Finding Meaning in Intermedial Gaps

Abstract

Media is generally conceptualized as any communicative conduit that conveys ideas or meaning between one place or person and another. However, media products-and particularly intermedial products-do not always transmit meanings and ideas smoothly. This chapter explores a series of historical and contemporary media objects and performances that do not facilitate “successful” transfers of meaning, partly due to their intermedial configurations. Each of these media objects and performances both conceal and reveal, either accidentally as a byproduct of experimentation with the medium’s modalities or purposefully as an aesthetic, social, or cultural intervention. The author argues that these concealments and intermedial “gaps” generate new modes of expression, new artistic experiences for audiences and performers, and new conceptual understandings of existing genres and media.