Although I'm still desparately searching for the article I read on emotional manipulation in gaming, these articles will do for now (thanks to Jason Rhody for pointing me in the right direction a while ago):
First, a discussion of haptics that considering "the relationship between touch and vision" and how this can be incorporated into a more immersive gaming experience:
Next, a short article on the apparently successful use of electric currents by Japanese researchers in simulating gravity in games:
Finally, a link to the game The Wild Divine which uses bio-feedback loops "to combine...science...with a beautiful, enchanting and entertaining multimedia experience":
I think that, at the very least, the possibilities inherent to this science really force us to question the degrees with which we can interact with current media lacking these bio-manipulators. In other words, can we truly say that haptics and bio-feedback loops will provide a more immersive (narratological) experience? To what degree do these technologies help us to navigate the "twisty little passages" of cybertextuality and the infosphere? Would our habits as readers/ players (expectations, need for closure and linearity [i.e. the natural tendency to make the non-linear linear], etc.) and the moves we make to interact with a "text" be drastically different with this technology? What remains of the text in this incorporation?
And on a (somewhat) unrelated note, a post on Jason Rhody's blog on what could be considered a random encounter with a cyborg author or, at least, a cyborg spam ad exec:
To continue the "geek" moment I had at the end of the last class... and to echo Marc's questions...
Do we want a totally immersive narratological experience? It seems that there is a push, or at least a strong interest, in the virtual cybertext experience--particularly games that attempt to invite the user wholly into the game world. So, do we want a Holodeck (geeky reference to the "big room" in Star Trek: The Next Generation where holographic worlds, stories, fantasies can be played, interacted with, and sometimes interact back unexpectedly)? Speaking of Hamlet and Holodecks...
http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~murray/hoh/hoh.html
It's also interesting that one of the main concerns about virtual realities is a product of its total immersiveness--what happens when people can no longer distinguish between realities? Getting lost in a totally immersive narratological experience would literally (and in a way kinaesthetically) mean getting lost in the twisty little passages. (In Star Trek: TNG, they called it "holodiction" or holodeck addiction... are we going to get so lost, so engaged that we evolve into nothing but big brains in jars playing games for the rest of eternity? AKA the episode of Star Trek: The Original Series called "The Gamemasters of Triskelion"...
http://people.ssh.fi/tri/hack_man_guide/episodes/THE_GAMESTERS_OF_TRISKELION.html )
I have to say that I would probably be one of the first in line for Holodiction Anonymous. Heck, there are already stories popping up about people addicted to EverQuest (quaintly called EverCrack) and other games. I wonder whether we could consider LARPs (Live-Action Role-Playing games) as cybertexts. Like pen-and-paper RPGs, LARPs take role-playing from page to stage allowing players to costume themselves, speak as their characters, and interact with other characters in four dimensions. If you want an example, you can look at the fantasy live-action game I wrote and run called Archaea:
All of this does bring up a side issue: how do cybertexts fit into the culture? How do they affect the society around them, that create them, that ultimately use (and abuse) them?
I bet 400 quatloos that I probably should stop rambling...
ED
Posted by: ED at February 22, 2004 09:37 AMEd's comment and the Manovich got me wondering whether I could propose a corollary to my questions from Wednesday. Beyond just wondering whether games can or should mimic the imagination, might we also wonder whether we are trying to get games to REPLACE the imagination? Projections of the ultimate future of gaming -- like the Holodeck -- are computer-generated versions of what LARPers already do in the low-tech, analog way, but the computer absolves you of the responsibility to envision, to pretend, to keep track of your imaginary world. Now take into account these complex manipulations of users' reactions. Are we trying, with our [pleonasm alert!] interactive fiction, to use the computer's power in order to give our imaginations free rein, to let the text encourage choice -- or are we trying to give up responsibility for the creative component of reading?
Your parents probably always told you that TV stunts your imagination, because there's no work required of the consumer. Reading even a liner narrative in a codex book is many times more ergodic than watching the tube, because you must supply scenes and sounds and faces. By relocating the literary experience to a format that can supply these things for us, are we effectively saying "I prefer the passive entertainment, the one where I don't have to make stuff up"?
But of course, in a Holodeck situation, you would at least have creative responsibility as far as reactions and problem-solving. I wonder whether it's more related to Manovich's ideas about individualism (by the way, try keeping his Soviet upbringing in mind when you read those parts, it's funny). The subtext in that case would be something more like "The available protagonists are boring to me -- *I* wish to be the protagonist! *I* will guide the action!" We relinquish control of -- and responsibility for -- the information of our senses, in exchange for the ability to change the story, write the plot, subvert the moral if we wish.
So is that still fiction? It reminds me of something from Mary Poovey's lecture last semester... she quoted an 18th century author saying that (in effect) fact only had to be factual, but fiction had to be True. If our literary experiences eventually give us choice at the expense of theme, message, symbolism, and pre-planned plot, is it still fiction? If not, why do we believe that the author knows so much better than the reader what the outcome, and the moral, should be?
(P.S. Sorry for rambling badly plus probably sounding pretty jaundiced. Just trying to wrap my head around the very outside edge of what I think is a fascinating topic. This is why I like digital studies... the roads, if mapped, are still unpaved. But that means that sometimes I miss a stop sign.)
Posted by: Jess at February 23, 2004 05:31 AMOne other thing that occurred to me recently was how apt an analogy the idea of navigating a cave is to the very real navigational difficulties (and burgeoning illuminations)connected with computing that were occurring around 1975. At the time, text was the only real way to "navigate" (something that, once again, we can somewhat credit to Woods and Crowther for visualizing-- data as a space to be travelled in) the infospace of the computer (command line prompts, etc.). The GUI, the symbolic manipulator of spatial "data", wouldn't arrive until the early 1980's and, although it is certainly possible that Woods and Crowther were aware of the work of Doug Engelbart and his cohorts at Xerox Parc in the late 1960's, (they were the original visionaries behind the GUI and mouse as we know it), the reality of navigating computer data space was text-based. Hence Advent, in which we literally traverse a space based on text commands. Thoughts?
Posted by: Marc at February 24, 2004 11:57 AMHmmm... wonder how that relates to the numerous references to Plato's cave that I noticed Manovich citing...
Posted by: Jess at February 25, 2004 04:01 AMJust a quick note: I'm at work at the Division of Letters and Sciences and the main student information software used by the university is still DOS-based, text-based. Navigation is done via typing (pick a number out of a list or summon the great command line and type a "go " command. Fascinating, eh?
I had such a nostalgic moment... ah, text-based navigation. In fact, when I was helping a fellow new GA train with the SIS, she immediately picked up the mouse and tried to click on the very pretty, colorful ASCII text.
Fun.
ED