Six Perspectives on managing Interactivity and Narrative

1
Six Perspectives on managing Interactivity and
Narrative Dan Pinchbeck, Dept. Of Creative
Technologies, University of Portsmouth The
Bridge Symposium, Sept 30th, LCC
2
Six Perspectives on managing Interactivity and
Narrative Dan Pinchbeck, Dept. Of Creative
Technologies, University of Portsmouth The Bridge
Symposium, Sept 30th, LCC
3
The branching problem more interactivity, less
narrative? A conceptual and structural issue
one that defines the extents of the experience
and the environment. Traditional narrative
models collapse. Some alternative ways of
thinking around the problem
Six Perspectives on managing Interactivity and
Narrative Dan Pinchbeck, Dept. Of Creative
Technologies, University of Portsmouth The Bridge
Symposium, Sept 30th, LCC
4
Liquid Narrative (Young, NCSU) Mimesis AI
architecture contains narrative and discourse
planner. Overall story plan is fluid DP uses
story plan plus library of actions to respond to
user behaviour. Can intervene with user actions,
or adjust narrative structure to deal with
problem actions.
Six Perspectives on managing Interactivity and
Narrative Dan Pinchbeck, Dept. Of Creative
Technologies, University of Portsmouth The Bridge
Symposium, Sept 30th, LCC
5
Emergent Narrative theory (Louchert Aylett,
Salford University) Centred on virtual
environments. Authorial activities are
minimised. Splits narrative into High, Med, Low
levels that correspond roughly to management,
interaction, parameters. Med level influenced
and managed by combination of High Low. Story
arc embedded within environment through agents
and allowances.
Six Perspectives on managing Interactivity and
Narrative Dan Pinchbeck, Dept. Of Creative
Technologies, University of Portsmouth The Bridge
Symposium, Sept 30th, LCC
6
Narrative Intelligence (Sarbin, Schank, Mateas,
Blair Meyer etc) People build narratives a
natural psychological process of information
management. Scripts, plans, goals and
understandings approach to AI design Mateas
(99) identifies a series of sub-concerns
narrative as interface design narrative agents
story understanding and storytelling systems
managing interactivity. Away from Aristotelian
conceptualisation, towards embodied and embedded
information management, driving memory and
perception (amongst others)
Six Perspectives on managing Interactivity and
Narrative Dan Pinchbeck, Dept. Of Creative
Technologies, University of Portsmouth The Bridge
Symposium, Sept 30th, LCC
7
Narrative Contracts (Young, Atkins) Establishes
expectations , allowances and context. Two-way
arrangement. Pre-interactive media central
aspect of performing, literary and visual
arts. Events are extra-daily (Schechner 1977)
artificial rules do not require real world
physics Pietro (2002) mentions
rocketjumping All games manage levels of
interactivity expectation. Most aim low (this
goes for narrative too).
Six Perspectives on managing Interactivity and
Narrative Dan Pinchbeck, Dept. Of Creative
Technologies, University of Portsmouth The Bridge
Symposium, Sept 30th, LCC
8
Narrative Decomposition (Keen, Pinchbeck) Fabula
/ Sjuzet Empathic / Temporal POV, Other
Characteristics, Coherence, Story/Discourse time
synchronisation, Narrator/Reader relationship,
etc. Not all elements are as critical or
relevant as others to interactive environments.
Elements can also be independently
manipulated. Database driven deployment of
narrative sub-components according to user
behaviours, as evidenced by actions within the
environments, may be possible. In other words,
narrative recipe is reactive to users
expectations and needs.
Six Perspectives on managing Interactivity and
Narrative Dan Pinchbeck, Dept. Of Creative
Technologies, University of Portsmouth The Bridge
Symposium, Sept 30th, LCC
9
User Management The other side of the
equation. People are skilled media users who
expect a degree of management and manipulation as
part of the experience. Scanpaths (Stark) and
active perception (Gibson, Neisser) are
established psychological concepts. There is also
a good deal of understanding of how people make
decisions. Is part of the problem a lack of
confidence on the part of interactive content
designers an over-expectation of their product
that is simply not shared by their audiences, or
an unwillingness to be honest about the levels of
manipulation already deployed culturally?
Six Perspectives on managing Interactivity and
Narrative Dan Pinchbeck, Dept. Of Creative
Technologies, University of Portsmouth The Bridge
Symposium, Sept 30th, LCC
10
Web links to research centres Centre for
Virtual Environments, University of Salford
http//info.nicve.salford.ac.uk/web/ Liquid
Narrative Group, South Carolina State
University http//liquidnarrative.csc.ncsu.edu/
Narrative Psychology resources www.narrativepsych
.com Some papers and publications Schank,
R.C. Abelson,R. Scripts, Plans, Goals and
Understanding An Inquiry into Human Knowledge
Structures. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
1977 Mateas, M. Sengers, P. Narrative
Intelligence. American Association for Artificial
Intelligence 1998. http//www.imk.fraunhofer.de/im
ages/mars/sengers_narrative.pdf Atkins, B. More
than a game the computer game as fictional form.
Manchester University Press 2003. Schechner, R.
Performance Theory. Routledge 1977 Pietro, G.
Virtual Unreality of Videogames. PsychNology
Journal 11 2002. www.psychnology.org Keen, S.
Narrative Form. Palgrave 2003. www.danpinchbeck.
co.uk/
Six Perspectives on managing Interactivity and
Narrative Dan Pinchbeck, Dept. Of Creative
Technologies, University of Portsmouth The Bridge
Symposium, Sept 30th, LCC