Montage: Expanding the Concept of Informing through Cinematic Concepts

Abstract

Abstract In his "Theses on the Philosophy of History", Walter Benjamin suggests that all cultural treasures "owe their existence not only to the efforts of the great minds and talents who have created them, but also to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries. There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism". The most obvious and prominent examples of cultural treasures in Benjamin's discourses can be found in monumental architectural works, and history has shown that rulers have really been interested in such splendor stone statements. Benjamin's discourse challenges a dominant idea that seeks to give an ambitious image of these architectural works with the purpose of confirming and endorsing a splendid cultural past so that it can give shape to an integrated and arbitrary cultural geography. This theoretical study, which has been conducted using library resources, employing the discourse and method of "cinematic thinking", attempts to review the role of these monumental architectural works in establishing and shaping national cultural geography. This process is an effort to open boundaries of theorization in area of art and architecture, with the help of ideas that moving cinematic images leave in place. Keywords: cinematic thinking, monumental architectural works, cultural documents, montage, cultural imaginary geography. Introduction Interdisciplinary studies refers to "the process of communication, interaction, and integration of knowledge, concepts, experiences, and specialties of two or several scientific disciplines which is conducted with purpose of comprehensive recognition, dynamic understanding, and scientific analysis of real problems, subjects, and phenomena" (Khorsandi Tasko, 2008, p. 36). Interdisciplinary studies create a space between participating disciplines and focus on overlapping areas between disciplines. In these studies, relations are quite relative, and participating parties can benefit from hypotheses and fundamentals of involved perspectives disciplines proportionately. Interdisciplinary studies, by expanding boundaries of knowledge, enable examination of different phenomena with various perspectives obtained from different disciplines and by opening traditional boundaries of fields to one another, expand potentials of each of participating areas. The more interdisciplinary studies can cross barriers and walls that separate disciplines, the more dynamic and creative interdisciplinary interactions are realized. In order to build a common ground in interdisciplinary studies, the following techniques have been proposed (Repko, Newell, & Szostak, 2011): 1- Redefinition: Semantic explanation & adaptation of terms and hypotheses 2- Extension: Extension of a new idea or territory 3- Organization: Explaining implicit commonalities between areas and describing the commonalities between them 4- Transformation: Observing differences Some theorists believe that in interdisciplinary studies, boundaries and territories of each of disciplines remain unchanged and that in the process of adjacency and fellowship, each of participating disciplines keep their independence. Another group suggests that interdisciplinary approaches can challenge initial hypotheses of involved branches, and as a result of cooperation and participation between disciplines, new hypotheses might emerge in each of the disciplines. This is the stance advanced by the Informing Science Institute. Therefore, the interdisciplinary approach, by exposing silent and hidden aspects, enables crossing and violating rigid formats and established boundaries (Khorsandi Tasko, 2008). Through the extension of interdisciplinary studies, according to Klein, "treatment of knowledge as a foundation or a linear structure, has been replaced by terms such as network and web" (as cited by Khorshidi & Pishgahi, 2012, p. …