The WELL: inkwell.vue.175: pighed (Mark Meadows), _Pause and Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative_

#74: The Fucked-Up Piano Chicks (magdalen) Fri 7 Mar 03 16:22

Fri, 07 Mar 2003 16:22:00 PST

have phun piggie. [Read entire topic]

#73: pighed (pighed) Fri 7 Mar 03 00:55

Fri, 07 Mar 2003 00:55:00 PST

in sri lanka now... the trip out was a, well, trip. our flight out of italy got canned due to US troops hogging the rnuway, so we go reroutede through to kuwait. i'm in sri lanka now and meeting with a local here on how they have some interesting local forms of indian narratives - will post again in a couple weeks.. [Read entire topic]

#72: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Tue 4 Mar 03 09:49

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 09:49:00 PST

I want to thank <pighed>, <zorca>, et al for this fascinating conversation about the present and future of interactive narrative. Please feel free to continue posting, though the designated two weeks has passed. [Read entire topic]

#71: Gail Williams (gail) Tue 4 Mar 03 09:10

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 09:10:00 PST

That would be an interesting project! [Read entire topic]

#70: The Phantom of the Arts Center (tinymonster) Mon 3 Mar 03 18:55

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 18:55:00 PST

Gail -- Wow! Somebody remembers Trixie Belden!

> Girls do like adventure books, of course,... > Female protagonists help!

This made Neil Gaiman's _Coraline_ leap to my mind.... [Read entire topic]

#69: nape fest (zorca) Mon 3 Mar 03 12:38

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 12:38:00 PST

thanks, mark. lovely summing up. i very much look forward to a more interactive future and am glad that individuals like yourself are committing this much intelligence and effort toward its evolution.i encourage anyone with an interest in this emerging area to check out mark's three websites now and then for updates.

http://www.boar.com http://www.bore.com http://www.boor.com

i believe mark is right now winging his way to sri lanka for a bit more, um, research. and while this interview is officially over, i hope that anyone wishing to contribute to an ongoing conversation on the topic will feel free to do so here.

cheers... [Read entire topic]

#68: pighed (pighed) Mon 3 Mar 03 09:42

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 09:42:00 PST

> willing to leave us with a few words about how he thinks > interactive narrative might actually manifest in the next > few years? what can we look forward to? how can we help?

i think about this more than i'd like and its a tricky thing to talk about cause the possibilities seem infinite and, finally, dependant on the increasing imagination of authors (+ tech). which seem limited only by their historic foundation and preceding ideas.

if my theory that interaction in literary forms has increased and personal perspectives have becoming increasingly rich from greek epics on down to modern essays, then i dont see why other forms of narrative wouldnt follow the trend. my suspicion is that over the next decade i suspect we'll see an emergence of increasingly political/social forms of reactives and a gradual decrease of violence as the sole reason for player motivation. A Tale In The Desert and Banja being two examples. but dont get me wrong; i think violence will always hold an important role - as will sex - because they're important to how we live and, let's face it, they sell.

i imagine it being a tree. right now we're only at the point where the roots meet the trunk. over the coming decades the artform would improve, solidify, find its direction, and once that has been established then it will branch out, with primary trends appearing.

since interaction isnt based in digital media, and since there are thousands of different literary and visual art forms, genres, trends, etc then i expect things to diversify in a couple of decades based, largely, on the combinations of existing technologies and techniques. examples: ubiquitous.computing+architecture, print+audio, AI+vid.games, VR+video, mobile+everything...

after a few decades i have a hard time imagining limits. what happens when we see something like diamond age, in which narrative realities overlap our actual realities, and 'ractors are paid on an individual level? who isnt an actor or author then? when VR and SMME are so neatly stitched into our daily lives we see walkmans replaced by interactive books? sci.fi and so on.

i wonder if hollywood will be displaced by some other center that's being steered by people more receptive to reactives than folks like Valenti and Eisner. i wonder if a center will appear at all. i wonder if there is a chance to invent financial models for art that are based on profitable trade rather than monetary sales. i wonder how to get media companies like AOL off their ass and to take notice of the potential they have to improve what they do. i wonder about university programs adopting new ideas and definitions of narrative. i also wonder about what the hell we should call it all (reactives or interactive narrative or narrative intelligence systems, just movies).

for myself, i'm spending my time focusing on the integration of AI technologies with narratives and art. i think this will be a fruitful branch to follow. its at least more interactive and has a strong character (hopefully).

then, if that's interactive, i'm also concentrating on increasingly personal forms of authorship (such as my work at http://www.boar.com/days/). once these personal forms of narrative can be folded into interactive authorship where the reader can affect the plot of, essentially, the author's life, my guess is we'll see a whole new set of work drop off of those spliced branches.

as authors, we're lucky to be alive these days. we have the chance to watch something new being born, to help it grow, and to throw out own ideas into the pile. everything seems to be exploding, and we all have a can of gas we can can throw. [Read entire topic]

#67: Gail Williams (gail) Fri 28 Feb 03 11:45

Fri, 28 Feb 2003 11:45:00 PST

Oops, mucho slippage.

Zorca's call for a summary is totally timely. The time has flown! [Read entire topic]

#66: Gail Williams (gail) Fri 28 Feb 03 11:43

Fri, 28 Feb 2003 11:43:00 PST

Can't find that one now... but this may be interesting too: <muchomedia.266> [Read entire topic]

#65: Gail Williams (gail) Fri 28 Feb 03 11:42

Fri, 28 Feb 2003 11:42:00 PST

Girls do like adventure books, of course, but osme of the adventure is social, and some of the suspense has to do with relationships. Female protagonists help!

Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden are two girl detective series popular forever -- Little House on the Prairie was such an enduring series of girl's faves that it was a natural for a TV series. Island of the Blue Dolphins was an award-winning survival tale.

I googled "girls book list popular reading" and grabbed these pages quickly -- take a look at the plot synopses on these for a start: http://www.bookloversden.com/gseries.html http://www.randomhouse.com/BB/promos/greatbooks/booklist.html

Samples: Wrede, Patricia. Dealing with Dragons. 1990. Harcourt Brace. Ages 10-13. Cimorene finds being a princess so boring that she takes a job working for a dragon! The first in a popular, funny series.

Avi. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. 1990. Orchard. Ages 10-14. "Not every thirteen-year-old girl is accused of murder, brought to trial, and found guilty," opens this thrilling tale of a proper young lady who changes when she gets caught up in a mutiny. A top-notch adventure.

Or seen on this Teen Angst reading site: http://www.grouchy.com/angst/reviews.html >Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging >Confessions of Georgia Nicolson >by Louise Rennison >Imagine if Harriet (from Harriet the Spy) grew >up, became obsessed with boys, was a fan of >Claire Danes and that old television series "My >So-Called Life," and lived in England... Or, >imagine a younger, more naive version of >Bridget Jones (from B. J.'s Diary)... well, then >you'd have a bit of an idea what Georgia >Nicolson is like. She's sharp and smart-assed, >pouty, and as melodramatic as an opera diva.

Also, there's an old topic from the WELL sex conf about this subject, with a lot of interesting comments, from almost ten years ago. [Read entire topic]