Back to DMAC/Cocteau

Got back to OSU today to rejoin the DMAC group. Been thinking a LOT about Cocteau, who is one of the principle figures I am working with right now. I think of Cocteau as a MAJOR founding figure in multimodality, though I think I may be alone in that assessment. Here's some relevant thinking I did earlier today on this, getting to the leading question for which I don't have much of an answer yet:

Jean Cocteau was among the most influential mid-20th century French artists. A poet, novelist, playwright, artist, and filmmaker, Cocteau also wrote scenarios for some of the most famous ballets of the 20th century (Parade, music by Erik Satie) and libretti for works by famous composers (Oedipus Rex, music by Stravinsky).

Cocteau worked throughout his life in multiple media, exploring and experimenting ceaselessly, seeing everything he did as “composing,” or making art. This embrace of what we would today call multimodal composing is perhaps best seen in his films, some of which are considered among the most important in early French film. Cocteau was also relatively open about his homosexuality, and there are several interesting ways in which his queerness finds expression in his work. Most notably, The White Paper is a frank treatment of homophobia and contains several of Cocteau’s original drawings.

Cocteau’s work thus raises the question of how queerness is represented or figured multimodally.

More on this later...