Navigable Spaces

1
Navigable Spaces

• LCC 2700 Intro to Computational Media

2
4 properties of the digital medium

• Procedural
• Participatory
• Spatial
• Encyclopedic

3
4 properties of the digital medium

• Procedural
• Participatory
• Spatial
• Encyclopedic

4
4 properties of the digital medium

• Procedural
• Participatory
• Spatial property is derived from the procedural
  and participatory
• Encyclopedic

5
Space

• With time one of the 2 prime coordinates of human
  cognition
• Has multiple logical codes
• Absolute Longitude/Latitude GPS
• Relative Directionality (North, South, East,
  West)
• Up/Down , Orbiting
• Lightyears (SpaceTime)

6
Experiencing Space

• Codes of relationship
• Left / Right
• In front of / Behind
• Forward / Back
• Landmarking
• Zones of proximity (Downtown the South)
• Pathfinding (2 stops on MARTA Mapquest
  directions)

7
Representating Space Overview
8
Overviews

• Provide sense of boundaries and extent of space
• Provide relationship of parts to the whole
• From a gods eye (birds eye) perspective
• Sitemaps and good site navigation provide
  overview of information spaces
• Establishing shots, zooms in film provide
  overview prelude to smaller scene create
  illusion of proximities
• Digital media can create overviews that can be
  entered and navigated

9
Myst Island Fly-over

• http//www.riven.com/Movies/MyFly.mov
• Not directly connected with navigation in Myst

10
Overview and Navigation Connected

• In websites that make nav bar the site map
• In more recent games like The Sims where you can
  move from the neighborhood flyover to the street
  to the individual house to individual rooms

11
Representing Space Navigation

• Navigation produces sense of immersion
• Space seems more real because you can move
  through it
• Space must be consistent
• Logically Retraceable (up/down, left/right)
• In scale (lower floors matched to upper floors)
• Landmarks support orienteering

12
Coherent navigation leads to exploration and
discovery

• Passing a tripwire can set off a dramatic
  effect
• Room abstraction useful even for spaces that
  are not rooms, such as mazes, forest, any logical
  space segment
• Glimpsing one space from another, or
  hearing/smelling something just out of sight,
  creates anticipation
• Sounds can become louder as you approach
• Hidden objects can become more, or suddenly
  visible

13
Creating Motivation for Exploration

• Placing objects in the space reinforces the
  illusion
• Following a fleeing character (White Rabbit) can
  motivate navigation, discovery
• Spaces and objects can be taken from familiar
  story genres treasure boxes, outlaw hideout,
  alien space ship
• Story expectations from props and characters,
  sound and visual style create anticipation,
  suspense, curiosity

14
Space as Abstract Code

• Hierarchies
• Things above and below superordinate/subordinate
• Upper and lower classes (people, things)
• Top of the line Bottom of the heap
• Make it to the top sink so low that you would
• Right hand man sinister (left-hand) plot
• Memory Palaces
• Greek rhetorical trick of associating a list of
  things with a set of places, recall by mental
  walk-through

15
Geographical Space as Cultural Code

• East Coast, West Coast
• Beltway (Washington)
• The South, the Midwest
• (other countries have similar shorthand)
• Valley of the Shadow of Death
• Underworld of the Dead
• Mountaintop or Celestial habitation of the gods
• (in multiple religious traditions)

16
Space as Emotional Code

• Choice as a fork in the road or a crossroads
• Despair as a forest (Dantes inferno)
• Being confused as being lost at sea
• Drowning as being overwhelmed out of his depth
• Walking the straight and narrow moral
  orientation for spatial orientation

17
Borges Forking Paths

• A book that is a labyrinth
• An action that is a coded message
• A view of human life and the meaning of our
  choices