IPL 2: We Are All Programmed

As I said last time, I went to this really interesting conference at the Interactive Performance Lab at UCF.

Right now, the Lab is developing something called a Storybox as a place to experiment - or, since the scientists in the room were so enraged by the implications of accuracy and specificity - let's say "explore" the subject of interaction.

Even more fascinating, perhaps, than what occurred in the Box, was what happened around the Box. Here's what I mean.

First workshop at the conference, we were given a quick summary of the Storybox's function, and a little commentary on its purpose by Jeff Wirth and Ken Ingraham. We were then tasked with developing a "script" for a story in the Box.

This is what my table came up with [and keep in mind that these are highly intelligent, highly accomplished brains in the gaming, interactivity and electronically mediated performance industries]:
1. Let's tell the Spectactor [the uninitiated person whose story is created in the Box] that they are dead. [Lots of opportunity for interaction there!]

2. Let's tell the Spectactor that they are on another planet! [Uhhh...]

3. Let's tell them they are dead AND on another planet! [...]

4. First, establish a subject or an object around which the story will form. Second, establish a temporal and spatial reality in the Box. Third, provide a physical or vocal cue to the Interactor [the initiated actors who create the story around the Spectactor].

The criticisms abound:
- It's unscientific. [True.]
- How is it different from improv? [What if it's not? And what if that doesn't matter?]
- The Interactors are making all the decisions. [That's your perception...]
- It's only about creating a good story. [If that's all you get out of it...]

The Storybox may NOT be a very scientific way to experiment with interaction, but here's what it does offer:
1. It breaks down interaction into three main parts - interaction within the self, interaction with others, interaction with technology.

2. If we "make sense" by creating narratives around events, whether we uncover scientific or unscientific observations from what occurs there, it can provide us with a vehicle for conscious storytelling. Conscious meaning that YOU must be conscious of how the story is created - and because we have been culturally trained to accept certain conventions, the Storybox is a place to deconstruct those assumptions and conventions.

3. We are all programmed to interact. Just because you run your interactivity program through a computer (or any other electronically mediated tool) does not mean it is scientific, creative or particularly good story. [Just saying...]

It Might Be Rhetoric, But I Like It!

On the day of September 11, 2001, I stood on my roof in Brooklyn watching the twin towers burn and fall. It was clear: we need to account for the wrongs we have done, and we need to move forward, together.

We were on the verge of a national, maybe even a global turning point. With honesty, straightforwardness and the desire to communicate, we could overcome the superficial boundaries we have built that separate us from others, from each other. By addressing the criticisms that this act represented, we could open ourselves to the contributions of seemingly conflicting opinions. Take a look at ourselves, our mythology, our rhetoric, and see how far from that image of ourselves we had come.

This was my hope. It was not meant to be. But it still can.

Sometimes just putting it out there is enough.

IPL 1: Another Old White Man Tells Me How To Be

I just returned from the first ever Interactive Performance Conference, hosted by the Interactive Performance Lab at the University of Central Florida's Department of Digital Media.

Our topic for the conference was "Interactive Narrative". I'll come back to this topic repeatedly as the week progresses. For now...

I walked into the keynote speech, given by an entertainingly disconnected Chris Crawford. I'm willing to accept that this guy may know a lot more about making computer games than I do, but his talk consisted of a number of broad [and, I would argue, completely fallacious] assumptions and some revealing rhetoric about control.

My "take-aways" from his talk:
1. Human beings can be clearly separated by their affinities for processing certain types of information - in this case, Emotion/Pattern-recognition and Intellect/Logic-building.

2. Only Emotion/Pattern types can be "creative" and/or "artistic".

3. Only Intellect/Logic types can be programmers, or at least, technical.

4. If you want to make computer games, you should be at least a 5 [on a scale of 1 - 10] on each side. That means, if you consider yourself an "artist", learn to program. If you consider yourself a programmer, enjoy your large salary and health benefits, and see if you can try to suffer enough to understand "art".

5. Collaboration only goes so far... far enough to let those idiots use their highly specialized skills on the parts of your game that they can't fuck up.

Mr. Crawford also presented his current project - assigning 0s and 1s to verbs - Storytron.

Problems with this line of thinking:

1. Programming is art. Just like everything else, it can be done with passion and a sense of elegance.

2. People that consider themselves artists or "creatives" [even better] - as if that is something separate from being human - are just looking for a way to be different. Boundaries don't help when it comes to interaction, human to human, or any other kind.

3. Old white man wants ego-petting, self-indulgence and absolute control. [There's a shocker.]

4. When you are too high up the ladder to step down and see what the noobs are up to, you have resigned yourself to a slow, steady irrelevance. Have fun with that.

Online Check-In

Thank you for telling me my business today. It's always helpful.

Couple things I need to address over the next few days

1. GDC 2008, *shrug*
2. My thesis topic. Fuck me I can't decide.
3. Academics. Politics.
4. Intellectual Property is an oxymoron.
5. Interactive Performance Lab ... rats.
6. Grrl games
7. Multiple identities
8. the future

Future Sex

Sweet! Progress?

I have yet to play Saints Row 2, but I'll thank the developers for a little consciousness:

"The character customization interface, for example, lets you create a highly unique character with the option of specifying the percentage of their gender. They can be 50-50 male-female, or 40-60 if you please (According to this post on Dimorphic 360 blog)."
I'll consider it real progress when this is possible IRL.

A Winding Road

Choose Your Own Adventure books and life. So similar.

It would be so awesome if you could map your life out ahead of time, then plan your route. Or not...cause of course, then we'd all have to make the "good" decisions, and that ruins more than half the fun.
Thanks, boingboing.

An observation I made while saving the above image: CYOA could also stand for Cover Your Own Ass...an unfortunate, but paranoically successful strategy for life decisions.