1. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace
Chapter 8, 9 & 10
Hamlet on the Holodeck:
The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace

2. Eliza’s Daughters Chatterbots More interesting representations
Julia – MUD agent that provides information as well as entertaining conversation
Fails Turing test
Self-absorbed, evasive, and obsessive characters are easier to author
More interesting representations
Temporal model of character (salesman)
Modeling inner life (PARRY and neurotic woman)

3. Goal-based Behavior Intelligent agents
Lyotard – goals change over time
Cognitive simulation combining goals and feelings
Interesting and potentially fun and useful but …
“it seems like the very antithesis of what we value in literature, which is the careful examination of ambiguous situations open to multiple interpretations”
Challenge of purely mathematical models
Ad-hoc rules and glitches enable most human/intriguing actions
Lyotard biting interactor
Shrimp banging head on ground

4. Multi-character Environments
Simple joining of chatterbots
Zippy meets Eliza
Woggles
Difficulty of interactor to focus on important activity
Need for staging

5. Multicharacter Environments
Lessons from commedia dell’arte
High-level scenario implying goals
Stock characters
Set of potential scripts/schemas for action
Improvisation (simulation) for instantiation

6. Emergent Behavior
Autonomous agents, particularly in combination, can walk away from plot
Interaction is complex and unpredictable
Ambivalence and the comically neurotic wolf

7. Emergent Behavior Flat vs. round characters
Flat are more likely to stay in character
Random – flat pretending to be round
Round characters exhibit revelation
Consciousness as emergent behavior
Simon’s argument about simulation
Minsky’s meat machines

8. Emerging Formats Combining broadcast and participatory formats
From sequential, to simultaneous, to merged experience
The serial drama archive and hyperserial
Other ideas: Branching video, thought track, consensus narrative

9. Dual Screen Use
From study in 2012

10. Interacting in Virtual Places
MUDs (to MMOGs) to VRs
Moving from immersion and navigational agency to transformation?
Tension between author and participants?
Difference between game player and actor?
Personal vs. social?

11. Virtual or Augmented Reality
Virtual reality enables greater immersion and channels for distance communication
But takes us out of the here and now
Good for stories but bad not great for collaboration or including the current context.
Augmented Reality
Enables media that are based on current context (physical and social).
Can include pass-through of context

12. Hamlet on the Holodeck Conclusions
Narrative beauty is independent of the medium
It helps us understand who we are and what we are doing here
Procedural authorship is key
Need to move from individual to social authorship?
Narrative formulas must be refined for great work in a new media
Juvenalia stage is necessary to explore formulas
Future of media that combine pre-defined narrative elements/moments with emergent interactions among complex systems