Everyday is lalala...

RE: Finally, we get to narrative... (revised after today's lecture!)

1. To set the record straight, I somewhat agree with Manovich's idea that anything represented in a computer CAN BE MADE interactive, but I consider Crawford's definition of interactivity more useful; a medium is interactive when it is able to evolve immediately and over time in response to the user's inputs. Hence, I would consider games interactive, but not a novel or a movie.

According to Chatman, a narrative is a structure independent of the medium, hence its transposability. From what I gather, when a narrative is transposed from medium to medium, the discourse changes; but the story (what is being told) remains intact. By the same story, it doesn't refer to the exact same gestures, words, images used throughout all media; rather it refers to the events, situations and behaviours signified by them. Does that mean the characters and settings of the story (existents) be the same between different media for it to qualify as being transposed? My guess is that it need not be the case, as long as the underlying story is the same. But then again, story is made up of events and existents isn't it? *blur*

I think one interesting example of an interactive narrative (game) being transposed to a non-interactive narrative (movie, book) is Resident Evil. Disclaimer: I am no movie or gaming buff, so whatever discussion about Resident Evil that ensues is courtesy of Wikipedia. The perculiar thing about Resident Evil is that the characters are different in the movie and game. The protagonist of the movie is Alice, an Umbrella trained soldier, whereas there is no mention of her in the game. Instead, the main characters of the game are from a special police task force, mainly Chris and Jill. However, the behaviours of the characters in the movie are somewhat similar to that in the game. Matt and Lisa from the movie were mostly likely modelled after Chris and Claire Redfield. Spence Parks was most liekly modelled after the character Albert Wasker from the games. Hence, one can argue that the structure of the narrative remains the same since what is signified from these characters still evoke the same thought-process - trying to escape from the zombies for example.

The way the story is being told has also changed from the game to the movie. In the former, the game follows a causual sequence in its transformation. For instance, it gives you an introduction to the game and its objectives, then you (the player) will have to fulfil the aims in order to reach the desired outcome(s) - depending on how many people you saved. In the latter, it made use of the protagnist Alice (who lost her memory) to recount important events, leaving us (the viewers) to link these events together and make sense of them. Can I just double check that transformation of a narrative relates to the discourse? And am I right to say that a story is a collection of snapshots of say events, while discourse a selection of these snapshots ordered either sequentially or in flashback manner? Hmm... The second qn seems to be the case after today's lecture.

Given the above, I would say the structure of the narrative remains intact because the story essentially remains the same - a virus has been released, infecting many people into zombies; a group of people tries to survive this ordeal. That is, the structure is self-regulated. I would not go into a debate of whether the game, being an interactive media, diminishes the self-regulating property of a narrative structure, 'coz that's gonna be covered in Q2.

2. I think the notion that Interactive media allows for choice and control on the part of the reader/user is misleading. In the case of gaming, this choice is not without boundaries; it is in fact choice or free play, if you like, within a rigid system. For example, you can't stop yourself from getting killed by zombies, given that you've made the wrong decision. You can only restart the game when you're told to do so. Hence this idea of control on the part of the user wouldn't pose a significant problem for self-regulation since interactive systems still work as a closed system - only certain possibilities can occur.

I guess the implication of self-regulation for designing an interactive narrative is that we should make sure all possible choices that the user decides upon should have an effect to the development of the story, over time, if not immediately. But I'm wondering... a different choice leads to a different outcome... does that make the story different and hence not self-regulating?

3. I'd like to use the Lexus MAGLEV interactive ad as an example. (OMG! I can't believe this... I lost a whole chunk of a paragraph when I republished the blog!! I'm too tired to recount my exact thoughts but basically I described what made this ad so unique; it makes use of the Minority Report narrative to lead users to construct an "aesthetic" mental field that the MAGLEV is a cool and speedy car; without having the users to have "real" contact with it. *sob* I hate technology!)

So what's so "peculiar" about such interactive media? I think that being an interactive ad, the focus is definitely on the product. But is that considered "unbestimmtheiten"? It seems too intuitive to be so. In actual fact, the Lexus MAGLEV ad did not explicitly describe the features and benefits of owning a MAGLEV, so describing the product shouldn't be considered "unbestimmt" in interactive ads. However on hindsight, the "peculiar nature" of these narrative interactive ad may be that the events, existents and discourse have to be expressive enough to allow users to interpret by themselves that "hey this car is really good!" (not just "ok this car exists" but what makes it so great aesthetically). Therefore, I speculate that these narrative interactive ads specialize in using a narrator (be it real or implied) in presenting the events to users, so as to lead them to interpret the events in the right direction, as wanted by the companies selling these products. This is exemplified by the short introduction before entering 2054, where the narrator puts into context what we were supposed to do. With regards to what was mentioned in today's lecture about narrative progression as narrowing of choices, I thought that this e.g. fit well because ultimately the only way to escape is by the Lexus MAGLEV - "becomes inevitable..."

Enough said. I hope I made sense. *K.O.*

sung by lalala @ 5:45 PM

Paranoia...

Yea I realised everyone has sort of given an introduction of themselves on their blogs, except moi! Sorry for the delay, but better late than never huh?

Anyway, I'm a final year bizader, majoring in marketing. Myth #1 debunked: we marketers do more than lying; we manipulate! haha! Honestly, that's why I chose to become a marketer and not a financier (myth #2 debunked: maths and formulae are fine with me because marketers deal with statistics too). I like the idea that marketers can manipulate a consumers' minds - yea, I'm a control freak!

A little bit more about myself... I just came back from SEP at the Stockholm School Of Economics. For those considering where to go, I say Stockholm. It's an amazing city juztaposed with cultural and city landscapes. Trivia: It has the highest museum density in the world! Boy, I've never visited so many museums in my life before (myth #3 debunked: museums are not boring).

As for my knowledge in gaming, computer programming, etc, very unfortunately, it's close to nil. I don't even know what a pixel is. That's how ignorant I am. I don't even understand half of what you guys were mentioning in your blogs, all the games and stuff. If any consolation, at least I'm a fan of The Sims - used to play it till 4-5am. Crazy right? Repeating the same actions over and over again, yet I'm still a sucker for it!

Alright, that's it for my long intro... I'm going for lunchie!

sung by lalala @ 12:47 PM

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

Let's KISS*!

1. The Toyota website for the new 2007 Yaris is one e.g. I consider to be "new media"; specifically, the Yaris virtual test drive. Firstly, this form of media exists on the WWW, which naturally means it is numerically represented. Interestingly, the site is a combination of media objects created from scratch on computers (e.g. the interactivity option) and that converted from analog media sources (e.g. the video clip). Secondly, the Yaris virtual test drive is able to be personalized according to the user's inputs because of its modularity. That is, a user can choose what kind of tires they want their Yaris to have and which part of the world they want their Yaris to travel in because this new media is made up of independent units, which can be easily substituted using computer programming. This results in variability - your Yaris can be created and customized on the fly. Thirdly, this site involves "low-level" automation. It doesn't require cognitive interpretation on the part of the computer when we choose what tires we want because it works within simple algorithms i.e. the four types of tires are programmed already. This is contrary to "high-level automation as examplified by A.L.I.C.E (have fun!) Finally, the Yaris virtual test drive (computer layer) reconceptualizes the idea of test driving (culture layer), by computerizing it; hence transcoding a real test drive to a virtual test drive.

I think these principles re-define the boundaries for narrative and play within interactive media. In the past, the story told was the same; only the telling of the story differed e.g. movie, novel. However with the onslaught of interactivity, new media objects are now modular and digitized. They can be permutated and combined to give rise to various stories. For play, the boundaries have been pushed further, giving more room for user to choose or control the outcome that they want.

2. As mentioned by Manovich, the idea of interactivity basically means computerization; whereas for Crawford, the idea of interactivity must encompass two actors actively listening, thinking and speaking in an iterative process. Recently, I came across a TVC for a new drama serial, Cinta Q, on Suria. It proclaims that Cinta Q is the first interactive drama; it allows the audience to decide the ending they want. Based on Manovich's view, this would have been truly interactive because computer programming is used such that different scenes are made independent and variations are possible based on the audience's input. However, this choice doesn't result in much thinking on the part of the producers; but rather a mix and match of already filmed scenes. Hence, based on Crawford's idea, Cinta Q is not strictly interactive. Furthermore, this "interactivity" is not iterative. Basically, audiences can only decide the outcome but not the means to the outcome.

3. I think that Run Lola Run makes use of narrative, interactivity and play, albeit within the movie with Lola, rather than with the viewers. I think the whole movie was shot to emulate game playing; Lola has to make decisions and complete her tasks within the time limit, the outcome is not pre-determined, and she gets a chance to "restart" should it be "game over". It also reflects interactivity because the consequences differed depending on the choices Lola made. For example, in the last round, Lola decided to jump over the man with his leg sticking out and his dog, resulting in a different story being told altogether. Hence, the narrative element changes with respect to play and interactivity. Significantly, the interactivity concept was also demonstrated with Lola learning from her mistakes and getting smarter with each round played (the dog e.g.).

The above relates to Manovich's concept of transcoding (cultural layers being substituted by those derived from the computer layers) in the sense that the story and plot is no longer fixed; but incorporates computer programming (including game playing).

I hope I got the gist of the questions in my answers. Honestly speaking, these concepts are still abit abstract to me.

*keep it short and simple

sung by lalala @ 3:51 PM

Now exclusively for Narrative and Play in Interactive Media

I'm gonna use my now-defunct personal blog as my blog for Narrative and Play in Interactive Media module. Why? 'Coz I'm simply too lazy to set up a blog all over again.*

* I took a horribly long time setting this one up. Have mercy on me.

sung by lalala @ 11:22 AM