The 3rd Form : Prototype from Christopher Becker on Vimeo.
A live demo of the interactive book where the physical pages become the interface for the image archive. The Archive enhanses the users context for the narrative increasing a seamless back and forth between the story and the contextual imagry of the archive.
The design of the book has been consider with the interaction and the archive. The idea of a 3rd form requires that the writer consider the element of interaction with the context of the archive, therefore the form must also consider the interactive aspect of the image archive. Form follows function and because of this the pages of the printed book have been design to consider the interaction with the archive.
At the beginning of each major Tier and Chapter, a grid graphic has been placed as a breathing space for the reader and as an indication that before reading, the image archive might be helpful in laying out context for the up and coming narrative with in the chapter.
The design of the book attempts to engage the reader to interact with the image archive simulataniously with the reading. Therefore allowing the context of the image archive and the narrative within the pages to interact and play off each other. The reader is then giving the freedom to locate their own need of contextual imagery in the archive while experienceing the invisible literary of the narrative.
BookMate Narrative System Prototype from Christopher Becker on Vimeo.
A mobile device prototype for an Interactive Narrative System. The video-prototype attempts to show the potential of keeping the book printed and allowing networked systems to engage the user’s context. The BookMate utilizes networked systems to connect an archive and subsequent context with the content of the written narrative. The interactive system uses a books ISBN to access additive content relative to context. Rather then using the mobile device to replace the printed pages of a narrative, the BookMate access extended content that helps fill in context around the narrative of the story. The BookMate Narrative System allows the pages of a book to become the mechanism for interaction with the image archive. The pages of the narrative then connect seamlessly to the context provided by the archive accessed through the application.
4 Steps of Interaction
1. Observation:
The reader makes an assessment.
In any system, a simple level of familiarity is necessary to act. And, before any action takes place a kind of awareness of first-level options are necessary. First-level options might include the identification of things like buttons or levers or stairs. The reader might ask, Do I move or does the environment move around me? Do images or text represent some kind of code or set of codes? What is possible?
2. Exploration:
The reader does something.
After first level options are discovered, a second level is then moved to in which capabilities are explored. The reader finds out what she can and can’t do and, effectively, stretches out her hand and finds that she can make a change. But it’s a process of unintentional discovery, not conscious change.
3. Modification:
The reader changes the system. If a reader has made an assessment and done something based on that context, the reader will change the interactive system. The reader bridges context to decision. This is the leap from unintentional discovery to conscious change. At this point, the reader knows at least some of his or her abilities and uses them with intent to modify the system. The modification was created for the user by the author, and because it was allowed (and sufficiently motivated) the level of interaction in the system is increased.
4. Reciprocal Change:
The system tries to change the reader.
And if its interactive and the reader is engaged, the system changes the reader’s actions. The fact that there is reciprocal change is one of the defining steps of high-latency interaction. Without reciprocal change the system might as well be a brick or a doorbell rather than a person who has the ability to be somewhat indeterminate and interactive.
1. Repeat:
The reader makes another assessment.
(Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative By Mark Stephen Meadows
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=29598&seqNum=4)
When any system become interactive there is a level of control given to the user. For the purposes of commerce or content driven websites interaction requires user control. The interaction is benefited by the amount of control a user has access too.
On the other hand, Narratives require a level of set control. In books, movies, and stories the control of the narrative is placed in the hands of the writers and authors. This might seem obvious but a reader has very little control over the narrative structures in books. Dadaist attempted to play with this idea by tearing all the pages out of books and throwing them in the air and what ever location they floated down in was then the new structure. Conceptually it works but from a stand point of re organizing the content it missed.
A number of interactive projects assume, including hypertext books, choose your own adventure etc, that interactive narratives should place the control of the structure into the hands of the user. Contrary to that path, I believe that narrative structure are essential and should not be clay in users hands. Narratives require the curation of character, plot, and action by an author. I believe that books, and narratives structure should remain in care of the people curating and crafting the stories.
Where does interaction interject? It is my contention that the control elements of interaction should be religated out of structural aspects of narrative and be placed into the more flexable and maliable aspect of narrative context. Context is the variable the helps a reader create understanding. Context about persons, places, things and ideas can improve a reader ability to comprehend, formulate imagination and interject with in a narrative. Context improves content and can be establish outside the structure of a narrative. Context is the element with a narrative that can be manipulated and give control through interactive by the user.
Nathan Shedroff : Understanding Spectrum
Context is such a powerful aspect of formulating comprehension and knowledge with in a narrative. Context becomes an integral element with in narrative because is can be acted upon by multiple factors both internally (in the narrative), and externally (by readers experience, knowledge, and curiosity).
“Principles of design:
1. Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head.
2. Simplify the structure of tasks.
3. Make things visible: bridge gulfs between Execution and Evaluation.
4. Get the mappings right.
5. Exploit the power of constraints.
6. Design for error.
7. When all else fails, standardize.”
— Donald A. Norman (The Design of Everyday Things)
The interface of book is intuitive therefore should be leveraged within an interface. A (physical) book has the affordance of tactility, portability, and price. Because of this, I think that the book can have an interactive aspect that utilizes its current form. The book is a very intuitive object / artifact. Since everyone understand how to flip though pages, I figured I would prototype a way to access the interaction for the purposes of the archive. The opening of pages then becomes self aware and the content of the archive become more seamlessly accessible. Instead of the interaction of the interactive narrative be two staged, ie read book then look at archive, I am proposing a book and archive system that can be experienced simultaneously allowing the user / reader to be engrossed in the experience of the book and archive.
First prototype is using a series of copper tape switchs that cause a MAKE microcontroller to interact with flash connecting to a screen
BookMate Narrative System Prototype from Christopher Becker on Vimeo.
The Interactive Narrative Podium is a content and context elicitation system that allows the book to keep its current form but engage content, context, and information through the pages of the narrative.
The book can be read with or with out the system. Allowing the reader / user to envelop themselves in the narrative in the pages or the context of the image archive.
The Imaginary 20th Century is written around the a 3000 image archive. The archive exists as the context establishment for the narrative therefore the Podium Narrative System is a concept
that allows that archive to be accessed through the specific pages with in the piece of fiction. The reader and user of the system can have the reading and the context images exist simultaneously assiting in filling in holes for the narrative of the book.
The interactive podium allows the reader / user to access content with in the archive through the phyiscal book. The narrative in the book and the archive interface then are symbotic in there relationship playing off each other to both enhanse the narrative and give content to the context of the archive.
Interactive Bookjacket from Christopher Becker on Vimeo.
This Video-Prototype is a process that attempts to explore the ideas of context and content aware books. The concept imagines a future where screens are flexible and attempts to highlight an interactive book system where the book jacket becomes the interactive interface for the narrative with an image archive for visual context. The screen is removed from the cover of the book and then used as portal into the image database that backs up the narrative with in the book.
The drive to replace the physical book with technology is evident. I believe that a book is an ample form for narrative and that interaction should exist as a way to enforce the narrative that exists with in the pages. The flexible nature of the interactive book jacket allows the book to stay mobile, tactile, and intimate.
–noun
1. a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious.
2. a book, literary work, etc., containing such a story.
3. the art, technique, or process of narrating
As ubiquitous computing escalates, the expectation that a computer user should adapt to the machine and not the other way around is faulty. “Therefore we are trying to conceive a new way of thinking about computers (interfaces) in the world, one that takes into account the natural human environment and allows the computers (interfaces) themselves to vanish into the background.”
- Mark Weiser (The Computer for the 20th Century-1991)
The idea of “invisible computing” has compelled me to explore the possibilities of what a book + computation can be contrary to the alternative of a computational book ie. The Kindle. “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.” -Mark Weiser (The Computer for the 20th Century-1991)
http://nano.xerox.com/hypertext/weiser/SciAmDraft3.html
A book interface is an incredible intuitive system with very few rules. The simplicity of left to right up to down front to back (western format) is quickly understood by anyone who has ever picked up a book. On the contrary interfaces like those in web pages etc require a lot more learning and understanding of the computer systems and the particular customs of the mouse keyboard and screen. The concept of a 3rd form allows the pages of the book to remain printed and tactile. The interface for the computation is then linked with the interface for the book. The concept for a 3rd form leverages the customs of the existing book.
As interactive narrative becomes more and more prevalent, the idea that existing narrative structures and formats can be retrofitted to an interactive format suggests a clear misunderstanding of interaction. Just as books have to be rewritten for screenplays for movies, a book written for the narrative printed format should not just be thrust into the interactive arena.
Along with a 3rd form I am suggesting a 3rd format of writing. Just as books have over time adjusted to the changing of readers, so must the format for writing for interactive. The form must be considered in the format.
The Imaginary 20th Century is a narrative that has started to explore a possible change in format. The narrative within the fiction is inspired and written along side an archive of some 3000 image from the turn of the century. The images in the archive are not illustrative to the narrative but do give access to context and a backdrop for the plot. With in the narrative there are number “narrative hooks” which play heavily on the archive and its ability to establish context for the reader. The narrative utilizes a Picturesque approach which give the novel an episodal content structure. The importance of the archive is useful in the back and forth between narrative and the context that helps make sense of the dense language.
The Interactive Narrative Design Research will explore the possibilities and potentials of this suggested 3rd form and format. The use of prototypes, video prototypes, and design dialog will pose the questions of :
Why a 3rd form?
What is a expected from the user and writer?
What is the narrative experience and how is it different?
What aspects are interactive and what is the expectations of interactive?
How is it used, access, and sourced?
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=29598
“Perspective is a critical characteristic of narrative, but there are at least two kinds of perspective; emotional (or cognitive) and dimensional (or visual).”
Any narrative is more enjoyable and understandable if the listener/reader of such a narrative has some connection beyond the characters in the narrative. Therefore as an American my perspective helps add to my understanding of a narrative that takes place in America whether it’s a book, a movie, or a third interactive.
Perspective is fueled by context, the context with in the narrative and the context of the reader/user. I have never been to Paris and when I read a narrative, like Dan Brown’s De Vinci Code, I am forced to use the descriptors of the place with in the novel for context. Now just because I have never been to Paris physically does not mean that I am completely unfamiliar with the location. Because of the internet, I have seen images on a more personal and internal level of Paris than in any other time in history. I can instantly be swept away to any place on the globe including Paris at the touch of an interactive web browser and an wifi connection.
The visual archive of the world provided by the internet gives a viewer a visual context. The saying that: “a picture says 1000 words” is given even more potency when that image is completing the context with in a narrative. Images apply a visual context while the narrative within the words plays a emotional context. The back and forth between the visual context and the emotional context fills in the perspective for the viewer/reader. Norman Klein calls the back and forth of context in the formulation of perspective as the “Mental Aperture”. He has stated “a narrative can not be too visually descriptive or too emotional descriptive because it leaves out room for the reader to engage their own context and perspective with in the narrative. With out a back and forth between the reader and the words there isn’t any pop any reason to care or continue reading.”
Interactive narrative thus must utalize the ability to give the reader/user context. Context is a interesting aspect of any narrative because as a variable it can not be defined or set for each user/reader. Every reader of a narrative brings in his/her own context and then hopefully leaves after finishing the narrative with an altered perspective whether that be emotionally or visually.