"Finally we get to narrative..."

Yay! I finally finished my Chatman reading!

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?

I remember watching “Animal Farm” Production by Wildrice, a local theatre group. It is based on George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” but the context was different. Why I consider the production somewhat ‘interactive’ is that there was some audience interaction involved. There was even a after-play literary discussion going on between the actors and us afterwards!

Well, the transposition to interactive medium has altered the structure of the narrative.
Firstly, the scriptwriters have chosen a contemporary depiction of ‘Animal Farm’ – all the animals were represented by the people you encounter in your daily life – the bus uncle, the schoolgirl, the office worker etc. Thus the existents, namely the characters and settings are radically different. And this of course, alters the story or the content, although the skeleton of the story was still roughly the same.

Secondly, the substance of content as preprocessed by the author’s cultural code has changed: George Orwell vs Singapore scriptwriters.

Thirdly, the discourse has changed. The form of expression has switched from a novel (reading) to drama (viewing). When I read the novel, the story content unfolded in a seemingly quiet way. However, when I saw the play, the booming background music and the abstract dance movements incorporated into the production made it a thoroughly noisy and boisterous affair.

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?

Somehow this phase “Everything comes with a price” surfaced my mind as I read the question. I’ve thought of this before actually, when I was playing some online Quidditch game (Harry Potter, anyone?) I remember thinking to myself – what if I (ahem, as Harry :P) in the game, made Gryffindor lose to Slytherin? The choice of ending conferred to the user such as myself can result in me virtually destroying the ending which I had liked so much. :(

Well, I suppose in designing interactive narrative, the designers can eliminate ‘ill-formed’ objects by restricting the extent of choice conferred to the users. In this way, the existents in the narrative will serve a meaningful purpose in the content.

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.

Hmm.. how about paintings?
They can’t escape the pictorial representations and the visual details, unless it was meant to serve another purpose, like in abstract art to evoke more ‘reading out’, a term used according to our dear Chatman.

It probably can’t escape the spatial restriction to. By this i mean: how humongous can a painting stretch? :P Thus, unlike a novel which could be printed in series for years for example, the content of a narrative painting is somehow confined. But of course, a picture can paint a thousand words...

Another peculiarity can possibly be the coherence, or the incoherence of a narrative in a painting. Referring to “The Dance of Salome and the Beheading of John the Baptist” in Chatman’s reading, the flow of the discourse can be quite mind-bogging to someone who doesn’t have an inkling who John the Baptist is in the first place. (Fortunately I do J) If the artist decides to frame the events, wouldn’t it be a comic or the like?

That's all for randomramblings.. stay 'tuned' for yet another week of more randomramblings!

Thoughts after class

Here're some of my thoughts during the lesson discussion today. Well, i found it kinda hard to speak up cos ideas were tumbling out from everyone at break-neck speed! Ah well.

1. Some guy was talking about google as a "new media". Well, juz to add on, I notice that when u enter the google search site, there are tabs like "search within singapore" tab and "I'm Feeling Lucky" search tab. It's offering variability (however random :P) even in the way u want ur search 2 be conducted.

2. Besides Friendster, there's this W.A.Y.N. network (Where Are You Now? see http://www.wayn.com/) which is kinda like a global platform for pple of diff nationalities to "come together". When WAYN members migrate or immigrate or the like, I will get notices about these individuals.. like "Samantha is coming to Singapore!" (how exciting...) Well, see the cultural implications? I could simply click on her photo and profile and send her a msg to interact with this new 'global' fren of mine.

3. There are other Friendster imitations like 'The Green Group' (nah, it's not an environmentalistic group, nor is it some vegetarian club!) which requires pre-members to provide TEN more friends' email address to the compulsory field before they become members. Hmm.. wonder if it turned pple off. little wonder it's seldom heard of. haha.

4. On adventure books, I thought it pretty cool that someone in class shot back, "Are u interacting with the book, or are u interacting with yourself?" Man, his thought gears spun at least 10 times faster than mine..
Yup, I think series like the "Usborne Adventure Books" create the illusion that you are part of the 'detective' team cracking all those puzzles as the plot unfolds.. (well, if u cant stand solving 1 puzzle for every 2 pages, then u can jolly well flip to the back where the answers are and oh-so-casually proceed on to the next page)

My point is, a book is juz a book. No matter how much u have seemingly "interacted" with the activities prescribed by the author, it is basically still the little movie projected in ur mind when u read the book really what u had found tobe so interactive. The contents from the book merely aided the general template of flow..

Dont agree?

Ask yourself, then, for instance, when u read, "The house rested in a valley, a sunny little place where flowers blossom.", what's your mental painting of this? The picture projected in my mind can be radically diff from yours. Was it a red-brick house, or was it a dilapidated wooden one? Well, u get the picture..

5. At one point of time, someone commented that there's no need to define "new media", for it changes from generation to generation, from areas of affluence to the not etc. My immediate thought was "Yeah, why dont we label media with media 1.0, media 2.0 etc.." But what a bad idea, so glad I didnt open my radio mouth. That implies a new definition for each media version, and the whole rah-rah debate on definition again! erm, no thanks..

6. Just a side note, Mr Mitchell was talking about how play "involves pushing against the limits of movement within a structure". I was drawing upon this concept to "new media". Like how people these days are coming up (or trying to come up) with this so-called brand new, more intense depth of interactivity, be it in games, messenger etc. Sounds a lot like Mr Mitchell's aforementioned statement - pushing boundaries... (see next point)

7. But I beg the question - WHY? To get a more sensational experience for the user? So then, what? I mean, true- this new media thingy has cast a weighty influence on the social level, banking on this super-interactive hype. But it has also made us less personal. Come on. Think about impersonalized form of communication, via popular sms, msn, email etc. Unless we know one another like God knows you or me, u cant really tell how genuine things are over such new media. U might elicit a "Oh, u are such a funny person!" response via e.g. msn. But hey, for all u know, the person might be thinking "yeah right". If u had been talking in person with him/her, u can prob tell from facial tell-tales or .. i dunno, i'm not a psychologist. (aha! maybe his/her tone?)

Point is, u cant beat human to human interaction. at least for me. Human interaction vs Media-mediated interactivity. The former is a real experience, whereas the latter is more a virtual reality. Is virtual reality ever close to real? Maybe. But it's virtual reality afterall.

Good night. =)

So what exactly is this "interactivity" thing, anyway?

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.

Well, I admit I am an IT-illerate so forgive me for my lack of knowledge towards the technical terms!
I choose MSN Messenger as my “new media”.

Numerical representation: well, a lot of the display pictures and emoticons offered in the newer versions of Messenger are digitized. The conversations we hold over it requires discrete units. To quote Manovich, “Without discrete units, there is no language.”

Modularity: I can’t say with full certainty, but I think from the periodic “New versions of MSN Messenger” alerts we have gotten suggests that (to an IT NO-how like me) the service was probably built on a certain templates with different independent components which could edited exclusively to augment the existing form of Messenger. The latest version is MSN 8.0, which was introduced less than half a year or so after MSN 7.5 – talk about modularity and immediacy!

Automation: I have not asked the brains behind the MSN Messenger brainchild (sounds like a mouthful!) how Messenger was created. But roughly, as aforementioned, there should be some form of generic template or scripts. From there, image editing, graphics layout etc would be changed [or upgraded as they prefer to call it =)] and assembled to give a new version. “High-level” automation comes into the picture, as Manovich explained, with “media access” and he then extrapolated this to virtual reality. True, I thought about how sometimes a person can choose to remain anonymous or perhaps take on a different new, though fake, identity. And in pretending to be in the new identity’s shoes, he or she experiences a watered-down version of a virtual reality.

Variability: At first glance, I thought MSN Messenger is surely a reflection of variability! With newer versions, variations came. Like the handwriting tool, the animated emoticons, the wallpapers, the photo display, the sharing of files via Messenger etc. Moreover, the sharing and exchange of personalized erm, entities (?) like self-drawn emoticons or self-created & animated emoticons using Macromedia Flash has indeed added layers to this ‘variability’.

Transcoding: Unfortunately, my already taxed brain couldn’t quite catch the meaning of this one. But to come up with something, I shall refer to Manovich’s suggestion that new media consists of the “cultural layer” and the “computer layer”. Perhaps uniquely for Messenger, since any 2 persons can interact with each other from any 2 points on the globe, there could be cultural context involved, thru the computer. In this way, the computer is a means of representing the how communication btw diff cultures has evolved. Has it? Mmm, yeah, I think it had.

What implications do these principles have for narrative and play within interactive media?

To put it crudely, these principles have made narrative and play within interactive media even more complex than it already was to me. (Sorry, Mr Mitchell!)

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.

From the readings, I get the idea that Manovich subscribes to the element of choice in what he deemed interactive. He said (well, not literally) “the user can choose .. generating a unique work… the user becomes the co-author of the work.”

Whereas Crawford confined it within a clear-cut definition of “a cyclical process in which 2 actors alternately listen, think and speak”. He made it clear that there must be both active and meaningful volleying of 3 processes, failing which scores a ‘low’ on the continuum of interactivity.

I can sorta classify Manovich’s notion of interactivity as a subset of Crawford’s, as the latter offers one which can be applied on a general basis. (If you’re wondering – yes, I’m a Applied Mathematics student, haha!)

My initial slant was towards Manovich’s idea of interactivity. I had the notion that interactivity means choice on the users’ part. And when objects are represented in a computer, there are indeed many choices the user is allowed to temper with. However, this is narrowed a tad too technically. I suppose this is fine within the boundaries of interactive media systems. But after having read Crawford’s article, I guess the value-addedness comes from real, engaging interactivity which is ‘meaningful’.

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

I would say, for a first-timer, ‘Run Lola Run’ was pretty cool.
Was it a narrative? I would say ‘yes’- tho it alternated btw different persons, different mindsets.. If I remember correctly, the movie kicked off with a crisp narrative intro.. by some male German who opened with “… (Blah).. in the end, it’s always the same question.” (I was thinking to myself “What talking you?” till now I have yet to make sense of it. :P) As the rest of the movie unfolded, I noticed that the centre of narration shifted from the German first narrator to Lola (while running the final bit to the mart to intersect Manni, she was sorta the principal narrator – “wait for me… wait for me” ), and somewhat also to Manni (Firstly in the reversal of roles in the second bed scene, when Manni seemed to be character whom the audience will somewhat instinctively take on. Secondly when it was Manni’s turn to make his choice – remember how the camera lens shifted to center in on Manni’s redwashed eyes? .. seemingly lulling the audience to see things from Manni’s perspectives?)

The narrative seemed rather digressive (is that the word?) to me at some points.. especially the film slowed considerably from Lola’s fast-paced run to zoom in with deliberation on a proffered a series of ‘camera film shots’ on the futures of the different people Lola met.

Interactivity: Aha. Depends on what the audience is looking out for. You would be disappointed if you really had thot you could choose the different routes Lola take. But if you were like me, didn’t know what the whole film was about, you’d be pleasantly surprised.

On the micro level, I didn’t really find it interactive. I would however, admit that I felt a higher sense of participation in ‘Run Lola Run’ than in other films. My heart raced to the beat of the background music, I could feel my muscles twitch to Lola’s intense run, I somewhat took on Lola’s perspectives then to Manni, I felt like I was running myself when the scene split into Manni, Lola (dashing like mad) and the clock, etc.

On the macro level, there was some form of interactivity tho. When I, as the audience, saw that Lola was gonna die when that poor policeman mis-fired, I didn’t want it to end that way. And hey- it didn’t! Same goes for Manni’s death scene.

But confined within the limits of a film, the director couldn’t possibly collect our preferred choices and decisions if we were Lola and then customize diff endings for us, so perhaps he offered all 3 endings – the very bad, the u-thot-it’s-gonna-be-ok-but manni-died, and the wow-blissful-tho-surreal endings.

Play: to keep this short – I realize ‘Run Lola Run’ was filmed in a way that it was not too dissimilar to a video game. You could tell from the background music (keeps u on the move, like most video games?), the pace (afterall it’s RUN Lola RUN), the reality to cartoon skips somewhat reminding you somewhat of a gaming world, the choices the character Lola and Manni could take and the resulting butterfly effect. All seemingly like playing a video game? To add on, I felt like I could choose to play as Lola, and then as Manni, just like the character selection before a game is played (for most, that is).

P.S. Hope this didn’t sound like my blog name – random ramblings., haha! Afterall, I did spend quite some time on it. =)

Introduction

Hi, this is Pei Fen.. my first attempt at creating a blog for UAR2205, so pls dun mind how plain this looks. Anyway, there is beauty in simplicity.