Title
“Making Sense of the Fragments: Using Comics Structure to Give Form to Chaotic Text”
Start Date
19-7-2022 2:15 PM
End Date
19-7-2022 3:15 PM
Description
Sarah Kane’s final work, 4.48 Psychosis, is a forty-three page fever dream of prose, poetry, stream of conscience, and numbers. It is without named characters, scene delineation, or stage directions, yet 4.48 is still considered a play because that is what its author was known for writing. However, Kane’s last contribution to the arts must be read and seen to be fully understood as the words and numbers on the page don’t conform to conventional margins. The stunningly visual nature of 4.48 Psychosis as a printed narrative suggests that it would be best understood through interpretation by another highly visual medium, comics. Using the pioneering work of Will Eisner and Scott McCloud on the structural elements of comics, I will show how to acknowledge both the visual and textual elements of Kane’s text, revealing a more cohesive storyline and form.
“Making Sense of the Fragments: Using Comics Structure to Give Form to Chaotic Text”
Sarah Kane’s final work, 4.48 Psychosis, is a forty-three page fever dream of prose, poetry, stream of conscience, and numbers. It is without named characters, scene delineation, or stage directions, yet 4.48 is still considered a play because that is what its author was known for writing. However, Kane’s last contribution to the arts must be read and seen to be fully understood as the words and numbers on the page don’t conform to conventional margins. The stunningly visual nature of 4.48 Psychosis as a printed narrative suggests that it would be best understood through interpretation by another highly visual medium, comics. Using the pioneering work of Will Eisner and Scott McCloud on the structural elements of comics, I will show how to acknowledge both the visual and textual elements of Kane’s text, revealing a more cohesive storyline and form.