







































Communication, Society and Media 
ISSN 2576-5388 (Print) ISSN 2576-5396 (Online) 

Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018 
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 

101 

Original Paper 

Memory in Linguistic Narrative vs. Postmodern Multitasked 

Multimedia Art Memory 
Vesna Srnic1*, Emina Berbic Kolar1 & Igor Ilic1 

1 Department in Slavonski Brod, Faculty of Teacher Education in Osijek, J.J. Strossmayer University of 

Osijek, Croatia 
* Vesna Srnic, Department in Slavonski Brod, Faculty of Teacher Education in Osijek, J.J. Strossmayer 

University of Osijek, Croatia 

 

Received: August 28, 2018    Accepted: September 13, 2018   Online Published: September 20, 2018 

doi:10.22158/csm.v1n2p101                     URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n2p101 

 

Abstract 

In addition to the well-known classification of long-term and short-term memory, we are also interested 

in distinguishing episodic, semantic and procedural memory in the areas of linguistic narrative and 

multimedial semantic deconstruction in postmodernism. We compare the liveliness of memorization in 

literary tradition and literature art with postmodernist divisions and reverberations of traditional 

memorizations through human multitasking and performative multimedia art, as well as formulate the 

existence of creative, intuitive and superhuman paradigms. 

Since the memory can be physical, psychological or spiritual, according to neurobiologist Dr. J. Bauer 

(Das Gedächtnis des Körpers, 2004), the greatest importance for memorizing has the social role of 

collaboration, and consequently the personal transformation and remodelling of genomic architecture, 

yet the media theorist Mark Hansen thinks technology brings different solutions of framing function 

(Hansen, 2000). We believe that postmodern deconstruction does not necessarily damage memory, 

especially in the field of human multitasking that utilizes multimedia performative art by means of 

anthropologization of technology, thereby enhancing artistic and affective pre&post-linguistic 

experience while unifying technology and humans through intuitive empathy in society. 

Keywords 

memory, linguistics, multitasked multimedia-art, perfomative affect, anthropologization 

 

 

 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm               Communication, Society and Media                Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018 

 
102 

Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

1. Introduction: Linguistic vs. Multimedial Memories in Narratives 

By comparing memory in two crucial narratives: linguistic and multimedial/audio-visual, from lively 

oral tradition and written literature to modern times, with particular reference to the postmodern 

deconstruction of linguistic narrative, and parallel to the area of visual discourse read by consistent 

iconographic semantics in the history of art up to modernism, we conclude that through performative 

multimedial artistic communication and intermediacy in the period of postmodernism, deconstructed 

reality is read by kaleidoscopic multi-memory but again performatively as in the language process, 

with special affective, human multitasking in superhuman—intuitive, empathic vision. It’s not 

cyborgization nor dataism, it’s anthropologization and humanization of technology. 

 

2. Vital Memorizing in Literary Tradition—Experience from Practice in Croatia 

Slavonian dialect is one of the most archaic dialects of Croatian language. It is spoken in the Republic 

of Croatia, but also abroad in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of 

Hungary. Slavonian dialect features are: the absence of the sound /h/, the reflex of the sound jat (stsl. 

ĕtъ) which appears as Ikavian, Jekavian, Ekavian, but also Ikavian-Jekavian, softer sounds /l/ and /n/ 

into lj (/ʎ/) and nj (/ɲ/), language phenomenon šćakavizam, contraction of the vowel group ao into o, a 

typical change of semi-compounds. It is located in Slavonia and Baranya, around Nova Gradiška up to 

Vinkovci and Vukovar, across Slavonski Brod to Đakovo and Osijek and in North up to Donji Miholjac, 

Valpovo and Našice. This is a large geographical space which hides inexhaustible linguistic treasure yet 

to be researched. So far, two vernaculars have been protected as intangible cultural goods of the 

Republic of Croatia: Siče vernacular in Posavina village Siče and the vernacular of Stari Perkovci. Both 

vernaculars pertain to Brod-Posavina County and vernaculars located around Slavonski Brod are 

central vernaculars of Slavonian dialect. The term of language has been a synonim for a nation 

throughout the history. If so, Slavonian dialect is the basis for the development of Slavonian identity 

and Slavonia people as members of the ethnic group, of course in this context we can talk about the 

Šokci and the culture of Šokci. We want to present Slavonian dialect in the context of defining identity 

and preserving intangible cultural heritage. Language is what we are, it determines us in every sense, it 

is our past, present and future and is the foremost bearer of a cultural identity that differentitates us and 

makes us recognizable in the global village called the Earth. 

 

3. Memory Preservation in Slavonian Dialect of the Croatian Language 

Problems with preserving the Slavonian dialect and its vernaculars arise because of the oral tradition in 

conveying the language and its fragility, as well as the numerous problems that come with sustaining 

smaller language communities. The research emphasizes the sustainable preservation of the Slavonian 

dialect vernaculars in terms of the digitization of vernaculars and popularization. The biggest problem 

is disorganized and insufficient documentation and the dispersion of collected documentation. The 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm               Communication, Society and Media                Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018 

 
103 

Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

project implies the possibility of connecting modern technology with the scientific approach of 

language data processing, which is the best and the safest permanent preservation possibility. The 

preservation of language heritage can be divided in to four stages: data collection (digitization), data 

processing, appropriate storage of information and data dissemination towards users. The second 

problem is the insufficient popularization of the Slavonian dialect among the young population. It 

should be emphasized that this project will stimulate the popularization of dialectology, in particular the 

Slavonian dialect (Berbić Kolar, Galzina, & Matanović, 2014). 

Key social factors in preserving the Slavonian dialect are scientific and educational institutions which 

conduct language research. One such institution is the Faculty of Education in Osijek which will 

provide experts in order to preserve and popularize the vernaculars in an appropriate way. Certainly, 

local government support is needed in each of these countries to disseminate research results and to 

create a cooperation between communities. What is more, schools in the target area are an important 

factor because the Slavonian dialect is a native idiom of their students. Important factors are also local, 

primarily rural, associations which take care of the development of their community (Berbić Kolar, 

2011). 

The definition of a native speaker of the Slavonian dialect used in the project is the one which describes 

the native speaker as a person who was born and lives in the target area and speaks in Slavonian dialect. 

The statistics on the number of inhabitants living in Slavonian dialect area in the Republic of Croatia 

are devastating. Population trends, as well as population development, is entirety influenced by 

numerous demographic and non-demographic factors (economic, social, socio-psychological, 

historical-political, geographical, health, etc.) (Berbić Kolar, 2009). In the Republic of Croatia there 

were many factors which led to a decrease in the number of speakers of the Slavonian dialect: wartime 

circumstances, emigration of the population, poverty, modern trends and others. Today, when the 

linguistic revitalization of the Slavonian dialect is being sought after, the data of the Croatian Bureau of 

Statistics show a drastic reduction in the number of native speakers. It is not possible to keep track of 

population figures due to different censuses, but according to the last 2011 census, Slavonian dialect 

counties count on the decline. The project will also include the research of the exact number of native 

speakers in areas outside Croatian borders, which were previously mentioned. Through several case 

studies in each country, project research will obtain not only language information, but also information 

on population trends and their life and culture. Basically, within one large case study of the Slavonian 

dialect there will be smaller case studies of each country: Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and 

Hungary (Berbić Kolar, Kolenić, 2014). 

 

 

 

 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm               Communication, Society and Media                Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018 

 
104 

Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

4. Stream of Consciousness as Narrative Mode and Memory 

Here is the example of the Slavonian speech: 

Maškȁre (Carnival) 

Tô je bĩlo…Jâ sam imȁla tȅtku u Brȍdskom Bȑdu. Jȅdnu rođȅnu i jȅdnu od tatȉne sestrȉčne. I tȁko se 

skȕpi njȉja i u svȁšta se sprẽmalo. Nî se ònda sprẽmalo u lĩpo. Ònda su maškȁre bĩle u strâšno. 

Spremȁlo se u lĩpo kad se ȉde na zâbavu. Vȁko kad se ȉde ònda se sprẽmalo u svȁkako, nȁopako pa i u 

stȁre trȕlje pa natrpȁje slȁme unũtra mȅđu. Jâ curȉca bĩla mãla, a òni dõšli k nȁma, a môj tȁta u ȁmper iz 

pĩvnice vĩno donȉjo. Tô se igrȁlo, pjevȁlo, zȅmlja u kȕći. Tô je bĩlo ko kad ȉdeš u bãšču, a kȉša pȁda. A 

jâ ȉšla iz škôle, òni ȉšli kȕći. Jôj, kad sam jâ čȕla štȁ je-bjȅži. Tȅtka mȍja vĩče: “Ne bôj se, jâ sam!” Ma 

kakî, mî smo bježȁli. Spremȁlo se; ljũdi oženȉti, starȉji, svȁkakvi. Pjevȁlo se, igrȁlo. Nĩ se pȁzilo po 

kȕći ȍćeš srȕšit nȅke tabletȉće ili nȅšta, nî tȍga bĩlo. Zȅmlja, pròlij pa pomèti. Tãncaj i brȉga te.  

Kata Bosančić, born 1929, Podvinje.  

Dogodõvštine iz djetĩnjstva (Childhood events) 

Svȁšta smo mî znȁle ko curȉce naprȁvit. Bȉjo jȅdan mȍmak tȗ, a òn je bȉjo sâm u mȁtere. Bȉjo je bȍgat i 

sâm, mȉslim ko bȉjo je starȉji. A òn je ȕvik mȅtio si kišnȉcu, bȕre si mȅti kad òvako pȁda kȉša, da mu se 

nakȕpi kišnȉce. Ònda se òn u kišnȉci kúpa. Tô je bȉjo Ȁndra Ćȕškovića. A mî ȉšle s čijâla, bĩlo nas 

jȅdno dvadȅset cȕrica iz ònog krȁja, a òn je bȉjo tȗ iz Kȅrdenija. Mî mu se upišȁle u kišnȉcu. Dȍšō òn 

sȕtra u sálu pa se sve mȉriše, a mî ȉdemo za njîm i vĩčemo: “Što tî smrdĩš, što tî smrdĩš!” Ònda smo mu 

rȅkle šta smo napravȉle, a òn kad nas ni ubȉjo.  

Ana Božić, born 1935, Podvinje  

Čupȁva, garȁva ukrȁla si škũdu,  

Tȕžiću te gȁrava kȍtarskome sũdu.  

I ako sȁm, neka sȁm. Prȁvo sam imȁla.  

Dãla sam je svôme đȅrzu da kũpi akcẽzu.  

Marija Lazić, born 1951, Podvinje 

(Berbić Kolar, 2009) 

 

5. Postmodern View on the Social Role of Collaboration and Remodelling of Genomic 

Architecture 

According to the theory of Dr. Joachim Bauer (Das Gedächtnis des Körpers, 2004), the brain-body-soul 

interaction through social relations influences the creation, maintenance and re-creation of memory. Dr. 

Bauer believes that restructuring of genomic architecture occurs parallel with personal transformation 

and evolution. 

Considering that Dr. Bauer (2011) in his research deals with negative phenomena in society, social 

pathology of violence and aggression (e.g., pain memory after abuse), we will conduct the thesis on 

transformations through human multitasking and performative multimedia art as a positive example of 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm               Communication, Society and Media                Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018 

 
105 

Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

affective experience in artistic performance. 

The specialty of performative affects in “humanly multitasked multimedia art” (Srnic, 2014) is that they 

enable the emergence of expressive artistic insights through the use of multimedia technology as a 

means of enhancing the experience, which can be applied not only in the acquisition of artistic maturity 

and evolution but also in education through performance arts for the needs of expressing deep feelings, 

thoughts and knowledge (we see possible use in healing the autistic persons, especially in the spectrum 

of Asperger’s syndrome). 

In the next chapter we will explain our vision of human multitasking and its importance in performing 

multimedia art. 

 

6. Human Multitasking in Glocal Multimedia Art 

Unlike ordinary direct connectivity of multitasking skills with technology and technological 

multimedia, it is important to recognize the crucial role of humans in performing art expression that use 

multitasking in the sense of processing synesthetic synchronicity of various artistic procedures for 

reprogramming: movement, music performance, postlinguistic silence, astonishment, engagement of 

audiences, photography, video recording.... By releasing the focus or anthropological “assemblage 

point” (Castaneda, 1985) of artistic performance in terms of emanating glocalization through 

spontaneous slip through the event, the audience just as the artist enters its inner refined perception of 

event and establishes a new view of reality through re-evaluation (as the anthropologist Castaneda 

(1985) would say “clustering the clusters of emanations”), and re-creating the previous look at new 

interpretation of the world. Such artistic practice is a prerequisite not only for personal, but also for 

collective transformation through a performative multitasked multimedial work of art and artistic 

experience. 

 

7. Multitasked Multimedial Semantic Deconstruction in Performing New Discourse of Glocal 

Postmodernism 

The above-mentioned form of artistic expression is a performative event of enhancing the aesthetics of 

living. When we add to the artistic and affectively enhanced performative work the importance of using 

numerous technological additions, then we can talk about multimedia or according to the theoretician 

of the media Mark B. N. Hansen (2000) about “technesis” in the sense of embodying reality through 

technology via certain “innervation”. 

Hansen also speaks of the artistic “involuntary memory” in which the thought is written into experience, 

we would say through a certain “stickiness”, but also stresses the “voluntary” intellectual memory 

which does not lead to ordinary experience, but to aestheticization of reality, often associated with 

consumer society (Hansen, 2000). In this regard, Hansen (2000) attributes the strengthening of the 

economics of memory to the thinking subject, although he recognizes that it is important to associate 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm               Communication, Society and Media                Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018 

 
106 

Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

oneself with reality through aesthetics and concludes that it is necessary to “reconceptualize experience 

as the correlate of the new material reality”. 

In this sense, it is important to emphasize that the emergence of Postmodernism and the use of 

multimedia technology deconstruct the former linguistic experience (mostly used and abused as 

religious, national or institutional psychologically measurable cognizing) and that new existential and 

memory parameters emerge as cognitive experience, based on multimediality, on the fading of the 

peculiar, sound and visual process, or visualization in the existential/phenomenological formula. 

Despite the dangers of partialisation of memory, the synesthesia process embodies a serialized and 

fragmented reality experience. Since every sudden disintegration experience is shocking to the artist, he 

is reprogrammed and transformed through “re-invention” in his artistic work. 

 

8. Conclusion: Anthropologizing the Technology as Artistically Superhumanizing Glocal Society 

By enhancing his artistic experience and artistic activity through multiple uses of technology in 

multimedia art, the artist empowers herself/himself as a creative and empathic/human being, but 

through a certain loop of addressing the audience and the overall environment in which he/she 

lives-provides through the surprisingly presented work getting public or environmental feedback. The 

artist uses technology as his/her “increased mind/body/spirit” by incorporating it into his/her human 

existence through the wondrously created concept of advanced artistic multimedia artwork of glocal 

orientation. 

Our experience in “performative multitasked multimedial art” has enabled us to place artistic 

intervention on the city square itself, resulting in strong creative “media-via” or “pleasant antagonism” 

while interpreting the inner reality of people of different worldview and perceptual abilities, by 

educational aesthetics of waking and mutuality. 

Thus actions speak louder than words: 

1) https://media-via.net/2018/05/07/situationally-performative-smartphones-orchestra  

2) https://media-via.net/2017/05/20/world-image-and-performativity-of-the-glocal-consciousness  

3) https://media-via.net/2017/04/13/post-modern-dystopic-deconstruction-for-mobile-phone-orchestra  

4) https://media-via.net/2016/06/12/orchestrated-glocal-performative-trine  

We agree with the well-known Canadian clinical psychologist and professor Dr. Jordan B. Peterson 

(1999) who correctly noted: “Creative individuals destroy old values and threaten with chaos—but also 

bear light, and the promise of better things. It is in this manner that the ‘sacrifice of the revolutionary 

savior redeems and rekindles the cosmos’”.  

Although the stream of consciousness in modern narrative mode as a vital memory and a nonlinear, 

disrupted narrative memorizing in postmodern literature as not so vital are unalike linguistic discourses, 

yet “multitasked multimedial performative glocal art” creates stronger memorizing in technologically 

supported and enhanced humanly processed performative narratives. 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm               Communication, Society and Media                Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018 

 
107 

Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

In that sense, technology used through the glocalization as a “performative multitasked multimedia art” 

is the affective enhancer of our memory and experience. It is the example of our mastery of multimedia 

aids through the anthropologization of technology as well as the entirely inventive promotion of the 

existing culture, not as mere transhuman or cybernetic dataism but rather empathic human society in 

the Art of memory. 

 
References 

Bauer, J. (2011). The Memory of the Body/Pamćenje Tijela (p. 111). Planetopija, Zagreb. 

Berbić Kolar, E. (2009). Govori Slavonskoga Dijalekta Brodskoga Kraja (Doctoral disertation). Osijek 

(In the manuscript). 

Berbić Kolar, E., & Kolenić, L. J. (2009). Slavonski Dijalekt u školi. Magyar Tannyelvu Tanitkepzo Kar, 

Szabadka 

Berbić Kolar, E., & Kolenić, L. J. (2014). Sičanske riči. Osijek. 

Berbić Kolar, E., Galzina, V., & Matanović, D. (2014). Towards a Safeguarding Concept of the 

Intangible Cultural Heritage in Slavonia, Baranya and Syrmia—Aspects of Digitization, 

Processing, Conservation and Dissemination of Sound, Image and Shape. Medijska istraživanja, 

Zagreb. 

Castaneda, C. (1985). The Fire from within (p. 124, p. 157). Great Britain: Black Swan. 

Hansen, M. (2000). Embodying Technesis: Technology beyond Writing (p. 233, p. 240, p. 243). The 

University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11092 

Kolenić, L. J., & Berbić Kolar, E. (2007). Govor Starih Perkovaca. Šokačka rič, 5, 83-92. Vinkovci. 

Peterson, B. J. (1999). Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (p. 221). Routledge.  

Srnic, V. (2014). Glocal Multimedia Art, e-book (pp. 57-67). Jesenski i Turk, Zagreb. Retrieved from 

http://www.jesenskiturk.hr/?active=knjiga&book=107634&lang=en 

 

 

 

https://bib.irb.hr/prikazi-rad?&rad=751148
https://bib.irb.hr/prikazi-rad?&rad=751148
https://bib.irb.hr/prikazi-rad?&rad=751148

