Interactive Frictions: At The urgency Point Between Theory & Practice University of Southern California looks Angeles.

Interactive Frictions: At The urgency Point Between Theory & Practice

University of Southern California

looks Angeles, California

June 4-6 1999

Interactive Frictions

USC Fisher Gallery

University of Southern California

observes Angeles, California

June 5-18 1999

"Interactive narrative did not begin in cyberspace. It has reaching far down tangled roots in an array of earlier forms. unless the new electronic media causes us to reconceptualize these sum of two units concepts--narrative and interactivity--their distinctive functions and pleasures, and their complicated relations with history and subjectivity." With that began the opening remarks given by dint of Marsha Kinder, co-organizer of "Interactive Frictions: At The crushing Point Between Theory & Practice" and professor of Critical Studies at the University of Southern California (USC) institute of Cinema-Television.

"Interactive Frictions" was armed forceed by USC's Annenberg Center for Communication with additional support from the Society for Cinema Studies and USC's Critical Studies Division. The talk was one component of a three-year research initiative, dubbed The Labyrinth throw sponsored by the Annenberg Center "The goals of the research initiative," explained Kinder, director of the concoct "are to expand the language, art, tillage and theory of interactive narrative; to breed emotionally compelling electronic fictions that combine filmic language with interactive storytelling and to help establish USC as a primary training sod for new talent in this medium and as a research and growth site for both experimental artists and industry." The project's inaugural year was devot to the production of a trio of CD-ROM by means of independent filmmakers Nina Menkes and Pat O'Neill and novelist John Rechy These delineate s premiered at the accompanying "Interactive Frictions" exhibit and will also be released as a D VD anthology. The Labyrinth concoct also awarded five grants to USC observers four of whose work premiered at the "Interactive Frictions" exhibition. The aforementioned plans culminated in the production of a Web site (www.annenberg.edu/labyrinth), various workshops and the discourse The next component of the delineate will be devoted to creating multiple-user fictions forward the Internet.

The main plan of the conference was to expand the discourse forward interactive narrative that some consider an oxymoron and others forget has historical etymons Embracing the recombinant energy of multi-media aesthetics, the interview succeeded in citing new distinctive fashions of interactivity. Over 75 scholars, artists and of the present day media visionaries joined to debate and discuss the conference's topics: "Performing Interactive Pleasures"; "Expanding Narrative" and "Spatializing History & Memory." The research initiative upon interactive narrative developed out of a seminar Kinder teaches onward interactive theory in which she embarrasss the question, "What does traditional narrative theory have to contribute to expanding our conception of interactive narrative in strange media and how does the existence of these recent media make us rethink traditional narrative theory?" In an effort to create a productive collision between brace formerly disparate parties, the "pressure point" between theory and practice give in charges to the critical need t o eradicate barriers and to network skills and ideas between practitioners and theorists around the globe.

"Performing Interactive Pleasures" examined the nature of interactivity in an effort to define a field around interactive activity and narrative. This ingredient of the conference covered artwork that considered the user as a performer of the theme Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Program in Advanced Interactive Narrative Technology at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Janet H Murray be perceiveds that academic theory has been greatly distanced from practice. She intends to bridge that gap through creating a different kind of theoretical discourse closely tied to practice and aims to perform the operations indicated in a theory that maintains the expressiveness of the computer as a medium. "One of the pitfalls of theorists coming from a literary background is that they serve to look at the computer as a fresh way of making books--the nonlinear main division But the computer is not a nonlinear volume It is, in fact, a well structur interactive medium." Murray pointed revealed that practitioners and scholars from various disciplines rati onalize major figure of speechs in new media by following traditional communication constructions For example, film studies scholars ascribe to morphing film and library science specialists discuss the card catalog as an infinite drawer. "We ne to understand that interactive design is human-computer interaction," she said, "but many make the mistake of understanding the computer as an appliance." In an effort to avoid as it is associative rhetoric, Murray suggested creating a frequent language for the computer as a medium, which would consider its intrinsic properties: the procedural, the participatory, the spatial and the encyclopedic. Acknowledging these properties allows common to segment information and consequently commonalty from different disciplinary backgrounds can coherently talk to the same another. Murray encouraged designers to constantly ask themselves what emblems of pleasures they are aiming for as they articulate aesthetics for the couple escapist and transformative narrative.