.  

In the case of trans-media, a similar process can be seen in its realization and activation. Given the need these media have to be placed in a set in favor of a work that develops itself in a network, what there is in this environment is a temporal process that demands to evolve by each above-mentioned hierarchical parameter. Thus, such system expands and lasts as time goes by given its capacity of permanence, that is, given the capacity to reach a regularity in the construction of that narrative in crossed and complementary medias.

On the one hand, what one observes is that there is, in higher or minor degrees, the risk that such combination between medias to start a process of entropy (MORIN, ibid.: 94), harming the inter-semiotic interfaces and exchanges between its many layers of meaning. In fact, the organizational wealth of a system is measured by its diversity and variety, for its logic is guided by the transformation, generation and production, or as Morin highlights: the interactions and associations – between those medias – “produce among themselves.” (MORIN, ibid.: 202) So, the effect of the entropy would be that of a homogenization of the system, the loss of the multiple and that of difference. Therefore, the colapse of the system, for the “organization of a system is the organization of difference.” (MORIN, ibid.: 149). Thus, complementarity means exchange of information, the commerce of signs/difference, or simply inter-semeiosis.

Therefore, in the end, the poetics brought about by the trans-media is produced in this ontological systemic game of the interactions between the medias in a multiple and cooperative whole (MORIN, ibid: 147). Thus, each media, in its particularity, is responsible for a signic fragment which goes through a sieve of its creation, development, and production. This fragment has to: a) connect itself; b) trace relations; c) structure itself, that is, to establish and strengthen the inter-semiotic relations – of exchange – along the period of articulation and development of the work; d) integrate itself to other medias in a process of complementarity; e) accomplish a function, aiming at a mutual and inter-dependent cooperation; and, f) to embody itself in one organization (or organicity) cohesive enough which is able to develop a pragmatic regularity during the whole process of execution of that work in crossed medias. In fact, such on-line and off-line medias integrate themselves and take shape owing to the complexity with which they dialog among themselves, through the interfaces and signic inter-changes that are able to bring about, and especially maintain and produce among themselves, thus, transform them. (MORIN, ibid.: 148)

In the meantime, what makes such multiplicity of medias work in a complex and inter-acting unity is that which Morin calls generative idea. (MORIN, ibid.: 277) In this sense, this matrix idea – source of information – puts these sub-systems in motion forming a recursive retroactive poly-circuit between the whole and its parts, and between the parts and the whole. This means that the parts – sub-systems or medias – retroact recursively upon the whole – the trans-media – and the whole, on the other hand, retroacts recursively upon the parts forming that poly-circuit where the inter-semeiosis, fluctuations, and transformations make their abode. (MORIN, ibid.: 228)

Matter of fact, that nucleator idea – which, at bottom is the argument that shapes the whole fictional universe in vogue – unleashes the fluxes and the multi-processes – circle-evolutions – among the subsystems and that dialogy – between animation, comics, TV series, short-film, feature-films, video game, theatre play, performance, thematic park, video-clip, and/or any other online or off-line available means of communication – occurs around this key-idea, the DNA of the story. This nucleation around this source of information is what moves the organization, is, therefore, the closing of the system; yet, it is not a total closing in relation to the environment in which it is immersed, for the nucleating idea, to have autonomy, feeds itself on knowledge – memory – to which this key-idea is umbilically connected.

Each sub-system or media possesses a heritage and a memory that becomes, in the end, a source of different kinds of knowledge, competences and of knowledge concerning the articulation of language and esthetics. (MORIN, ibid.: 210) In fact, each media brings with itself a legacy of experiences, of esthetics, of movements in art, of works, of artists, and of articulations of language that end up collaborating/cooperating/complementing that trans-mediatic work. Thus, this process of cooperation/complementation among distinct medias end up favoring an exchange among diverse poetics and offers an outlet to a panoramic reading to that outstanding fictional universe. In fact, the information about the characters, events, and the different parallel/crossed/inter-related stories are told and disseminated in specific medias that adhere/cooperate with the macro-story underway. Therefore, that trans-poetics ends up promoting a multiplicity of worldviews – mundi-visions (VIEIRA, 2008: 54-58) – and a semantic relativity – perception of distinct layers and instances at each new developed esthetic/language/media – tangible and similar to those experienced before the inexhaustible real:

(…) signs multiply because the real is inexhaustible. No language is able to bridge the threshold to the things themselves. These are not unknowable. On the contrary, the multiplicity of signs that exists today to gain access to them corresponds to the exacerbated multiplicity of points of view, of approximations and distancing, of clarity and obscurity, of focus and blurs of the sign mesh intricately woven that puzzles us because we are irretrievably enmeshed in it. (SANTAELLA, 2007: 208)

Indeed, this new road that opens itself to the poetic provided by the trans-media seems to point at and travel toward a perspective in which the multiplicity and the collaterality of the experiences are more tangible to the complexities of an inexhaustible real: plural, diverse, systemic, non-linear, multi-modal, encyclopedic, contrary to simplifying dichotomies and open to a myriad of gateways of access.

However, this circuit, made up of sub-systems – mediatic archipelagos – whose particularities are placed to act together, involves a time-factor that underlies the whole system. Thus, each sub-system goes through evolutionary phases differently and in specific moments during the performance of a trans-media. Thus the term circle-evolutions, for the end of a process/narrative in a media is the beginning of another process/media in another means of communication. Or, as Morin defines it, it is: “(...) a retro-active multi-process closing in itself from multiple and diverse circuits (…).” (MORIN, ibid.: 231) Therefore, the end of a narrative in a story is the beginning of another narrative in a game; the end of a game is the beginning of a narrative in a story in comics; the end of the latter is the beginning of a web animation; we thus have a recursive retro-active poly-circuit.

Morin explains the concept of generativity as being:

(...) in fact, an indefinitely reborn, organized and regulated genesis. Never-ending, the generative circuit transforms interactions in retro-actions, turbulences in rotations, unceasingly, it produces, in the same movement, being, existence, and productive organization. (MORIN, ibid.: 277)

                         

Hence, generativity reinforces a character of circularity to the idea of matrix-key – recursivity – and of an action that renews itself and expands itself – retro-acts – from this matrix/DNA. This way, the matricial story/argument/script confers information – sign – to the sub-systems, that is, it organizes the information – the way the sub-systems will be articulated, mobilized, and organized –, for it becomes, at the same time, guardian and source of the matricial idea. (MORIN, ibid.: 379 and 394) 

In fact, this role as source – storage – of information is that which makes the sub-systems know, understand and develop its specificities. (MORIN, ibid.: 150) Indeed, it is from the transmission/distribution of information that the strategies of activation/articulation of the different medias are outlined. Thus, on the one hand, one has a center of control/command – nucleation – and, on the other, a “programmatic” character formatted with the intention of reaching specific finalities projected to complement and integrate such sub-systems as a whole, the trans-media. (MORIN, ibid.: 392)

Thus, this flux of information transforms itself in a fundamental factor so as to avoid the process of degeneration that prowls the whole system, for it is up to quality, not quantity, as for the manner in which this information is disseminated, the role of reducing waste, the course errors and the collapses of the system. Matter of fact, the quality with which information was worked in the phase of the development of the script/argument has its influence and appears in this process of diffusion, for, with such information “in hand,” producers/authors/developers can measure the moments in which each media will operate within the system.

As for the role of guardian – of information – it refers to the function of regulation of the poly-circuit, that is, that of reiterating, repeating, regenerating that which has generated it: the generative idea. (MORIN, ibid.: 242) The concept of regulation implies neutralizing the disturbances and detours, that is, to know how to live together with, explore and assimilate the entropic processes and to weave a regularity in the inter-relations, associations, cooperations, complementarities and inter-semeiosis along the processes of the performance of the transmedia. Morin explains that: “All creation, all generation, all development and even all information have to be paid with entropy.” (MORIN, ibid.: 98) Therefore, regularity implies having the necessary sensibility, conduct and knowledge to balance the setbacks, delays, and problems that appear in the course of the performance of a work with this span.

2. On attractors, geometries and temporalities

In fact, the nucleation of the system – which implies saying diffusion of information and elaboration/execution of method/strategy of performances – favors the blooming of sub-systems/medias, that is, it promotes the diversity (understand it as wealth), supplies interdependence (understand it as complementarity) and allows the exchange (understand it as inter-semeiosis) among its parts and the whole, in the already explained retroactive recursive poly-circuit.

The qualitative value of that syntax among medias, or the diffusion of information through a number of inter-semeiotic axis – or micro-narratives –, is about to be distributed in the system as a complex net of meanings. In fact, such information do not reside primarily in one only semeiotic bundle, that is, only in a film, or only in comic strips, or only in books, or only in games, but it integrates them so as to divulge them through many axis: either in a mediatic axis or another axis. In fact, this informational design, with its distinct temporalities or fluctuations, demand increased attention from the spectator/net user.

However, if such fluctuations, temporalities and inter-semeiosis occur, it is because there is something that leads them toward focal points through which those layers of information converge, come together, complement one another, and associate in diverse and distinct, though relevant fluxes. As Mario Bunge alerts (2007: 334): “(...) time does not have an arrow in itself. Its arrows ought to be sought for in whole processes and not in one of the aspects of the processes.”

According classic theories of film script, a well-told story needs to be well-dimensioned timewise. Thus, a 120-minute or 2-hour film needs to be seen as something that is evolving, which has a certain initial situation involving certain characters and a final time involving unfolding among such characters which, in a certain manner, are related in various degrees to the beginning. This means that, between the initial stage and the final one, there are changes and events. (BUNGE, ibid.: 335)

So as to make the analysis clearer, what will be adopted here is the classic design bound to the Archplot (MCKEE, 2004: 55). In this kind of narrative, what we observe is that there are focal points that hurl, deflagrate or press the story forward. Such factors are called plot points – turning points (MCKEE, ibid.: 174) and their function is to unbalance, to generate tension and offer resistance to the protagonist, or better yet, to bring entropic processes into the life of that character. The way the protagonist faces such processes vary according to the nature of each character; however, McKee (ibid.: 144) observes that there are distinct levels of conflicts: extra-personal conflicts comprehending, community, social institutions, etc.; personal conflicts, encompassing family, friends, and work mates, etc.; and internal conflicts, involving consciousness, subconsciousness, feelings, dreams, etc. Each sphere influences the life of the character; yet, whereas some films deal only with one of these layers others travel through its inter-relations. However, the turning point is something that unbalances and shakes, if not the three spheres at the same time, at least one of these layers, making such event reverberate among them.

Still aided by McKee’s ideas (ibid.: 125), so that one character is truthful and compelling the answers given by him at each moment of tension must flow between positive and negative poles in terms of universal human values such as: love/hatred, revenge/pardon, anger/serenity, true/false etc.; the more these polarities vary in one character with time – in conformity with the points of tension – the richer and more dynamic is its characterization. In fact, a turning point is always something that hurls the character when he was not ready. There are moments, therefore, in which its beliefs and habits are at stake. Some characters ignore the facts and insist on the mistake; others try to rethink their ideas and theories and find different ways from those they were used to. However, along the way there are failures and successes that accumulate; thus, positive and negative values intersperse until one gets to the climax of the story, the end being either optimistic, pessimistic or ambiguous.

During a 120-minute film, divided in three acts, there are two macro turning-points: the turning point at the very end of the first act – from the 25^th to the 30^th minute -, and another in the 90^th minute, at the end of the second act, which impels the story to the third at, that is its conclusion.

Recapitulating: the complexity bound to the story of a character possesses levels of conflict through which certain moments of tension are triggered. Such levels of conflict produce contexts, that is, points-states along the course of the character. In its course, there are fluctuations between the polarities, that is, the character oscillates between good and bad attitudes thus, at each event and or point of tension, there is an ascension in the level of conflict until one arrives at a crisis. Such crisis symbolizes a moment in which the level of pressure on the character is enormous yet, it is such pressure that impels the character to arrive at the climax of the story.

In fact, immersed in the linearity found in an archplot, what one observes is that such turning-points reveal to be attracting structures. (VIEIRA, ibid.: 53) Yet, first and foremost, it is important to remember what attractors are. According to Vieira:

After a process is triggered an initial point is identified as the initial condition and a course develops according to the dynamics of the system. What is observed is that the orbits end up reaching the described entities as if “attracted” by them. Such entities, sub-systems of points-states topologically inserted in the space of states, is what we call “attractors.” (VIEIRA, ibid.: 52-53)

Well, such attracting structures can be found in transmedia, but not in such linear manner, as in architecture or classical design in cinema.

In fact, these are the attracting structures that define the moments in which the medias converge and become consistent with the macro temporality of the transmedia, and, at the same time, such focal points regenerate and generate consequences in smaller narrative layers in the so called dimensions of information. (VIEIRA, ibid.: 58) For, each information present in the media, that is, that is duly placed and distributed in layers to be perceived by the spectator/user, has its bundle or direction pointed toward these attractors. Thus, such attractors work as legaliform coordinators (VIEIRA, ibid.: 63), i.e., coordinators of meaning through which all the other medias flow, on which they depend and to which they are internally interconnected. In fact, it is due to these attracting structures that all the other medias are organized in terms of diffusion of information.

On the one hand, this amounts to saying that each media carries a range of information that promotes the accumulation, stocking, systemic memory. (VIEIRA, ibid.: 58) For, apparently, some kinds of information – distributed among the sub-systems – seem to be disconnected, of minor importance, loose ends – which are, in due time, re-approached and re-signified in upcoming medias as crucial elements for the resolution of a complex jig-saw puzzle.

On the other hand, if each media carries a range of inter-relations disposed and distributed in net, this demonstrated that all media involves a series of events, facts, and complementations with temporalities, fluctuations and distinct inter-semeiosis. Therefore, each media has its own attractors or internal turning-points in various and diverse degrees that dialog, in turn, with the macro attractors of the transmedia narrative as a whole.

Therefore, time cannot be seen as something unique and uniform; in fact, this is the classical mistake that Mario Bunge criticizes in his text “A Flecha do Tempo” (“The Arrow of Time”; see BUNGE, ibid.: 331). Matter of fact, there are distinct arrows of time: the Arrow of time of the Milky-Way, of the Solar System, of planet Earth, of the kingdoms, species, man, cells, atoms, etc., and they all get along, complement one another in layers. Even if one does not know about the other or perceive such temporalities among themselves, such variations of time of events and changes do exist.

The dynamic found in the arrow of time of a transmedia – levels of conflict, variations of polarities, rise and fall of tension, for example – and which are distributed in layers whose temporalities complement one another diverge, flow and echo (PRIGOGINE, 2011: 43) among themselves, have to be seen in distinct arrows of time – ones in which certain focal points – attractors – such temporal dimensions clash, intersect, intertwine and/or overlap upon the macro temporal axis, which moulds the whole, the transmedia. Such legaliform process would be, therefore, the geometrization of the various information flows, and, in fact, its function would be to maintain and regulate the information found in additional medias, always granting a feedback – recursivity – the source. Nevertheless each attractor – turning-point – affects the whole system, for characters, contexts and stories undergo transformations – retroactivity – and such transformations supply developments and situations to the narratives found in and among medias, until such minor reverberations – or earthquakes – reach such high amplitude that they shake the whole, and become, thus, macro attractors. That poli-circuit – or vortex – maintains itself through the upheavals, interactions and evolutions in course. Therefore, it is something alive, pulsating, irradiating, variant, dynamic, erratic and ordering, and at the same time, sometimes chaotic and at other times well-organized. For, in an active system – which is the case with a transmedia – the oppositions and the antagonisms do not exclude one another, but are complementary.  

Conclusion

Therefore, in this context, a film or a TV series becomes an initiator and/or igniter of a systemic process that introduces the spectator to a fictional and provoking reality to allow developments through other interfaces. By dislocating through other works and narratives, which are as rich and cohesive as that which is shown by the igniter (film and/or TV series), the spectator interacts and seeks meanings which are dispersed, spread along different degrees of depth and amplitude. These layers refer to instances of that fictional reality: society, politics, history, economy, culture, environment, geology, geography, biology, technology, etc., besides exploring the degrees of relationship of the characters involved, their past and present history.

There is an integrality between layers and instances, making up a context in which the different dramas of the different characters inter-relate with the main story shown in the source or igniting work. Thus, with each means of communication – online or off-line – available and articulated, new elements are exposed and trigger new connections – doors of access – allowing the spectator to advance in his or her search – call to action – through the track or master-key that will allow him/her to equate the whole system: 1) understand and make out the fictional reality presented; 2) understand the role of each character within that context; 3) follow their development, unfolding, and a myriad of outcomes.

Nevertheless, as Mario Bunge (ibid.: 334-335) clarifies, there isn’t only one arrow in time, but different arrows acting in different processes. What one ought to do is geometrize the set of changes/events in space-time, i.e., to map out the fluctuations, temporalities and inter-semeiosis in course along the trajectory of a story in net: alinear, multidimensional, interactive and flexible.  

The truth is, the story that moulds the transmedia has to be seen as wholly systemic, whose temporalities and distinct inter-semeiosis flow, fluctuate and converge in specific points of tension or attractors and in different medias along a time interval – from the initial stage until the final stage – relatively programmed, while remaining open to the interactions of the fans/followers and, at the same time, closed at a conclusive point or resolution.

That way, by observing those prominent characteristics, what one can realize is that the profile of this present spectator/reader/user, receptive to transmedia, is that immersed in the environment in net of cyber culture and of the mobile medias used as he/she is to the hyper-textual and hyper-mediatic environment, that is, to a context of navigation punctuated by multi-modal architectures of information (SANTAELLA, 2007: 216), which project intercrossed developments, allowing expansions and semantic re-directioning, offering the mind fertile terrain for the ludic exercise grounded by multi-tasks, self-corrections, and by hyper-complexity.

In fact, this reader/user assimilates, follows, and expects such multi-modal distinctions, variations and dynamicities of information within semiotic bundles dispersed and pollinated by medias, for that kind of information comes not only from answers and/or outcomes, but, especially, lead him to explore, seek and unravel the myriad of nuances, hues and perspectives found in that fictional universe: multifaceted, plural, complex, interactive, teeming with points of view, either obscure or clear, either entropic or orderly.

Therefore, it was by trying to understand the cognitive profiles of the readers/users in net in cyber-culture developed by Santaella (2007: 322 & 323) and in conformity with the geometrization of the system that it was possible to make out three possible designs in the transmediatic narrative:

(1) The rhizomatic (erratic and labyrinthine) one: in this type of narrative the crossed medias promote such openings – knots, links, connections and nexus – which the spectator spends a great deal of time probing, researching and tracing the different ways as they are placed. There is a constant come and go – re-readings of films, of the chapters of the series, of the books, of animations, etc. – and the narratives raise many riddles and obscurities around the characters and the story. There is a need for greater storing, that is, accumulation of memory and that implies dispersion in time, of data and attention; in fact, in this kind of narrative, there is a constant exchange of information with the specialized community, the fan-fictions. Thus, there is much more opening to speculations than to certainties.

(2) The detective (linear and gratifying) one: the elements found in the rhizomatic narrative appear in the detective one, though the links are more cohesive and interlaced. In this kind of narrative, the crossed medias promote knots and nexus that allow a certain degree of linearity, for at each track “found” it is possible to understand what is going on in the story and with the characters involved. There is some kind of reward and gratification in each correct track which implies gradual revelations until the grand finale which, in a certain manner, is cathartic. Yet, such outcome is not the guarantee that all the riddles will be solved, only that the story will be better understood. There are many speculations but there is an electrifying involvement of the community which attentively follows step by step, each second, each media, each event/change, each articulate narrative, knowing that at any moment a decisive element will be presented. It is up to the spectator to perceive, reap, test, discard or host such information and take it ahead.

(3) A turbillionaire (recursive and retroactive) one: the elements found in the rhizomatic and detective narratives appear in the turbillionaire (MORIN, 2008: 278 and 279); yet, the connection bonds always demand the exercise of recursivity and retroactivity, for there is a surplus of meaning – learning and knowledge – involving the whole system. Each immersion into the different narratives and poetics, makes the spectator never go back to the surface the same way he had entered. The discoveries are so eloquent that it is necessary to review the films and the works involved from another point of view. This is the case commented by Jenkins as the “Origami Unicorn” (JENKINS, ibid.: 176), for after the moment in which there is the chance that Deckard be a replicant – by inserting an emblematic scene in the new DVD version of Blade Runner (1982) by Director Riddley Scott years after its debut – the whole movie acquires a new meaning. Thus, the dialogues, the scenes and the narrative, when reviewed, even when they are almost like the previous version, seem to acquire new meaning. The change of meaning generates a new beginning and the whole system – poetics and articulated – is affected. Nuances and details that were overlooked in the first reading-immersion appear, in a second reading-immersion, as fraught with meaningful value – which reveal themselves crucial for one to understand the enchained riddles. And this process repeats itself with each new acquired knowledge.  

A franchise can develop itself only by using one of those transmediatic designs; yet, the ideal is to operate the three formats in a continuous cycle. For the speculative opening supplied by the rhizomatic process attracts attention and allows a greater involvement of a community that grows in conformity with the given uncertainties, while the detective stage has the role of closing the links, of interlacing them, diminishing thus the uncertainties and obscurities, allowing for a reasonable comfort zone. As for the turbillionaire process, it redefines the whole system, thus allowing a realignment of the narrative lines, thus increasing the interest of all the articulated works and launching the spectator into ever deeper and broader levels within the franchise, opening, consequently, the whole system to a new wave of speculations. Therefore, a cycle closes and another one starts, ad infinitum. On the other hand, at each new cycle, more and more is demanded from the spectator until the “non-initiated” spectators, who do not follow or access, or simply do not know that reality – are not able to gauge the layers and instances involved and, consequently, there is a loss of interest for the franchise. 

In fact, the different narratives serve both to explain and to motive new questions; therefore, it is the doubts raised that motivate the interest of the spectator. It is not only the dramatic hooks, as found in the end of each chapter in a soap opera or TV series for example. It is the cracks, ruptures and obscure points in which the characters are immersed that make the spectator want to discover what is really happening. Nevertheless, since not everything is perfectly clear, nor for the spectator nor for the characters, there appears fertile ground for speculations and hypotheses, responsible for the exchange of information and theories among spectators, building thus a community of specialists in that fictional universe, for, given the complexity of elements, layers and instances articulated, there is the need of a collective analysis of the information, which becomes, as time goes by the fundamental material of a true virtual encyclopedia at the disposal of whomever wants to decipher such riddles.

Thus, the fictional reality presented generates its own life outside its original axis of action, for much is said, insufflated, proposed by the spectators in their communities. Just like Roland Barthes prophesized in 1968: “So as to return to scripture, its future, it is necessary to insert the myth: the birth of the reader has to be paid with the death of the Author” (BARTHES apud SANTAELLA, 2007: 76). These followers appropriate, compose, decompose and recreate entire plots with the intention of establishing the possible links, weaving the obscure points and promoting other, attitude predicted by Michel Foucault in the same period as Barthes (see SANTAELLA, ibid.: 77), something that has been disturbing the executives of the major North-American entertainment industries (see JENKINS, ibid.: 191-196), since this process implies the loss of the copyright control of the works of art. Yet, one of the pillars of success of a transmedia narrative lies precisely in the possibility that such speculative and creative freedom to materialize, by depriving the spectator from such play of musement, the franchise runs the risk of failing and seeing its followers migrate to another film that is more in tune with their desires.

Despite such disputes concerning copyright, we should observe more closely what is between the lines in this process. What seems quite evident is that there is no coming back from such hyper-complex ecology of the medias in which the new generations are – and will be – immersed in. Perhaps, and it is here that lies the most important point to be highlighted, the transmedia has to play a more eloquent and fundamental role in the education of these new generations. Thus, if we project these transmediatic narrative designs to learning processes, we will be able to glimpse at how we can use such medias at hand – including here the teacher in the classroom – as for new ways of conveying knowledge.

It is known that classrooms are not the same anymore and that students are connected to nets via tablets and smartphones all the time. Instead of thinking of excluding such “invaders”, why not bring them into teaching plans? Why not develop transmediatic projects for various areas of science? It is worth highlighting once again what Jorge Vieira says (2008: 98): “It sees more or less evident that there is a parallel between the evolution of artistic activity and the evolution of the remaining activities of knowledge.” In fact, under this point of view, transmedia seems to be pointing out that this moment – initial state – is only the beginning of something much deeper and broader and that the future generations will be much more aligned to explore, seek and discover the myriad of information found in various areas of science, for such information – semiotic bundles – are available at the touch of a finger, articulated by the logic of the transmedia narrative and in tune with the learning curves of each student.     

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