Networked Narratives as Spaces of Imagination

Andrea Zapp

Abstract

The advent of new media presents a serious challenge to our understanding of visual representation, of narrative and the whole art of the moving image. New narrative forms in are constantly redefining the relationship between the creators of content and their audiences, who increasingly are becoming the co-producers of meaning. These and the following issues of theory and practice are further illustrated in my recent book and DVD publication New Screen Media, Cinema/Art/Narrative, co-edited with Martin Rieser and published by The British Film Institute (BFI), London in cooperation with the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) Karlsruhe, in January 2002.

In this context, my own artistic practice and research involves designing narrative models as creative and interactive environments for the user. As an extension of my studies in “traditional” film and media, I try to break from the linear plot line by actively integrating the viewer into the process of structuring the content. The open structure of the Internet offers the most appropriate configuration to play with audience participation as an alternative form that could enrich our concept of media. I am trying to discuss and critically examine issues of interactivity and virtual forms of representations, of the observer themselves and parallel of a dramatic model. Interactive platforms based on a real time networked infrastructure can be designed as accessible environments for the viewer. Content systems can be set up that are actively shaped and further developed through the influence and contributions of participants from various remote locations. Over the past years the majority of my projects have therefore required the active participation of the user within the drama - by slipping into a virtual performance role. The fiction is then melting together with the users’ personal backgrounds and contributions in these works - creating a docudrama in a networked context.

The narrative itself functions like a frame and starting point to experiment with a self-dynamic open construct of storytelling. This refers directly to the Internet, which I personally see not only as a pool of predefined information, but rather as an open source model as a world of hidden characters - used here as a conceptual basis. The general idea is therefore to constitute a seamless portal to the net itself as the main source material, making the borders between the individual and the theatrical room less obvious. In that sense I am intending to open up metaphors to the cinematic process by replacing the actor as a type with the participant’s own personal complexity, to fill the media space with content. The more the viewer develops creative or even pantomimic skills and ideas, the more he or she motivates their partners and the more the story can mature as a user driven scenario of cause and effect. A shift and acceleration in perception and action takes place: from distant viewer to emotional participant, being forced into a role within a spontaneous episodic play. The following example represents a recent approaches of mine to these aspects of research on user driven narratives in my artistic practice:

The Imaginary Hotel - an interactive installation in a public gallery space, linked to a custom written website communicating with the real room.

This work was first shown in October 2002 at The Chapman Gallery in Salford, Manchester, further interactive terminals were set up at The Cornerhouse in Manchester and The Folly Gallery in Lancaster.
The Imaginary Hotel allowed visitors to occupy and design their ideal room within and fill it with personal content and inspiration. The installation architecture resembled a typical hotel room with its ubiquitous furniture and appliances. In contradiction to the isolated character of such a room though, the walls were constructed as a more open space reminding a theatrical stage and creating a link between inner and outer activity areas They functioned as projection screens and by choosing image, video and sound footage, sent from the net via the room TV menu, the visitors could then alter the standard interior and even hotel location. At the same time internet users could interfere by modifying or uploading further material through custom coded drag and drop interfaces simulating the room on the actual website and through search interfaces, which collected personal images from their hard disks. All of which allowed an easy and targeted exchange with the room itself. The website further provided a hotel lobby/chat lounge, from which users were able to ring up the telephone in the real hotel room. To achieve this a special web-telephone interface was coded, which transferred text messages from the website into voice on the gallery telephone and the answers back into text. A web cam was streaming real time video from the hotel to the website to constantly document the ongoing changes.

The metaphor of a hotel was chosen because of its given structure of an empty shell, in which the neutral rooms turn into a personal hideaway for a certain period of time. A hotel as such stands for an anonymous social melting pot in a constant state of flux - The Imaginary Hotel further mirrors digital travel in a distorted concept of space and time. It represents a virtual retreat accommodating permanently migrating residents. Similar to a blank canvas, the vacant room is successively populated and shaped by individuals. Real and virtual guests arrive, meet and disappear from out of nowhere and leave their personal traces, reflecting the seamless border between physical and imaginative places of being.

For further documentations of the project please visit < www.azapp.de >.

Andrea Zapp is a German media artist currently based in Manchester, working as a postgraduate Research Fellow at the Institute for Research & Innovation in Art & Design MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University. Her projects and installations focus on networked models of narration. They have been shown widely in international exhibitions and on the net. She has been lecturing extensively in international art institutions and Universities and on media conferences. She edited the book and DVD “New Screen Media. Cinema/Art/Narrative”, published in 2002 by the BFI London and ZKM Karlsruhe. For further info visit www.azapp.de <http://www.azapp.de>.