Chapter 3 - Narrative and non-narrative structures

Artists have to take into consideration whether their piece needs a narrative structure or not. This could mean if the audience can admire the work and then move on, or if the audience has to admire the work from beginning to end to understand the artist's point of view.

'The Girl Chewing Gum' by John Smith requires the audience to admire the work from beginning to end to understand everything. This is because at the beginning the narrator tells us what he was to happen, as if he is a director, and the audience pick up on this straight away. However, something during the middle of the film doesn't add up. As the information is fed to the audience by the film, the behaviours of people around and the narrator talking doesn't fit the way it used to fit in the very beginning. This then gives the middle part of the film and at the very end, the narrator explains who he is, its not who the audience assumed he is. Therefore this gives the film the structured, beginning, middle and end.

Tina Gonsalves' Chameleon doesn't have a structured story like 'The Girl Chewing Gum'. Tina Gonsalves had created pieces of artwork that the audience didn't need to constantly look at to understand the whole idea. This meant the audience could look at one piece (in this case an interactive photo) and then move onto another. Without having to constantly look at the artwork unfold its story by beginning, middle and end it made it easier for the audience to understand what the artist was meant to achieve.