What is meant by interactive digital storytelling?
April 4th, 2005 by Jana EggerHow interactive narratives can be placed between film and game or is it a new genre which needs to be clarified.
How interactive does this need to be?
You see this topic is quite controversy, so please do not hesitate to post your opinion here.
Posted in Interactive Storytelling |
June 15th, 2007 at 15:09
> for instance - the reader (the user) uses the printed words as an >interface to emerge into artificial realities created by his own >mind.
>Logically, interactive storytelling is being the speaker and the audience at >the same time.
>With the home cinema, the TV screens in the back of the car and now
>3G mobiles, movies became more and more individual. The idea of >interacting with the story will make the movie screening an individual >experience too. Or is it not?
Hi Andreg - several points that i feel have been avoided:
1 Perhaps there needs to be a distinction between passive interfaces ie the book page, the movie screen, the narrator and active/dynamic interfaces such as the computer interface, early opera (throwing cabbages and booing), traditional storytellers (who moderated the story in response to their audience) - surely an interactive storytale is one that involves some form of participant feedback and the possibility of modifiying the story. A book based novel can be interpreted in many forms but the material text remains unchanged whereas the interactive story has potential for the story to be modified in reponse to the reader.
2 In regards the social aspects of entertainment media: one could argue that home cinema has the potential to increase sociability ie a gathering of friends to enjoy a movie. Also, i wonder how social mechanisms like drive-in movies were if we are to believe the nostalgic notion that many couple went to the drive-in movie to ‘get it on’ which in itself is a private activity. Individual or intimate technologies can be used for individual activities but they have potential for a number of forms of social interaction such as games (i use the term broadly which i realise is problematic). Surely sociablilty is not wholly dependent on the physical attributes of the medium.
3 Surely the consumption of a medium is a medium in itself. Technologies can be absorbers or deflectors depending on the intent of the designer and subsequent use in the hands of users (sms for instance). That people use mobile devices as a means of private passive consumption (video, music, web browsing) is perhaps more a reflection on the services offered rather than the technology itself.
4 Could interactive storytelling be defined as: story instantiation where active modification of the underlying narrative direction and outcomes is effected by events external to the story’s narrative structure and/or medium.
John
John Paul Bichard
Backseat Playground
http://www.tii.se/mobility/BSP
http://www.hydropia.org/john
May 10th, 2005 at 13:19
By definition, every storytelling is interactive. Even in a closed medium - as the traditional book, for instance - the reader (the user) uses the printed words as an interface to emerge into artificial realities created by his own mind. His imagination, together with what Coleridge called the “willing suspension of disbelief”, will be the tools to project him into the story. The story affects the reader emotionally (and sometimes even physically), and the knowledge, references, emotions he possesses affect the way he sees the story.
Yet, here we use the term “interactive storytelling” as something resulting from new technologies. The word interactive is used as a technological feature and not a human one, as we were used to. Something interactive is something computerized, with a certain interface, allowing the user to interfere in its world. Logically, interactive storytelling is being the speaker and the audience at the same time.
In my opinion, interactive storytelling has something of film and game, but is not merely the mixture of the both, as film can not be defined as the mixture between theatre and photography. I tkink that, before all, we should wonder why is it happening: is there a new audience, tired of linear narratives and wanting to be more participative? Did the success of the internet, the mobiles and the videogames created new needs in the audience?
Cinema used to be a social happening. First screened in fairs and later in big theatres where people used to bring their best suits (as in opera). Despite the visionaires from the 1920’s imagined a future with gigant theatres, they become smaller. Then the theatres become darker, with louder sound systems. With the home cinema, the TV screens in the back of the car and now 3G mobiles, movies became more and more individual. The idea of interacting with the story will make the movie screening an individual experience too. Or is it not?
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Andre.G