ABSTRACT
In this section of the book we deal with polymedia, forms containing more than two media. We are using this term rather than multi-media because multi-media is now most commonly used to refer to commercial and educational materials, and sometimes to describe a particular type of avant-garde intermedia event. Polymedia include multi-media but also theatre and film. Improvisation in polymedia obviously involves an interaction between several of the semiotic systems such as the visual, linguistic, movement, gestural etc. that we have discussed earlier. There can also be interactions with other systems, such as lighting. Keir Elam has commented on the consequent “semiotic thickness” of the theatre ((Elam, 1980) p. 45) and has applied Christian Metz’ description of the cinema, “Different, perfectly distinct systems intervene in the same message”, to the theatre ((Elam, 1980) p. 44). By now it should be clear how these different semiotic systems can relate.
