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I think of all of the divergent streams that Rettberg discussed in this chapter, the one that interests me the most are interactive installations. I think what interests me most about them is that the narrative unfolds in an interactive physical space. As the viewer, you are able to physically experience the story in a very real and tangible way.

I recently went on vacation to Las Vegas and decided to visit the Real Bodies Exhibit at Bally’s. If you ever get the chance, I would highly recommend it.  Some may not really consider this an interactive narrative installation, but I would kindly disagree. Each “room” or area of the exhibit sets a scene that tells parts of the multi-level story about the human body. As you travel through the exhibit, you are able to explore various objects, specimens, and art pieces that coincide with narrative text written on the walls. As interesting and cool as it was to see all the various organ and body specimens, I think that the writing was my favorite part. It was very poetic and beautifully written. I think I ended up taking more photos of the written text than I did the actual specimens. Below is one of the photos I took of some text. I realize that the text is difficult to read from the image, so I included the text in the image caption. 

THE BREATH OF LIFE- The significance of breath in the world religions cannot be underestimated. For Christians, it is often interpreted as the power of the holy spirit; for Jews, it is the spirit of their god manifested in 5 parts: life, soul, personality, mind, and individuality; for Taoists it is the Qi (Chi) the very force that animates all; for one Native American tribe, the Muskogee, all breath is made possible by a divine power. Consider now how this translates to all of us, both believers and non-believers. The importance of air quality, of “taking a deep breath,” of taking time to breathe, all the approaches share something in common with meditation and world religion. It is no wonder that breath is equated to divinity. It is the very first and the very last action we take while on this planet.

As far as literary possibilities in the virtual and augmented worlds, I think there is a lot of potential. Along with new VR/AR literary works, I think that a lot of pre-existing works could also be recreated in the virtual space. In fact, the work that I wrote about for my ELD entry, Queerskins, which is an online multimedia novel, has a version that was created as an interactive installation that included a virtual reality experience. Viewers were able to interact with real life objects in real life spaces as they were described in the novel. I think that the interactive installations give the viewer a truly immersive and interactive experience. Click here to read more about these installations.

Final Project Overview

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I am going to be putting together a Twine project based around the storytelling one of my favorite video games, The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. The game has become known for being a massive facelift of the Zelda series and revolutionizing the open world genre. It gives the player complete freedom to travel its world and discover things in any order. Because of this, cutscenes that tell of the game’s story also must be discovered during your own exploration if you want to see all of them. In fact, many of them don’t have to be found to finish the game. There are instances where a character that progresses the story will say something different to you depending on what else you have done and who you have met. Much of it is about revealing story rather than creating it. It is possible to walk straight to final boss and finish the game under an hour if you are that good. Because of how scattered the story is the player may decide to put it all together and interpret it as they want. Because the game and its story are so open every player has a different experience and many have shared them online or with friends. Breath of the Wild also tells its story passively through its setting as the player travels a world filled with ruins. The Twine will be organized in a way that that resembles the world map. It will feature important landmarks, spots that show how parts of the story are structured.

Divergent Streams

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Locative narratives were what I found most interesting. Locative narratives utilize GPS, IP addresses, location tracking, etc. For a few months now, I’ve had an idea, its an ambitious idea but one that would really be unique and interesting. Family history is incredibly important to me and I think it would incredibly cool to utilize locative narrative in order to tell it. The narrative would be my families movements across different parts of the world.

At some point in my life when I save up the money, the idea would be to travel to areas where my family either lives or once lived and I would plant QR codes in these locations. These QR codes would contain descriptions of my families history, what my family did there or does there if they still live there. Lines would connect each point, essentially creating a web. Again, its ambitious, but not out of the realm of possibility.

In regards to VR and AR the possibilities for storytelling are really limitless in possibility. Stories set in a space environment or some horror scenario are the first to come to mind. Kinetic poetry can also really be taken advantage of. The 3D space that VR provides really takes kinetic poetry to a whole other level. Just imagining what “Cruising” could look like in a VR space is incredibly exciting because in cruising there is a huge amount of motion but it is all in a 2D space. VR would allow this to transition into the 3D.

Final Project Proposal

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Final Project Description – Jake Martin

For this class’ final project, I will be doing a team project with Elaina. We’ve decided we wanted to further research hypertext fiction and collaborative Electronic Literature by creating a work of hypertext fiction within Twine. The style of the game is going to take inspiration from past interactive games such as Colossal Cave Adventure, and ZORK. Like these games, our version of the game is also planned to have an inventory system. We’re not sure yet how or if we can incorporate a scoring system into this in Twine. We also plan to include some sort of tribute or easter egg in our version of this game to the originals. However, since we are using twine we will not be using the text parser aspect of these other games, instead it will be a piece of hypertext fiction, where the player clicks through the stories by making certain choices that will be laid out for them. This piece of work is going to be based off of Little Red Riding Hood, and will contain many aspects of that story. The story will start out with the player (Little Red) being tasked with delivering a basket of goodies to her grandma. Before leaving the house, the player will be given the option to explore inside and outside the house to collect key items before leaving. After leaving the house, the player will tumble into a cave, where they must work their way through the puzzles to reach grandma’s house. Once you reach grandma’s, she asks you to venture back into the cave to collect her lost treasures. Reaching grandma safely will all the tasked treasures results in winning the game, with various different ending based on what items you took from the house in the beginning of the story. We do also plan to incorporate the wolf into the story as some kind of antagonist, possibly finding him down in the cave will cause him to attack you. For this project we’d like to explore the idea of passing back and forth the twine project and each of us adding our own ideas into it, so while we have a storyline and gameplay laid out, the journey to get there will end up being a surprise to both of us. We also like the idea of using Twine because the unique way the player can go into the actual Twine project, and look at the multiple paths lain out like a map.

Final Description

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For our final project, Jake and I are creating a cavern exploration adventure game in the style of ZORK or Colossal cave adventure. We will make references to the other two games throughout, but the game will be playable without the context of the other two games. The game will be created in twine and will not be navigated like ZORK and Adventure in a text parser style, and instead will be a hyperlinked, choose your own adventure-esque game. This project will be investigating hypertext using twine, interactive fiction through the structure of the story and the references to other games, and collaborative fiction, as Jake and I will trade the twine file back and forth to create the game. Due to the explorative and collaborative nature of how we will be writing the piece, the plot is tentative and may go in a different direction.
The traverser plays as little red riding hood and begins the game by being told to deliver a basket to grandma’s house, in the forest. Before going in to the forest, the traverser may look around for tools that may help them throughout the game. For example, the traverser may remain in the house and look around, finding their red riding hood, which will keep the warm later in the game. While investigating the garden outside their home, they may take a vegetable and a gardening tool, which may help or hinder them during their quest. Upon reaching the forest, the traverser will fall down a hole and must navigate a series of caves to escape.
Aspects of ZORK and Adventure we plan on emulating in our game include an inventory with a set limit, navigating using the cardinal directions while in the cave system, and actions available to the traverser that leave the game unwinnable. The inventory system in ZORK adds an element of difficulty and strategy to what items a traverser needs to prioritize during the game. Little red riding hood carries a basket of food for her grandmother and will carry her inventory in the basket as well, giving us a narrative reason for her limited inventory. As the game is navigated through hyperlinks rather than a text parser, while in the cavern system there will be a hyperlink for each direction, as well as a hyperlink to the basket inventory.

Thoughts on Divergent Streams

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Of the different types of divergent streams the one, I found the most interesting was The Yellow Arrow Project. I went and watched the video of the project and have to admit I chuckled as I saw the brick phones that were used. The users would discover arrows and then text their part of the story. It takes the user on a unique experience in everyday life. I do think that it is a cool concept and something that could be updated to something more current.

It also made me think back to the days when I didn’t have internet on my phone. Through the use of a service called ChaCha, one could text a random question and get an answer. I think it would be interesting to take some of these conversations and make them into a digital literature piece.

In regards to literary possibilities for AR and VR. I think just through the current apps and games on the market one can see that this a very viable option with a plethora of opportunities. Having the user become part of the story and with the use of VR close off the outside world, an interactive story makes the user more engaged. With AR I could see something similar to a Pokemon Go experience where the user goes to specific locations to gain the next part of the story.

I found this chapter interesting and I think it would be cool to create a work similar to the ones talked about by Rettberg.

 

You Could Be “Player One”, Are You Ready?

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Katya Farinsky
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Ready Player One’s OASIS program may not be as far-flung as you think.

Farinsky Blog 9: 3D Literature

Blog: Which of the new forms from “divergent streams” discussed by Rettberg interest you most? Why? What literary possibilities are there in virtual and augmented worlds?

People often choose to view the future of technology with optimism. I am one of those people when thinking about the “divergent stream” of Virtual Reality (VR) or Augmented Reality (AR) platforms. We may never have a program as imaginative, or as complex and widespread as the OASIS program from Ready Player One, a book written by Ernest Cline, but that doesn’t mean we do not have the potential to create something incredibly similar.

There are infinite learning possibilities that can come from VR technology. Imagine a “game” or a “collaborative digital virtual experience” where a warehouse or museum space is transformed through a VR headset which transports the user to the middle of a historical event.Students could put on headsets and “meet” recreations of historical characters, have an interview with authors they are reading in class, or view an important lecture by a prominent academic regardless separation by location or time. Think of how powerful experiencing education could become compared to passively reading textbooks or watching videos.

I am also excited by the possibilities VR bring because a VR headset and experience can add accessibility. In hospitals like UCSF Benioff Childrens Hospital:

Or this video by Mashable:

Think about an individual who could “leave” their hospital bed or “attend” classes because the immersive nature of VR makes travel possible. Pain patients participating in studies with VR report decreases in the amount of pain they experience, people could learn to walk based on moving a character’s leg instead of being limited by mental blocks about using prosthetics, and these ideas are just the surface:

What if home-bound individuals could put on VR goggles or use an AR camera to initiate a program where the author of a book (or another individual) reads the book to this person so they are stimulated and potentially feel less lonely?

Do you think learning about Martin Luther King Jr’s incredible rhetoric would be more powerful if we created an experience where you were listening to his speech at the Washington Monument as a member of the crowd? 

The future of this technology is powerful if we can harness the ability of VR and AR to provide meaningful experiences that challenge our understanding, and empathy, as individuals.

Final Essay Description

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My final essay is going to be a Twine piece that takes heavy influence from Robert Coover’s “The Babysitter”. Coover’s piece has been the most fascinating work we have explored in class, and I want to use electronic literature to expand what he sought to achieve with “The Babysitter”. In order to do so, my piece is going to follow an average day for someone suffering from intrusive thoughts and maladaptive daydreaming.

Intrusive thoughts are common within people suffering from common mental illnesses like depression and anxiety, giving them involuntary thoughts that can become distressing, obsessive, upsetting, and more. Combined with maladaptive daydreaming, a much more intense form of daydreaming that often disrupts human interaction and connection with the real world, these thoughts can feel so real that the sufferer may have a hard time remembering what events actually happened and what was simply in their head.

I think this is a really fascinating topic to explore in this medium to both attempt to combat the stigmatization of mental illness and create a nonlinear storyline. Like many modern hypertext fiction writers, I am choosing to use Twine to produce my piece. Doing so will give me the visual advantages of the software to lay out my story as well as give the readers a simple platform to traverse the story. With little explanation of what the piece is about, I hope to confuse the readers much like “The Babysitter” does, but do so in a way that catches their attention and encourages them to look through the piece multiple times to understand its meaning.

3D Literature

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This final chapter of Rettberg’s “Electronic Literature” introduced me to forms of literature that I had heard of before, but never made the connection of them being considered literature. I was really drawn to the geolocation-based literature. With the experience of geolocation-based games (which I am more familiar with), I find the concept fascinating. The ability to pull the real world into a possibly fictional one, or, as the book mentioned, a reimagining of the past, takes literature to another level. It allows readers to truly experience the work, and in a way, be a part of its creation and telling.

Another example of literature caught my eye that the book mentions by name, and that’s “Zombies, Run!” The geolocation-based running app. I have personal experience with this app and it truly makes exercise far more enjoyable. When the story begins, you are a nameless character who is running from some zombies after your helicopter has crashed. You are in contact with Samuel of the “Abel Township” who talks to you via a walkie-talkie. Throughout, you’re introduced to more characters and storylines through ‘Missions’, and there is the added interaction of picking up supplies (a robotic voice will pipe in every once in a while to say you’ve picked up a water bottle), which you can later use in the app to upgrade your ‘base’. Occasionally, if you have Chases turned on, you will hear zombies getting closer and closer, and you’ll have to pick up your pace in order to outrun them, or lose some supplies. The characters in the story do all the talking, all you have to do is run (or walk, or row, or bike, etc.).

The world of augmented reality and virtual reality, is extraordinarily vast, and I think, will only grow as technology does. I’m reminded of the 2009 sci-fi movie “Gamer”, where, in a future of virtual reality gaming, players control actual people in real-life battles. I certainly don’t think that is the direction we would go, but I use that to demonstrate the scope of the technology.

Divergent Streams

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This chapter of Rettburg is especially unique in the sense that he discusses some of the more modern and advanced methods and technologies used to create and enhance electronic literature. The section of the chapter that interests me the most pertains to locative narratives and how the incorporation of data regarding our locations assists in the creation of narratives.

As stated by Rettburg:

“The majority of locative narrative projects share a common interest in the relationship of physical space and geographic location to the narrative and poetic dimensions of literature” (185).

The addition of the element of location can enhance the narrative of a work by giving the reader a sense of visualization to base their understanding of the work on. For instance, if a given work of electronic literature takes place throughout Portland, Oregon, the addition of a visual representation of where the story takes place on Google Maps adds to the overall narrative of the work. The incorporation of something such as Google Street View would also add a visual element to a work and would thus add another narrative layer to the work.

The fact that Google Maps is an open API that anyone has access to and may use for their project grants authors of electronic literature the ability to incorporate elements of location into their work. Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood for instance is a set of stories that are tagged with a location on Google Maps, and each story is located on different points on a Google Maps view of New York City. Being able to see on a map where each story happens to be pinned adds to the narrative and gives the reader an idea as to why each particular story is written as it is.

Virtual and Augmented Reality

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I first began hearing about virtual reality around 2014. The Oculus Rift had just been funded and was then purchased by Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Hearing about it for the first time and watching multiple youtube videos I became especially excited for the potential to play large open world games like Skyrim or Fallout within VR. I hadn’t considered the use of VR for story telling alone outside of the realm of games. The user doesn’t necessarily need to interact with a piece to become immersed within it. It would not surprise me if very soon films began being made specifically for VR. One indication that cinema is headed this direction is the new screen x movie screenings. Screen X is essentially three movie screens being used to expand the view of a film. There is the usual front facing screen and then two screens on either side of the viewer that continue the scenery of the middle screen expanding and building the setting around the viewer. The most Prominent film that has been play this way is Marvel Studios Black Panther. The extra screens are turned on when the characters arrive back in Wakanda and when the main character T’challa is in another world that allows him to talk to his ancestors. This three screen approach could almost be considered virtual reality for multiple viewers.

AR is something that has become very popular in app development in recent years. I most cases AR is being used for games such as Pokemon GO or the new Harry Potter game that has just been announced. AR also has great potential for storytelling especially in the case of informative walking tours. Currently in the Senior Seminar we are developing a couple different AR experiences to tell historic stories of Downtown Vancouver. AR allows a user to see a simulation of how something would look in the real world, like the face of an old building directly next to a current city skyline.

Augmented and Virtual Realities.

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Virtual Reality has recently risen in popularity in recent years. A type of technology that in theory “transports” you into the world of whatever game you’re playing, movie you’re watching, or story you’re reading is a very interesting concept that has been around for many years. We’ve only recently started to get the technology to actually be able to create this in a way that is effective and works how it should. Virtual Reality was also the basis of the movie “Ready Player One”, which is set in a future world where basically everyone lives in a VR world, because the real world is corrupt and slowly deteriorating. The idea of being able to actually enter and interact with your favorite worlds is a fantasy that most of us have wanted since we were little kids. Didn’t you ever want to be in the world of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Percy Jackson, Eragon, etc? With VR this will eventually be possible. Video game companies are already capitalizing on the world of VR. Such as the PlayStation VR with motion controllers and a headset that will transport you into the world of a video game. This isn’t the first time a VR set was created by a company. The first time I actually learned about VR was when I was doing a timeline of the history of Nintendo consoles for a school project. One of the ones I found was called the Nintendo Virtual Boy, which was a system that had the idea of using VR to play games. However, the console was a massive flop mainly because of the technical limitations there were at the time. Mostly the fact that the only colors you were able to see were red and black.
The idea of VR is so cool and has been around for quite a while, so it’s going to be awesome to see what we can do as technology only progresses. Augmented Reality however, is far more common. While Virtual Reality transports us to other worlds, Augmented Reality effectively puts other things into our world with the use of camera or other device. AR was really big on Nintendo’s DS Systems, most notably I believe the DSi was the first to start using AR through the use of its camera. The 3DS expanded on this by giving us 3 dimensional augmented reality. As a kid, this was really cool to play with and something I used all the time. Of course, the limitations were still there so most of the games were just little minigames and weren’t too amazing, but it was still something very new and fun to explore. The use of AR was then made extremely popular through the use of the app Pokemon Go, which came out in 2016. The use of AR in the app is optional, but many fans of the game were loving the idea of seeing Pokemon in their every day life. There were so many posts on social media of funny places people had found Pokemon and everyone was having a ton of fun with the idea.