With its crisscross layout, the newspaper page itself points the way ahead in terms of modern montage. In the newspaper, the unconnected is juxtaposed and nonetheless formally integrated within the framework of a unifying page (Te Heesen 2006 The result is an incongruous, bizarre combination of fragments of sentences. The lines of a newspaper are read directly across the page, instead of down the columns. "The Quodlibet can be used as a dispositif that allows a great deal of different, even disparate, information to be organized, without having to deny the contingencies of the arrangement" (Haag 2013Ī later precursor of the montage was the technique of Cross-reading developed in English-language literature in 18th century. It was particularly popular in the Vienna Volkstheater of the 18th and 19th centuries scenes from successful plays were arranged in loose succession. It allows opposites to collide and brings together what does not belong together. As a baroque art form, it has been developed in literature, music and pictorial art. Similar to the Cento, the theatrical Quodlibet also is an early form of citation montage. Unlike the Cento, the montage is not composed exclusively of literary texts, but draws its materials from extra-literary texts. This tradition was continued in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Classical, up to Expressionism, Dadaism and Surrealism, often in a witty or parodistic way. The Cento – Latin for a dress patched together from rags, a patchwork – was already popular in ancient times: quotations (whole verses or fragments of verses, idioms, metaphors) from exemplary poets such as Homer or Vergil were combined to form a new poem. Several precursors can be identified for the modern montage method. Contrasts are created and associations are evoked. While the premodern forerunners of the montage techniques give priority to the formal integration of different materials, in modern literature, montage interrupts the continuity of the text flow and can result in surprise effects, irritations and provocations. But with this technique in medieval hero epics, unlike in literary modernism, the closed, organic work of art is not deconstructed (Miklautsch 2005 Here, too, elements are taken from their original context of use or communication, more or less fragmented, deformed or destroyed - and in a second step reassembled with other parts of the same or different origin. Montage can be regarded as a genuinely modern technique, although the term has recently also been used in connection with medieval literature, for example for the construction principle of some heroic epics. The coherence of the text is constituted more on a paradigmatic than on a syntagmatic level. The individual parts of the text are not anchored in a homogeneous unity, but are interchangeable in their order. A paratactic order supersedes a hypotactic order. On the level of the production and organization of texts, montage as a juxtaposition of disparate fragments tends to shift the focus from genealogy to construction, from an organic to a technical paradigm, from a temporal to a spatial order. The use of such materials leads to alienation effects but also to a stronger reference to reality. Montage is an aesthetic process in which "the particles are joined together without joints, remain heterogeneous and appear inhomogeneous as discernible fragments" (Voigts-Virchow 2004 The individual elements thus acquire a new meaning, but still quote their old statements. Elements are taken from their original context of use and inserted into a new, foreign context. In the montage, unlike in the quotation, it is not necessary to identify the source. In literature, montage is a form of intertextuality. In the arts, it means more a method than a device. At the beginning of 20th century, the term has been transferred to cinema technology. The lexicographical origin of the term montage points to a craftsmanship meaning in the sense of mounting, assembling, putting together, composing, constructing. In literature, the material can be taken from the press, advertising, everyday communication or, in the case of documentary montage, from various historical and contemporary sources. Especially in fine arts, the term assemblage is often used as a synonym to montage. The term is used in various arts such as literature, painting, sculpture, photography, film, music, theater, and performative art. The assembled parts can be words, prints, notes, photos, objects, scenes, settings, etc. Montage refers on the one hand to the use of prefabricated or preformed parts in art and on the other hand to the resulting product.
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