Say I'm walking along the sidewalk and happen upon a construction site. I may notice that each bulldozer and backhoe seems to be painted a different color, and that each has a matching trailer parked nearby.
I may then look more closely at all the many types of trucks moving around the site, and notice that instead of the logo of some large, monolithic corporation—CalFab Enterprises, or whatever—the trucks are labeled with the names of scores of small, proprietary subcontractors: J.J. Higgins, Rodriguez & Son, and so forth.
What I've observed up to this point could be easily captured in a series of short cuts of film or videotape. The underlying concept that's beginning to emerge could also easily be expressed, either in voice-over sound or in a graphic overlay:
INDEPENDENT BUSINESSES
What next pops into my head is an awareness of how unusual it is to see so many independent businesses together in one place today. Images flash very rapidly through my mind: the logos of the few large supermarket and department store chains that are currently in existence, the national brand names of the spectrum of products I buy—perhaps beginning to overlay a graph of aggregate sales of the Fortune 500. All this would take seconds at the most, because of the rapidity of audiovisual "information processing."
Another message appears as the images of the trucks with their small-proprietor markings return.
FROM ANOTHER TIME
Next comes a flash of images, beginning with the sign,"McGehee & Payne, Prop." outside a rural store/post office/bus depot; then on to the small suburban market where my mother bought her groceries, the sawdust-floored butcher shop, the hardware store with its chatty proprietor and bins of nails, the delicatessen where everyone had a German accent, the immaculate bakery—all clearly independent and proprietary, as a montage of their signs attests.
The images take on a warm, antique sepia tone as a hypothesis forms:
INDEPENDENT BUSINESSES: GONE?
There is a pause and a blank screen. Then a very small item of flashing text:
LIMIT/NON-TRUE CONDITION:
Next come images of the Middle Easterners who run the franchised convenience store around the corner from me, and the East Asians in the independent family store next door to the franchisees, who survive by selling a slightly broader selection of merchandise and by putting in very long hours of their own unsalaried time.
WHITE COLLAR BUSINESSES GONE?
A pause again, followed once more by the LIMIT message. Then a series of names on letterhead:
Jeffrey M.
Chang, M.D
Watkins & Cardello, Attorneys at Law
Slavick & Associates, Retailing Consultants
Now back to the previous graphic, with a line added:
WHITE
COLLAR BUSINESSES GONE,
EXCEPT FOR CERTAIN PROFESSIONALS
Now the images settle back into the earlier sepia tone, as a man with a cigar and arm garters makes thoughtful entries in his books.
Suddenly, a series of ultra-quick flash cuts of contemporary corporate logos races by, in saturated, vivid color.
LEAVING_______?
A truck hauling dirt from the construction site. A carpet cleaning service. A gas station; a company that services commercial air conditioning equipment; another that maintains landscaping.
The Middle Eastern and Asian immigrant merchants in their tiny stores.
Now cut to a brightly-colored headline on the cover of a hypothetical edition of Time magazine:
ENTREPRENEURIALISM IN AMERICA
Inside, the copy is highlighted with phrases like "Competitive Slide" and "Recapturing the Spirit."
Cut next to a small Fourth of July parade, with flags waving and a high school band oompah-ing, as it makes its way down Main Street in a classic American small town.
Computer-generated characters appear over the image in quick beeping succession, spelling out a quotation:
"BUSINESS IS THE VERY SOUL OF AN AMERICAN: HE PURSUES IT, NOT AS A MEANS OF PROCURING FOR HIMSELF AND HIS FAMILY THE NECESSARY COMFORTS OF LIFE, BUT AS THE FOUNDATION OF ALL HUMAN FELICITY...”
Francis J. Grund, 1837
As the parade continues, another quotation appears:
"WE WORK TO BECOME, NOT TO ACQUIRE.”
Elbert Hubbard, 1899
This quotation remains until the parade has passed by the camera and has rounded a corner, leaving only a few silhouetted stragglers tootling their last notes in the emptiness of the street.
A final quotation is superimposed:
"AMERICAN INDUSTRY IS NOT FREE, AS IT ONCE WAS FREE; AMERICAN ENTERPRISE IS NOT FREE; THE MAN WITH ONLY A LITTLE CAPITAL IS FINDING IT HARDER TO GET INTO THE FIELD, MORE AND MORE IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPETE WITH THE BIG FELLOW.”
Woodrow Wilson, 1913
Fade to black. Long pause.
Then come up on Jimmy Carter talking about a national "malaise." Follow with a flurry of progressively shorter and more vehement denials that any such condition exists.
Dissolve slowly to a middle-aged man in a jogging suit standing beside a trail, with young female runners occasionally passing by. The man is going on about how fit he is, how he can do anything a 20-year-old can do...
(Final fade to black)
* * * * *
In the hypothetical work just described, an idea that might be considered dry and uninteresting, if stated in the normal expository forms of written English, was able to be presented more vividly.
Yet the presentation was also accurate—showing the specific context from which the general principles derived, and revealing in complete candor many areas in which the overall premise did not apply.
The reason it could achieve both interest and accuracy is that, in effect, the presentation let its audience in on the thought process as it occurred—in the “native mode” of thought, to borrow a term from computer science, rather than requiring a translation from the visual symbols of writing to the auditory phenomena of speech, then back to the perceptually visual world that language attempts to describe.
This example of a potential audiovisual essay is just a crude preliminary sketch of what might occur in the early stages of the medium’s development. As we develop greater skill, our techniques of exposition will come closer and closer to a truly “native mode” of representing thought.
Our methods of combining and rapidly sifting through visual images will tend to become more sophisticated, probably involving the use of computer graphics and computerized image enhancement and manipulation. The evolution of the words will proceed apace. We are likely to hear more phrases than complete sentences, with certain key phrases recurring rhythmically, in a leitmotif sort of manner. The total effect may well resemble an exotic hybrid between computer logic and poetry.
In its evolved form, this audiovisual form should have capabilities far beyond anything that can be done with print.
Vivid and experiential, awash in color and sound, the new form will compare to traditional print essays, like the ones in a traditional Sunday newspaper's editorial section, in about the same way that reading those Sunday Op-Ed essays compares to deciphering the message, T...R...A...I...N.….…D…E...L...A...Y…E…D from a series of blips in Morse code.
The new medium will enable ideas to be conveyed in a more vivid, more accessible, and more accurate manner than has been possible with any form heretofore devised.
In a sense, the audiovisual essay will move communications closer to telepathy.