Universe Creation 101

News of a Contagious Media Showdown from GxTA. The competition is for bits of information, a video snippet etc, that is so interesting that people pass links to it and it spreads around the globe very fast. It is contagious. Douglass Rushkoff describes a media virus:

Media viruses spread rapidly if they provoke our interest, and their success is dependent on the particular strengths and weaknesses of the host organism, popular culture. The more provocative an image or icon–like a video-taped police beating or a new rap lyric, for that matter–the further and faster it will travel through the datasphere.

Rushkoff goes on to explain why people are susceptible to a media virus:

Our interest and fascination is a sign that we are not culturally “immune” to the new virus. The success of the memes within the virus, on the other hand, depends on our legal, moral, and social resiliency. If our own attitudes about racism, the power of police, drug abuse, and free speech are ambiguous–meaning our societal “code” is faulty–then the invading memes within the media virus will have little trouble infiltrating our own confused command structure.

It is interesting that apparently a Massachusetts state representative has introduced a bill that requires children (under 16) to get parental permission before joining up with a buzz campaign. A ‘buzz campaign’ is one where a buzz about a product or service is created through word-of-mouth. People are employed to spread this word-of-mouth through employment in companies like BzzAgent.

So on the one hand we have a fun competition to create a ‘meme’ that is spread through the datasphere (for free) and on the other we have legislation coming down on children earning money from spreading news…

Rushkoff, D. (1994) Media virus!: hidden agendas in popular culture, Ballantine Books, New York.

An iTV Ad for Hitch sounds like they did an in-game/diegetic form of interaction (the button)…and then the storyworld fades off into meta-data (info about the storyworld or at least the representation of it). From itvt newsletter:

Buena Vista International has been using an interactive TV campaign on the Sky platform to promote its new movie, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” The campaign’s linear spots include a prompt, in which viewers are told, “Don’t panic! Just press the red button on your remote now”. Viewers who obey the prompt are taken to a Dedicated Advertiser Location (DAL), in which they can view a trailer for the movie; watch a mini-documentary on Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, the company that developed the movie’s various alien creatures; enter a competition; and find out more about the movie’s principal characters, such as Zaphod Beebelbrox and Ford Prefect. The ad was created by
Momentum Productions.

I’m just about to sign up to attend a ‘Convergence Jam’ being held here in Melbourne next month. The event is attended by professionals from film, TV, gaming, communciations and so on. Complimenting talks will be the development of multi-platform productions by attendees. It appears we’ll be split into teams and will compete against each other for the best idea.

Similar to television show The Apprentice, Jam teams of games developers, filmmakers, animators, digital media practitioners and new media artists will create the converging media models challenging the concept of ?spare time?. The winning team will be rewarded.

I’ve downloaded the Rules of Play which set out the theme and requirements. I’ve been coming up with ideas for a multi-platform work based on this theme — a really cool thing I think.

It’ll be a bit weird participating in such an event since I’d rather be observing (that’s why I’m there - to research how these professionals think multi-platform works should be designed and how they deliver the knowledge), but the pay-offs will be worth it. I wanted to participate last year but couldn’t so I look forward to it. I’m sure I’ll find some on-the-ball practitioners out there I can interview too.

If anyone has any ideas around the theme of ’spare time’, throw them this way. No harm in a pre-jam jam.

It is now official: I’ve successfully faced a panel and now I’ve converted to PhD. On top of this, the academic assessor was so impressed he fought to get on board and be a supervisor too! His work on ’superfictions’ in art and writing is right up my cross-media alley, so to speak, and so I was happy to have him on board. My current supervisors weren’t budging either and so now I’ve got a win/win/win: 3 supervisors! One, Peter Morse, is my primary supervisor from Media Arts; then Peter Hill who is in the Visual Arts but is also a prolific author; and then there is Sari Smith who is from Creative Writing who will guide me through the birth of my novel. [I must say the amount of Peters I've encountered in my life since commencing my postgrad is uncanny.]

So, I’m thrilled to have such a great team on the case and to be confirmed as a PhD candidate. Now, if only I could stop working full-time and actually spend some quality time with my research. Same story around the globe.

I’ve been playing some bi-channel games:

Kinder Surprise MAGICODE
I bought the special Kinder Surprise eggs with a toy inside and a ticket with a magicode and website address. I really liked the way the site was designed and the way I was guided through it (it is meant for kids). I played a few games — because I had a few codes!
Here is the magic ticket (which was the most exciting part of the eadventure for me — the real world key to a fantastical world:

The 1st Wireless Internet-Responsive Robot
This one I bought a few years ago but I like to bring it out every now and then and try to make it work better for me. I’ve found 6 year olds know how to work it better than me. The robot won my heart the first time a saw it and I’ve had it on my desk since. It tells great jokes and dances around the floor giggling away. You can link to the online website (a good bi-channel game) and play games there. Soon, the site tells me, they will have Internet Action Message Technology: the Robot will exchange short messages and pictures to and from your friends.

From ARGN:
Interesting to find a cross-media Award:

The 2005 Canadian New Media Awards: Excellence in Cross Platform Category
Best practice, innovation and excellence in cross sector, cross platform, multi-device content development and integration. Projects based on the use of many media for flexibility, media adequacy and high usability. This includes content integration with television and the web; enhanced television services; television and SMS; SMS and the Web and other combinations including print media.

Nominated in 2005 are: Broken Saints, ReGenesis Extended Reality Game, ZeD TV. I checked out the websites and gee I can’t wait to experience Broken and ReGenesis.

I’ve been looking at cross-overs between TV shows (when 2 fictional worlds meet — like the mixing of NY CSI with Miami CSI) and just recently a comic of the animated TV shows Simpsons and Futurama. The comic, The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis II: Chapter 1: “Slaves fo New New York!”, is a spendid indulgence into the techniques explored in clever cross-over shows. It truly is a metafiction about crossover fiction. One of my favourite scenes is when the scientist explains how the Simpsons ended up in Futurama. How this clash of fictional worlds occurs is actually quite simple:

If only I could submit the special shears for my PhD!

I’ve also just recently met an academic in my school who joined the department last year. He, Peter Hill, has been researching what he terms ’superfictions’ for many years. Like ALG (alternate reality gaming) and immersive aesthetics and so on, ’superfictons’ plays with the flimsy curtain separating fiction and reality. Hill, however, a celebrated author and artist, explores this continuum through art. In particular, Hill looks at cross-media works of installations, websites and mail art. Hill has, among other works, manufactored a fake museum: The Museum of Contemporary Ideas.

I’ll be writing alot more about Peter and the works he investigates (adding them to the project pages), and his upcoming book on Superfictions.

I’ve decided to shift my focus onto a project website instead of this blog. I chose the blog format initially because I wanted to encourage discussion and feedback about cross-media storytelling. This did happen — I’ve met some great people and had some very interesting feedback. It has been a long time between comments though, and so I’ve decided to add the project page and update that with sometime additions to this blog. Perhaps this blog or others will get more activity when there are more researchers into the area (or even a listserv to discuss the area).

The new site will be be a showcase of researchers in the area with helpful guides to cross-media works and theories. So, over the next few weeks expect some change…

I have something to confess. I’ve been deceiving you. Even though I’ve got this low-tech blog going with no RSS or anything I’ve actually been hob-nobbing with the hi-tech blogware on another server. The object of my dalliance is a:

blogging collective dedicated to the discussion and exploration of digital character art — any art involving electrons and making use of letters, alphanumerics, or other characters in an interesting way. Our primary focus is on active and interactive works, in which users input text and receive textual responses as output

I’m co-editor, with Mark Marino and Jeremy Douglass of the University of California, at WRT: Writer Response Theory. It is a place I can explore and discuss the aspects of my creative experimentation and theoretical inquiry not covered in cross-media: ‘text’ and bots.

And on the subject of creative works, a cross-media work of mine — The Villager Girl and the Teenbot – has been accepted into the ‘Original Hypermedia, Net.Art, Mods, Flash’ panel at the |dis|junctions conference: theory relaoded, University of California. The panel discusses ‘original new media works that use electronic media in challenging, subversive, or literary ways’. The work is bi-channel: a story that is told over a print booklet and a website. I’ll let you know more details about it soon.

You’re all welcome to contribute your views on the WRT so please do.

It has been a while since I’ve blogged and since I’ve blogged some writing. So, here are some pieces that I have found immensely interesting:

Szulborski, D. (2005) This Is Not A Game: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming (2nd Digital Edition), Lulu, Available at: http://www.lulu.com/content/99444

Dave Szulborski’s book is the first dedicated to the genre of ALG - Alternate Reality Gaming. ALG works are usually distributed across websites and real-life mediums such as fax machines and telephones. The pivotal trait of these works however is TING or TINAG (This Is Not A Game): the repudation of any game or fantastical aspect of the work. It is designed to be REAL, to be immersive. Here are some sites on the subject: ARGN, unfiction, Cloudmakers. Szulborski’s book (now available as low-priced digital editions with a free chapter download) seems a well-written treatment of the genre. Ludology and Narratology are addressed, games discussed (Szulborski has worked on many ARGs) and guidleines are offered for designers. Good stuff.

On the same thread is Adrian Hon’s article, The Reality Artifices, on the prefiguring of ARGs. He refers to Orson Well’s War of the Worlds – a work Drew Davidson has addressed in The
Journey of Narrative: The story of Myst across two mediums. Jill Walker has also recognised the heritage of such immersive traits.

Hon, A. (2005) ‘The Reality Artificers’, massive, [Online] Available at: http://www.mssv.net/archives/000665.shtml

From those looking back to the foundations of current emerging storytelling trends to those looking at the present and future: Jim Miller. Exocog: A case study of a new genre in storytelling is Miller’s meditation on his own cross-media work and the implications for future storytelling:

[W]hat is significant in this experiment is the balance between the opportunities that arise from the new technologies and the things that stay the same. This evolutionary process is still underway, but enough has happened to make this a reasonable time to look around and think about where this combination of technology and the creative arts is today, and where it might go tomorrow.

The article is a very helpful piece that includes, for example, the techniques he used to lead players across websites:

• Content ambiguity
• Cross-event integration
• Storytelling by puzzles
• Information hiding
• Out-game property manipulation

Miller, J. (2004) ‘Exocog: A case study of a new genre in storytelling’, Miramontes Studios, [Online] Available at: http://www.miramontes.com/studios/exocog/

On the academic side is Lizbeth Klastrup and Susana Tosca’s paper on Transmedial Worlds. Klastrup and Tosca look at how storyworlds are engineered to be transmedial. TMW are described as:

[A]bstract content systems from which a repertoire of fictional stories and characters can be actualized or derived across a variety of media forms. What characterises a transmedial world is that audience and designers share a mental image of the “worldness” (a number of distinguishing features of its universe). The idea of a specific world’s worldness mostly originates from the first version of the world presented, but can be elaborated and changed over time. Quite often the world has a cult (fan) following across media as well.

Klastrup and Tosca refer to Henry Jenkins ‘transmedia storytelling’ and Marie-Laure Ryan’s ‘transmedial narrative’, stating that their foci is on the abstract elements and not the medial expressions. They recommend a balance between defining the transmedial world and allowing players to create their own content. This is a helpful analysis of how the transmedial elements can be consistently evoked and managed.

Klastrup, L. and S. Tosca (2004) ‘Transmedial worlds - rethinking cyberworld design’ presented at Proceedings International Conference on Cyberworlds 2004, IEEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, California, published by Klastrup Cataclysms [Online] Available at: http://www.itu.dk/people/klastrup/klastruptosca_transworlds.pdf [pdf]

That is it for now. Enjoy!