week2, moving on to narratives!

To me, Chatman's article is quite difficult to understand at the beginning, but towards the end it becomes clearer and clearer. And i got some opportunities to practise my French through reading the titles of litteratures francaises. well, i would agree that narratives structure is semiotic, but i don't really understand why the separation of content and expression, substance and form could lead to such a conclusion, esp when he tries to put the different of the components into the 2*2 diagram.

 

enough crap. to the proper stuff.

 

how the transposition to/from interactive media has changed the narrative, and whether the structure of the narrative remained intact.

 

hmm, so i assume that we are comparing the narratives in interactive media and 'old' media with reference to some example.

 

Basically, the example i have chosen is 仙剑奇侠传 (Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan, or The Legend of Godly Sword and Marvelous Heroes, by 'brute force' translation). Well in case you don't know (anyway i don't think any non-PRCs would know), it is one of the the first Chinese Role Playing Games. Like Final Fantasy and others, it has multiple versions and editions, and the game fanatics actually reconstruct narratives based on the games. In 2005, it was made into a 30-episode TV show series featuring quite a number of chinese actors and actresses.

 

enough introductions.

 

So, basically we have a computer game based narrative, changed into TV format, a non-interactive media. The narrative has changed a lot, partly explaining why most of the fans of the game didn't really like the TV version (well such things happen in most cases anyway). One of the major changes is that the TV version could only have one ending, compared to the multiple ending scenarios in the games version. (well in the game it's always a tragic ending but a series of choices by the player have an impact on which hero(es) would die) Given that the existents of narrative, for example, the characters, settings and etc are more or less the same in the game and tv version, i think we can pinpoint to a factor, that the 'events' of the narrative has been changed. In the TV production, although the script writer or producer may choose the order of events, there could only be one set of sequence of the events, while in a computer game, there would be many, depending on how many sidetracks and different storylines the programmers have created. But, of course, usually the producer of the movie or tv series would choose the deemed 'most popular' storyline.

 

So, it seems that there is some changes in the narrative structure in the interactive media?

 

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?

 

"self-regulation", according to Chatman, "means that the structure maintains and closes itself", and that "the narrative will not admit events or other kinds of phenomena that do no 'belong to it and preserve its laws.'"

 

In old narratives, self-regulation is maintained by the authority of the writers, directors, script writers and etc. However, as interactive media pampers the readers and users with the power of choice and control, the power of 'authority' is diluted: everyone constructs his/her own narrative, based on a more general framework or structure of interactive media. In Chatman's concept, the structure of narratives is independent in semiotic terms because they are independent of the medium which carries them. However, in interactive media, it seems that the distinction of medium and structure is blurred. (oops it seems to be quite a big assertion to make)

Given that it is the users/players who play and construct their own narratives, interactive narratives would likely to be designed from the point of view of the users, for example, object oriented programming. The design would be give more freedom to the users, and try not to limit what the users can do. Of course this is also in constant conflict with the idea of common platform and framework, and maybe and probably, there's limit to the degree of 'freedom' of construction of narratives the interactive media can give us.

 

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.

 

Well, although Chatman uses the term "peculiar nature", personally I don't feel it peculiar at all: there're no perfect things in the world. Each type of media would have its own strength and shortcomings.

 

Example of the use of narrative in interactive media… so I take the online Hitchcock's guide. Of course the old "peculiar nature" of the verbal narrative still exists. But now the thing is, you are now yourself the detective and you are making decisions and choices. You may do whatever you feel like to do, as opposed to the older medium in which you must follow the plot; however, you may not finally find out the final outcome of the narrative: you may just get stuck somewhere, lose interest and give up.

 

As for which narrative effects it may specialize in, interactivity is of course the most obvious one. Nonetheless, as the interactive media could be a composite of texts, pictures and sounds, it may overcome some of the 'peculiar natures' of the other media, bringing better designed and automated characters, settings and so on. Meanwhile, it would allow much more room for 'discourse', and the 'events', as the users are themselves the authors.

 

 

Week 1

1. The new media I have chosen is the blog.

 

Numerical representation: in terms of numerical representation, all the texts, pictures, or even podcasts uploaded or displayed on blogs are encoded in binary bits.

 

Modularity: the different parts of the blogs are generally modularized into posts, lists, photo albums, tag-boards and so on. They are further modularized into fonts, formats and so on. Indeed, MSN space even makes use of the notion of 'module' and use it as the basic unit on the user interface.

 

Automation: bloggers may make use of templates to design own blog layouts.

 

Variability: bloggers ccan make use of softwares such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, Windows Movie Maker and so on to edit photos and video. They may also create their own work by means adaptation from existing works.

 

Transcoding: bloggers can change or update the contents on the blogs as time goes by, unlike old media, when the newspaper is printed or film released, it is almost impossible to make changes at a later timing.

 

These implications have quite revolutionary implications for narrative and play within interactive media. Firstly, because of the convenience of modularity and numerical representation, different parts in the narratives might be taken out of context for the construction of new narratives. As such, there are also fewer restrictions in constructing narratives, leading to more space for the 'play' factor. The numerical representations and automation also enables faster distribution of the media, in the specific of blogs, and involves more participants in the narratives from different point of view, leading to the newly founded 'civilian journalism'. However, as the interactive media we are discussing now are mainly based on computers, internet and computer programmes, there might be actually less 'interactivity' than the name suggests --- one party, the human being, is actually 'interacting' with a computer algorithm, which is, in most cases predictable and only reactive. Thus, most people, with the exception of computer programmers and computing genius, may find less room for the 'play' component as their choices are limited by the low level of artificial intelligence in normal computer systems.

 

2. Chris Crawford proposes a much stricter definition of interactivity, emphasising that the two parties engaged in an interaction must perform the task of listening, thinking and speaking well, in order to have a high degree of interaction. On the other hand, Manovich suggests that objects represented in computer are interactive by nature. It seems that the two authors have different viewpoints, but to me, Crawford's argument may well contain Manovich: The humans and computers may well have different degrees of interaction at the Human Computer Interface, depending on how well the algorithm is designed and the level of 'artificial intelligence' achieved. My own experience with interactive media is that if I use the media to interact with other people, I would frequently have the kind of high degree of interactions: blogs, photos, videos, and most importantly the comments by other people. However, if I am merely 'interacting' with the computers, like role playing games, or playing 'bots' in counter-strike, chances are the other 'actors' in the interaction are pretty predictable, and I find fewer opportunities for 'play', unless I can modify the programmes themselves or use the 'bugs'. Indeed, I think we need to differentiate between the two scenarios: people interacting with people through the electronic tools, and people giving commands to computers and receiving the programmed responses.

 

3. The movie Run Lola Run, to some extent, deals with the structure of narratives: how a narrative is constructed. Along Lola's run she made, or was forced to make some decisions and choices and they would affect the final outcome of the narrative. Nevertheless, the outcome is also intertwined with other characters' decisions: whether she was tripped in the stairs, the timing she reached her father's office, whether the young man met and sold the bike to the 'bum', to name a few examples. Meanwhile, each time, other's outcomes are affected as well, in the case of the woman carry the baby and another few 'passers-by'. There were also some plays. The most amusing one was after Lola robbed the bank, she was probably mistaken for some 'hostages' escaped from the building and was allowed to leave with her money.

 

In my opinion, Manovich argues that the computer-based new and interactive media imposes its cultural layer on to the traditional forms of media, and thus 'transcoding' them with the 5 principles of new media: numerical representation, modularity, automation and variability.

 

Run Lola Run appears to me like a Role Playing Game. It gave me the feeling that some one, probably the narrator, is playing, or directing Lola's actions. Same as in most RPG games, the player/narrator needs to make decisions. The decisions may lead the game to different outcomes. The first two outcomes are of course not welcomed because they resulted in the death of the heroine and hero. Nonetheless, like a RPG game, the player/narrator is able to load the game from somewhere, or just restart the game, and what the script writer has decided to do. Save and Load, just like any RPG game. Meanwhile, the player/narrator also learns about the game as he played: in the first scenario Lola was taught how to use a gun, so in the second scene she managed to use it to rob the bank. In the second scenario, Lola learnt that the ambulance would reach the meeting point with her boyfriend (also it resulted in her boyfriend's death), however, in the third time playing Lola decided to take a lift with the ambulance. As such, we can see the impact of RPG games transcoding on the an 'old medium': movie.

 

Started!

Yups, so i've got this blog thingy for UAR2205 started!