A presentation to a symposium, which will get more developed in the course of things.

1. Layers and meaning
Jenny Weight, RMIT
c. 2012
geniwate@gmail.com

2. 2 types of stories
• The ones where you already
know the conclusion
• The ones where you don’t
You already know the
conclusion to this story …

3. When you already know the
conclusion …

4. It is easy to organise the elements
you need

5. into layers

6. Regardless of medium /software /
genre /style

9. Each layer is equivalent to a
discreet story element

10. And can therefore be manipulated

13. Layers are about relationships between
elements

14. Iteration and juxtaposition

15. Reveal and hide

19. Layers and frames
Frames consist of layers which change over time. Frames accumulate changing
meanings, in which the relationships are not just between layers but between
versions of layers in an evolutionary sequence.

20. But what about the other type of
story

21. the one where you don’t know the
conclusion?

22. Layers become an experiment

23. in meaning-making

24. juxtaposition and iteration

25. hide and reveal

26. smaller and bigger

27. incremental change

31. Have layers changed meaning?

32. Layers allow us to contain the history of
the object (the drafts) within the file

33. Layers allow us to treat meaning as an
experiment

34. Layers represent to the maker the
plasticity and contingency of meaning

35. So I think meaning making is a different
sort of experience in digital production