> Overall, I would tend to see a Dalian world as less like a narrative of
> any sort, and more populated by "events" that occurred whenever you walked
> into them, and depended on how the user reacted. They would likely involve
> something like the "life forms" that Justin brought up that didn't act like
> people, but responded to events in their own esoteric manner.
>
> This is one of the most important things that a surrealist virtual world
> would get you that a surrealist 3D movie wouldn't (even an immersive one).
> A completely non-linear narrative structure is something that more
> multimedia artists are going to figure out how to leverage in the next
> several years, and it feeds perfectly into surrealism.
>
>Yes, perhaps it is best to let the audience figure out what the
>"narrative" is. Thing is, most people _are_ going to look for a
>narrative. An unfortunate set of cultural biases, to be sure, but for
>the most part we're stuck with them. So it seems that it would
>behoove us to try to _direct_ this narrative construction process in
>some way. Most viewers will initially be delighted by a funny little
>world of strange and wonderful events. But because they expect
>narrative, they will quickly become bored. They will percieve such
>worlds as having no CONTENT, because they lack narrative.
I think the model I'm working with is a carnival. Unlike a movie, you
don't start at the beginning of a carnival and go to the end. Instead,
you encounter different "micro-narratives" within a carnival, at your
own pace and based upon what interests you. You, for example, go to the
tent with Magnifico the Mind Reader. When you do, you enter a narrative
with it's own structure, but even then, the narrative depends on
interaction with the audience, who can direct the course of the event.
Whenever it's over, you move on to the next event that interests you, and
engage a different narrative. Periodically, an event might engage you,
instead of vice versa, but even then, how you reacted would affect the
way it transpires.
I think this is a decent model for how an interactive work (whether VR
or multimedia) ought to operate, to separate it from linear media. I
haven't had a chance to play with Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time,
but I understand it works kind of like this (with more limited
interaction).
Another alternative is those pseudo-interactive things where you get
herded from place to place to serve a linear plot, and you just get to
choose the order in which you click on things. I don't think a VR version
will be much more engaging.
One other thought about narrative: collaborative extensible narrative is
a possibility. I don't know how this would play into VR (or if it could),
but Addventure is an incredibly interesting experiment. It follows the
narrative structure of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, in which there
is a description of events, and then a choice from among a set of options.
If you follow an option no one has followed, you get to create it.
Check it out at:
http://acm.rpi.edu/addventure/
--Andy
andyn@texas.net