Week 2/3 Questions

1. In the Introduction to Story and Discourse, Chatman quotes Claude Bremond, who says: “Any sort of narrative message… may be transposed from one to another medium without losing its essential properties: the subject of a story may serve as argument for a ballet, that of a novel, can be transposed to stage or screen, one can recount in words a film to someone who has not seen it.” Chatman goes on to suggest that “transposability of the story is the strongest reason for arguing that narratives are indeed structures independent of any medium”. Choose a narrative that has been expressed in both an interactive and a non-interactive medium, for example the game Tomb Raider and the movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Discuss how the transposition to/from interactive media has changed the narrative. Has the structure of the narrative remained intact?Although not quite a narrative, an example that comes to mind is the MMORPG Ragnarok Online, which went from being an online game to an animated series. While it received a lukewarm response from fans of anime, it was fairly popular among the fans of the game, who seemed to feel that their story was being told through the anime, which was interesting, considering it is commonly thought that MMORPGs to not have an essential storyline.

   What I think the fans of the game enjoyed in the anime was what they had to go through to get anywhere in the game. The anime focused on the trials of a “Newbie” trying to make it to his very first job level, or rather, to a level where he can get by comfortably in the game, which I think everyone goes through before they branch off into concentrating on what they like about the game, be it socialising or levelling or creating the “best” character, or one with a unique build.

   In this sense the narrative hasn’t changed. It is somewhat like selective storytelling, using a common experience as the story, and the main character going through what other people feel and encounter when they play the game (For example, getting a good item snitched from you right under your nose). It is hard to say whether or not the narrative remains intact, because each person’s experience of the game is ultimately different, despite a common beginning.

   Another interesting series of anime is the dotHack, or .//hack, which I hope to one day watch. It apparently is about player’s experiences in an online game. The world in which the events take place is an online game, with ramifications in the “real” world.

2. Chatman observes that “whether… the author elects to order the reporting of events according to their causal sequence or to reverse them in a flashback effect – only certain possibilities can occur… Of course certain events or existents that are not immediately relevant maybe brought in. But at some point their relevance must emerge, otherwise we object that the narrative is ‘ill-formed.’” This is the notion of self-regulation. Interactive media allows for choice and control on the part of the reader/user. What problem does this raise for self-regulation? What, if anything, does this suggest about designing interactive narrative?For interactive media to work, then, implies a certain degree of self-regulation on the part of the user. Designing interactive narrative would assume that the user will try to make the narrative as coherent as possible to avoid feeling that the narrative is “ill-formed”. Otherwise, the user may choose to create an “ill-formed” narrative. Since we as designers cannot predict what the user may do, and try to make all introduced events relevant, we run the risk of permitting the formation of an ill-formed narrative.
3. Discussing the concept of interpretation, or “filling in the gaps”, in narrative, Chatman states that “there is… a class of indeterminacies… that arise from the peculiar nature of the medium. The medium may specialize in certain narrative effects and not others. For instance, the cinema may easily – and does routinely – present characters without expressing the contents of their minds… verbal narrative, on the other hand, finds such restrictions difficult… Conversely, verbal narrative may elect not to present some visual aspect… The cinema, however, cannot avoid a rather precise representation of visual detail.”

   Think of an example of the use of narrative in interactive media. With reference to your example, suggest what the “peculiar nature” of interactive media may be, and which narrative effects it may specialize in.The “peculiar nature” of interactive media depends on the degree to which the user is able to control the medium. Narratives in interactive media often require the user to take on a fixed role, either as a character in a game, whose look often never changes, whose thoughts are the users, and whose actions are also in part controlled by the developer (range of actions) and the user (sequence).

   Again, in a game, I think the “peculiar nature” would be the pacing. How fast or how slow the story is literally played out is dependent on the user, and I think the pace of the story does have an effect on how the narrative is perceived. For example, if it takes too long to pass each level, the story advances slowly and soon interest in the game will be lost. Like movies, however, a game also finds itself setting the scene not verbally but visually, which subjects it to the same “narrative effects” as a movie.

Introduction

After wandering around looking for people’s responses to the questions, I realised I have absolutely no introduction. So. Here it is, albeit belatedly.

I’m Christie, a 3rd year FASS CNM major, who has spent the last year in Journalism school at the University of Oregon on SEP, and is therefore really unfamiliar with everything – my major, the NUS lifestyle, and where the heck everything is anymore.

Not my first blog, but it’s the first time I’m using a free, premade blog (what frustrates me is the templating – we can’t upload our own designs, and all their premade designs are made for 600 x 800) since my domain died last friday despite repeated attempts to renew it. Blight the buggers.

Week 1 Questions

1. In “What is New Media?” Lev Manovich proposes 5 principles of new media: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding. Choose an example that you consider to be “new media”, and describe it in terms of these principles. What implications do these principles have for narrative and play within interactive media?

Digital Images are the easiest form of new media to conceptualise in terms of Lev Manovich’s 5 principles of new media. It can be represented numerically, using algorithms to automatically derive different variations of the image, and stored at different levels (ala Photoshop layers). It is also represented on two levels – the cultural being the image we see, and the computer level the numbers which represent each pixel’s color values.

The largest impact these properties have for narrative and play in interactive media is the potential on-the-fly narrative creation, which would result in a unique experience every time a computer game is played. Rather along the Dungeons and Dragons format. A computer game is inherently numerically represented, and by combining user input with a background framework, the program can automatically pull up scenarios to fit into the narrative (modularity). It may even be possible to track the movements made by the user before, to project what he or she would be likely to do next and create scenarios accordingly (for example, like Amazon’s suggested buy service).

2. Manovich questions the usefulness of the term interactivity, suggesting that “once an object is represented in a computer, it automatically becomes interactive. Therefore, to call computer media ‘interactive’ is meaningless – it simply means stating the most basic fact about computers.”In contrast, in “What exactly is Interactivity?” Chris Crawford proposes a much stricter definition of interactivity. Compare these differing views, with reference to your own experience of interactive media systems.

Crawford’s definition of interactivity is defined in terms of a conversation, with both parties alternatively provide thoughtful feedback to what was said before. Manovich seems to imply that by representing an object through a computer, the computer as an interface makes the object inherently interactive. The primary difference between the two seems to be that Crawford’s definition requires the second party to respond with the semblance of some thought. Manovich, on the other hand, seems to think that encountering the object is interactive enough.

I’d side with Crawford – it is pointless to think of interactivity if the object does not respond to actions on what is seemingly its own volition. I’m thinking of an installation piece on the first floor of Cathay Cineleisure. There’s a puddle of light projected on the floor just inside of the entrance. It looks entirely innocent until you step in it, and watch very convincing ripples form around your foot. It reacts to movement, not shadow. You can argue that it isn’t sentient, but it feels like it’s acting like it is. It’s not something simple, say, turning itself off when movement is detected, or rippling from the center of the puddle. It’s attuned to what -=you=- did. You specifically. With Manovich’s definition, all I have to do is scan in an image, and voila! It’s interactive. Mmm, doesn’t quite work for me.

3. Narrative, interactivity and play – how does Run Lola Run reflect these concerns? How does this relate to Manovich’s concept of transcoding?

What I liked best about Run Lola Run was how it emphasized possibilities. That even something with essentially the same storyline could have so many almost wildly different endings. Essentially, the narrative was more or less the same for all three retellings, but the interactive nature of the film altered the details to the point where the outcome changed every retelling. It was tons of fun! Like the “ideal” interactive computer game, which changes the narrative according to user inputs.

What I found most frustrating about Run Lola Run was that the story was told linearly and we couldn’t just skip to the end. I think this follows Manovich’s concept of transcoding – what we see is the cultural layer, but we’re confined by the “computer” layer which reads it linearly (although, admittedly, since it was a DVD, we could have just skipped to the end of each storyline). It needs a hyperlink for the impatient.