A Review of the Colloquium «Narrative, Media and Cognition» — a Cartography of the Borders of Narrative

Abstract

We present an overview and discussion of the Colloquium «Narrative, Media and Cognition», which took place at Porto's Centre of Catholic University of Portugal in July of 2015, under the organization of the Research Centre for Science and Technology of the Arts (CITAR). Several scholars of different areas presented research about the uses and advances in narrative study and practice in a broad range of areas, giving some important insights about the latest developments in Narrative Studies, Ontology of Narrative and the uses of Narrative in Art, Cinema, Performance, Journalism, Marketing and Literature, among other fields. After briefly describing the main points of each presentation in the Colloquium we try to draw some conclusions and possibilities raised by the Colloquium and take a glimpse of future paths that the use of Narrative can end up taking.

Reconsidering Manifesta 10: Big Exhibition Project as Narrative

“…"Furthering a classical debate in narrative studies, the question of the borders between reality and fiction in narrative was a continuous issue among many papers and areas, showing the power of the narrative to describe but also transform reality, leading to a blurred but also highly creative area of human experience. And this blurring seems to come out of at least a doubling: between the one who lives and the one who tells" (Castro et al, 2015). So, in contemporary art we witness a mixture of real life processes (especially in the practice of performance or actions) and fantasies, which result in projects telling us about consequences of our hidden attitudes, intentions and desires.…”