Chapter 3: From Additive to Expressive Form Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace

Additive to Expressive Form The early days of film Cradle Films As in printing press, the invention of camera lead to a period of incunabula of “cradle films” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nj0vEO4Q6s Includes several examples, see 3:05 and 4:25

Moving Beyond Cradle films Invention of major elements of filmic storytelling Close up Chase scene Feature length Unique physical properties of film Movement of camera, Lens; open, close, change focus How celluloid processed light Cut up and assembly of film

Photoplays By aggressively exploring and exploiting these physical properties filmmakers change a mere recording technology into an expressive medium. Narrative films were originally called photoplays first thought of as a merely additive art form Photoplay = Photography + Theater https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FrdVdKlxUk Camera with the cellluloid rolls………….

Photoplays to Movies Photoplays gave way to movies when filmmakers learned, To create suspense To create character and mood by visual means To use “montage” of discontinuous shots to establish a larger action Some critics passionately opposed sound and color as superfluous distractions Camera with the cellluloid rolls………….

Digital Environments New content creators are finding ways to move beyond the incunabula stage in digital environments. Characteristics of digital environments: Interactive 1. Procedural 2. Participatory Immersive 3. Spatial 4. Encyclopedic

Computer-based Characters Eliza 1966 Joseph Weizenbaum Many versions of this story

Computer-based Characters Eliza is procedural in that it has a procedure for selecting response based on the most recent and prior comments by the user. Coming up with those procedures can be difficult. What does this story of Eliza tell us? Role of user expectations and experiences? Limitations of Eliza as a model for characters?

Participatory Computers are interactive Zork They create an environment that is both procedural and participatory The user must participate in the story Zork Text-based adventure game “The computer was programming the player.” Not NLP but more natural than before

Participatory Key to compelling storytelling in a participatory medium lies in scripting the interactor Challenge is to invent scripts that are formulaic enough to be easily grasped and responded Flexible enough to capture a wider range of human behaviours

Spatial The new digital environments are characterized by their power to represent navigable space Linear media such as books, and films can portray space either by verbal description or image Only digital environments can present space that we can move through

Spatial The myth of PARC Aspen movie map Zork (again) First graphical user interface? Well, not quite. Aspen movie map Tour of Aspen that gives a sense of presence Zork (again) Imagined world with imaginable layout “The event is happening now. The event is happening to you.” The challenge for the future is to invent an increasingly graceful choreography of navigation to lure the interactor through ever more expressive narrative landscapes

Encyclopedic Computers have huge capacity – more than prior methods of representing content Value for narrative? Wealth of detail to represent the world with both scope and particularity Stories from multiple vantage points, offer intersecting stories that form a dense and wide-spreading web Negative effects? Long-windedness Formlessness in storytellers Outgrowing broadcast delivery and too big……. Game of thrones

Encyclopedic Simulations – exposing the assumptions “the interpretive framework is embedded in the rules by which the system works and in the way in which participation is shaped” What combines spatial, participatory, and procedural elements with encyclopaedic coverage? One example: MMORPG, others?

Digital Structures of Complexity Memex “human knowledge is a solvable maze, open to rational organization” – clear cut trail Xanadu “hummingbird mind”, “all things are deeply intertwingled” – twisting web Time steps – the game of life Emergent structure / behaviour http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/

Computational Media Are we still at the incunabula stage? Early stories on the web were pretty bad Computer presentation would allow pleasure that are unattainable in broadcast soaps Sub plots Audio as an integral part of the plotline Exaggeration: every start-up is trying to create a new medium But not many focus on narrative