A General Theory of Dramatic Structure for Interactive 3D...

A General Theory of Dramatic Structure

for Interactive 3D Environments

Tamiko Thiel

[email protected]

http://mission.base.com/tamiko/

Where we’ve been so far

Traditional narrative theory

Create drama by building tensions between characters.

Audience engagement comes through identification with characters

What I will talk about

Focus on:

Interactive realtime 3D virtual environments

Primary drama user <-> virtual environment

Use full potential first person POV

• Creating drama with or without characters

Where I came from (1991)

Non-narrative art videos

How to move user emotionally without narrative structure?

Looked to music theory: How can I create emotional response in user with sequence of abstract elements?

First 3D VR work: Starbright World (1994-’97)

• Networked multi-user virtual playspace • Seriously ill children/avatars

Beyond Manzanar (1997-2000)

Subject: WW2 internment camps in USA

“Cartooniness” of realtime 3D characters didn’t fit with subject matter

Design decision: create dramatic structure without use of mediating characters

Two forms of first person viewpoint:

Traditional narrative media:

First person narrative viewpoint

Interactive media:

First person experiential viewpoint


..


• The author is telling the audience a story via a narrator

Audience has no agency

Audience engagement happens through identification with narrator or other characters in story


..


Designer creates framework of experiences for the user.

User = Audience = Main Character = Silent Narrator

“I am experiencing something myself “

User has agency – story doesn’t happen without her engagement.


Real life examples:

Scripted real life participatory experiences

Rituals/ceremonies (weddings)

Guided tours

Interactivity: Focus on the user

“Character development” should happenin user.

i.e. designer choreographs emotional journey the user should go through while experiencing the piece.

Interactivity: Focus on the user

3rd person POV is special case of 1st p. POV

i.e. “the world” includes my avatar

Experience of avatar NOT important

Experience of user while manipulating avatar IS important (e.g. Laura Croft)

Dramatic interest in games:

Interactive by definition

Audience = User

User follows rules to achieve goal

User investment of time, effort creates engagement

Who is left out if interactivity == games?

Non-gamers who:

hate to lose or hate competition

don’t value investing time into learning rules, solving puzzles

But also:

Situations with limited time ( gallery, museum, public space, websurfer)

Who is left out if interactivity == games?

We need to develop interactive structures with fewer rules to reach a wider audience.

Focus more on process / experience rather than learning rules/achieving goals

What I was looking for:

General theory of dramatic structure applicable to all media

“Abstracted” to understand how emotion is provoked in humans as response to aesthetic experience

-> independent of medium

Emotion and Meaning in Music (Meyer, 1952)

Psychological theory of emotional affect:

Emotion is aroused when a tendency to respond to a stimulus is arrested/inhibited

e.g. smoker reaches for cigarettes, but pack is empty.

Conscious or unconscious tendency to respond creates “expectation.”

Arresting that tendency creates emotion


In music (or any time-based art form)

Music works within defined tradition or structure:e.g. medieval Western, classical Western, Jazz, Rai, US Rock, etc

Within a given structure rules & conventions define (for example): what is perceived as “happy,” “sad,” etc. “allowable/expected” transitions


Within a given structurecomposers provoke emotional responses by:

setting up listeners expectations, then

playing with their expectations: surprising, frustrating, rewarding, etc.


Examples:

Repetition creates expectation (and desire) for change and completion

Doubtful / ambiguous stimulus (significance, function, outcome unclear)creates desire for clarity

-> we believe in purposefulness and integrity of the artist.


But manner of clarification not predictable:

Expectation creates state of suspense Suspense is ignorance of future course of

events, … which creates doubt and uncertainty, … which is perceived as a lack of control, … which creates apprehension and “fear”

-> even if there is no specific object causing this fear.


Any stimulus must be progressively intensified over time

Effectiveness diminishes as we become used to the stimulus.

Without change in stimulus, expectation of relief (or some sort of change) diminishes

-> i.e. we lose interest and disengage

Musical form vis a vis narrative form

Conversation with Betsy Marvit, composer

Introduction / opening sets general mood (i.e. expectations)

Introducing main theme is like introducing ‘main character’

Musical form vis a vis narrative form

Secondary theme = new and different charactero What is their relationship?o How do they cause each other to develop?

i.e. creates anticipation

Resolution of dissonance/conflict between themes is like resolution of story

Sonata-allegro form (stolen off the web):

“Traditional” drama theory

Freytag Diagram (Laurel, “Computers as Theatre”)

Consequences for interactive media

Designer composes choreography for story

Leads user through sequence of dramatic moods, experiences

-> like composer composing a symphony

Allow user to have agency -> emotional responsibility for their actions and outcomes

Consequences for interactive visual media

Ideally using life-sized image:

Engage kinesthetic sense, sense of scale

Body’s perceptual mechanisms respond as if images, events are real

People, Paths, and Purposes, Philip Thiel

Emotional effect of

space

sequences of spaces on the user

-> from first person experiential perspective


Narrative descriptions of sequential experiences:

Fictional: Lady Chatterly

“Tour guide:” entrance to Forbidden City

Architects: Breuer, Johnson(how their buildings are to be experienced)


“Scores” in various media:

Ingmar Bergman: imagined rhythms, moods, atmosphere, tensions, sequences, tones, scents.

Music, dance: to be interpreted by performer for an audience.

Storyboards, “tension graphs” in animation and film (Manvell, Millerson)

Anatomy of space..

Kinesthetic experience of space...

Space Establishing Elements (SEEs)

Order, explicitness of space

Emotional affect depends on situation:

comforting orclaustrophobic

freedom orlonliness

exhilaration or vertigo

Emotions reinforced / determined by: Music, light, denotation of environment

(prison, garden), etc.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial (WaDC, Maya Lin)

Exposition ( opening scene / overview )


Rising action (development):

Descend into V Names, height of wall

increases, enclose you

Climax: Apex - height of our

involvement in Vietnam Names, wall 10’ high.


Falling action (denouement): Deaths, height of wall reduces


Resolution: Re-emerge into daily life

How does our theory fit in here?

Spatial, metaphorical experience

Not character-based i.e.NOT interaction between two soldiers.

First person experiential viewpoint: focuses on effect of space on your emotions.

How does it engage us?

Yes, there are characters: other visitors add to emotionality of the environment, searching for names, leaving offerings

But main effect is on user:

Interactive - visitors must physically engage with the piece and descend into the ‘V’

Addresses our sense of scale, enclosure

Demo: Beyond Manzanar (2000)...

Beyond Manzanar: Interactive 3D VR Installation (2000)

December 2000, World premiere at Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

Collaboration with Zara Houshmand, Iranian Americantheater director, writer, VR producer at Worlds, Inc.

Interactive 3D as dramatic experience, dramatic medium

Beyond Manzanar: Interactive 3D VR Installation (2000)

The piece interweaves:

Historical internment ofJapanese-Americans

Example: Manzanar, California, WW2

Iranian-American fears of similar treatment.

Example: Iranian Hostage Crisis, 1979-’80

Background: Manzanar Internment Camp, WWII

First of over 10 internment camps - all 120,000 Japanese Americans on West Coast Manzanar landscape as poetic connection - striking similarity to landscape of Iran

Work in progress: “Wraith”

Interactive 3D ‘spirit’ that lures you into the swamp

Seductive and friendly or irritable and angry, depending on your actions and presence

Projected completion: End of 2004

Schedule exhibition: “Brides of Frankenstein” San Jose Museum of Art, 2005

Work in progress: “The Travels of Mariko Hōrō”

Mariko Hōrō: ‘Reverse Marco Polo’ Seeking “Isle of the Blest”

in the Western Seas. Constructs exotic

Occident as 3D Hōrō-Grammu”

Research phase: Summer 2003,

Kyoto Art Center, Japan

Namban-bunka: (16th –19th century) images of the West through Japanese eyes –> Mariko’s perspective

Nanban Bunka: Colossus of Rhodes

Utagawa Kunitora's version (~1815 - 1842)

Mariko’s documents: map of Venice

- Original from ~1150 AD

- -> Map that Marco Polo would have had

- Depicts only churches, no residential buildings

Mariko’s encounters: Plague doctors

Mariko’s encounters: Catholic relics

Mariko’s encounters: Veronica Franco, Cortigiana Onesta

Work in Planning:“Dividing Lines: ReConstructing the Berlin Wall”

Collaboration with Berlin architect Teresa Reuter

2004: Planning, research and grant writing phase

2005: Production phase

2006: Projected completion

“Dividing Lines: ReConstructing the Berlin Wall”


Newlyweds in West Berlin wave to the bride’s family in East Berlin


JFK at theBrandenburger Gate,West Berlin, 1963

“Ich bin ein Berliner”


Standard map for East Germans

West Berlin shown as empty space.


Successful escape attempt in the Bernauerstrasse, 1961

Border guards try to prevent 77 year old woman from jumping into West Berlin.


Peter Fechter,18 years old.

Shot and left to bleed to death just before the westernmost Wall, 1962.

Estimated deaths on the West Berlin border: 152 to 254 persons

Estimated total deaths fleeing from East Germany: 421 to 957 persons

Tamiko Thiel

[email protected]

http://mission.base.com/tamiko/

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