Fractal Narrative

Abstract

Fractals suggest recursivity, infinity and the repetition of a principle of order. They are digital pictures of the universe's continuous movement ignored by mankind during millennia. This book investigates the relationship existing between geometries and technology, and how it guided cognitive processes and thus the organization of narrative spaces. The author proposes a new approach for the study of media remarking that from Bacon's camera obscura to von Neumann's computers both geometries and technology strongly influenced the organization of narrative spaces, which acquired a fractal character.

From Eco’s Aperturato Fractal Narrative: Recursion as a Tool of Order in Contemporary Narratives

“…13 One can see the difference from the traditional plot generated within an Aristotelian logic, in which the world is presented under prefixed laws, logic and functional ways that are deterministic and represent a determined world. In this new way of structuring the narrative, the fundamental difference in organizing the plot is the dissociation of the classic links through which the world was represented and life was told (See Duarte, 2014). Certainly, in the period in which Eco wrote these thoughts, the materiality imposed by the film stock and its linearity allowed only a phenomenological analysis.…”