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2019, SHS Web of Conferences
This article explores issues associated with immersive storytelling in order to examine how the field of World Building can constitute a theoretical framework for practice in the context of VR-based and Full Dome artistic projects. With respect to immersion, the intent will be to interpret the concept of storytelling in relation with the recent formulation of the concept of extended reality (XR). The very concept of World Building is transauthor and transmedia by nature. The transauthor dimension of World Building resides in the idea of subcreation, i.e., designing environments and interaction rules that help create a storytelling basis for generating multiple stories. Once the universe has been conceived, stories written by different authors take shape through transmedia processes across multiple distribution media (film, video games, web, etc.). The question then arises: How can the World Building approach shape the construction of immersive experiences? The article sets out to an...
2020
This paper considers the role of virtual reality (VR) experiences in major media franchises’ storyworlds, including Star Wars, the Marvel Universe, the DC Extended Universe, Game of Thrones, and Harry Potter. The paper opens with a brief description of transmedia storyworlds and the concept of narrative extensions, which are new stories that are added to existing narratives across a range of media. To distinguish different types of experiences, I use four categories to describe fifteen VR experiences across these five major: sneak peeks, short demos, action games, and narrative experiences. For each experience, I consider the types of user interactions offered, the overall length and replay value of these experiences, cost at launch, and the overall success or failure of these experiences based on critics’ and fans’ comments and reviews. While the strategy of incorporating VR experiences into existing media franchise storyworlds is still very much in its infancy, there are identifia...
NECSUS_European Journal of Media Studies, 2019
Virtual and Augmented Reality systems are becoming increasingly popular in our everyday lives. Although these systems are extraordinary examples of the new role played by the human body in digital media ecologies much of the academic scholarship conducted in this area tends to interpret such phenomena from a narrativist standpoint. Such approaches often overlook the essential characteristics of non-narrative media. As a counter-strategy, we propose virtual fictionality – a concept emphasising central aspects of worldliness in VR-based works that lie beyond the narrative paradigm. The aim of the paper is to outline virtual fictionality as a particular world-making strategy of digital games that turns players into configurators.
Critical Encounters with Immersive Storytelling, 2019
This introductory chapter considers some key themes, concepts and approaches that underpin the book. It uses existing scholarship to explore the terms 'immersion' and 'storytelling', noting that neither concept is bounded or stable. It examines why 'the immersive' is such a seductive concept in our present cultural, social, economic and political moment(s), and thus why its study is important. It also offers an overview of the book's structure. We (the authors) have both been researching at the intersection of immersion and storytelling for many years, exploring diverse connections between narrative, genre, environments and experience. Our joint perspective makes this book a unique resource; it is both critically and practically attuned, and offers ways into research design for immersive contexts. Such research raises complex methodological considerations which are often rendered invisible in the reporting of case studies, yet this book acknowledges and confronts them head on, making our reflexivity visible, and itself a productive resource. This introductory chapter considers some key themes, concepts and approaches that we return to throughout the book. It uses existing scholarship to explore what we mean when we talk about 'immersion' and 'storytelling', noting that neither concept is bounded or stable. It examines why 'the immersive' is such a seductive concept in our present cultural, social, economic and political moment(s), and thus why its study is important. It introduces key concepts that will underpin analyses in the book and begins to problematize meaningful distinctions between analogue/digital, physical/virtual and online/offline. Given the complexity of immersive storytelling as a research subject, we now offer four different approaches to sketch out where this books sits-the analogy, the experience, the history and the definition-before concluding with an overview of the book's structure. uncomfortable. We have had many conversations since that time, attempting to understand what was happening. Consulting scholarship has helped us little in our reflections on this immersive encounter: According to Matthew Reason the term 'immersive' is one with 'extremely tricky conceptual grounding' (2015: 272). Alison McMahon proposed in 2003 that the concept of immersion in video games had become 'an excessively vague, all-inclusive concept' (2003: 67) and Adam Alston has more recently observed that 'the immersive label is flexible' to the degree that it can 'jeapordize terminological clarity' (2013: 128). No clear definition exists, yet we all seem to have an idea of what we are talking about when we use that word 'immersive'.
2017 23rd International Conference on Virtual System & Multimedia (VSMM), 2017
How will we adapt to a future that may see humans as an interplanetary species? The proposed project uses themes of outer space, future worlds and space travel to examine ways in which our future identities may be formed from these new environments, the role/s we may have in future societies; and the relationships that we will form with the people we will meet. The utilization of virtual and mixed reality (AR/VR) technologies can be a powerful tool in which to place the audience in different scenarios, to experience it from different viewpoints, and to allow them to anticipate what the future may look, feel like, and indeed be like, by being placed into a set of future space scenarios. This paper presents ideas from an interdisciplinary team of artists, scientists, and technologists of methodological approaches for art-science-technology and the prototypes anticipated through these dialogues.
NECSUS. European Journal of Media Studies, 2022
Narratives of and for virtual reality are recurring discourses that circulated from medium to medium throughout Western history. But what makes the immersivity of the stories designed for (and experienced via) real or imaginary VR systems so different from other narrative experiences? Through an enactivist perspective on media archeology, I will outline a definition of virtual reality storytelling (VRS) as the art of crafting ‘inhabited stories’ and a place of circulation of narratives about VR. Accordingly, I will propose a media archaeology of two VRS genealogies. Firstly, I will address the relationship between story-making and place-making by discussing different examples of VRS from peep media tradition, gaming, and VR cinema. Secondly, narratives regarding discourses on human enhancement via VR will be confronted with design goals and narratives of real and imaginary neuro-technologies. In doing so, I will highlight some recurring narrative strategies at the basis of VRS: (i) the illusion of non-narration, i.e. the ability to direct the story-making activity of the visitor without his/her awareness; (ii) the craftsmanship of paths of ‘attentional matching’ made of haptic responses and spatialized stories; and backwardly (iii) the design of new senses which can disclose enhanced processes of world- and story-making.
Frontiers in Virtual Reality
In this paper, we treat VR as a new writing space in the long tradition of inscription. Constructing Virtual Reality (VR) narratives can then be understood as a process of inscribing text in space, and consuming them as a process of “reading” the space. Our research objective is to explore the meaning-making process afforded by spatial narratives—to test whether VR facilitates traditional ways of weaving complex, multiple narrative strands and provides new opportunities for leveraging space. We argue that, as opposed to the linear space of a printed book, a VR narrative space is similar to the physical space of a museum and can be analyzed on three distinct levels: (1) the architecture of the space itself, (2) the collection, and (3) the individual artifacts. To provide a deeper context for designing VR narratives, we designed and implemented a testbed called RealityMedia to explore digital remediations of traditional narrative devices and the spatial, immersive, and interactive aff...
2015
How are virtual worlds conceived? What is their relation to actual worlds? What devices do designers employ to construct these worlds? How are they represented? Do different disciplines construct their worlds differently, or are there shared elements, relationships, and intentions? How do their audiences experience, and re-experience, these spaces? Does the audience participate in the world’s making, or do they inhabit an already made world? Correlating game developers’ intentions of behind emulation of reality and the dichotomous relationships between real spaces and virtual narratives versus virtual spaces and real narratives. Analysis of how perception and memory within these realms describes a state of existence. Within the disciplines of architecture and video games, virtual spaces deploy devices of coercion, irony, satire, and performance as a means of restructuring our perception of the existing real world.
2000
In this paper we discuss issues involved in creating art and cultural heritage projects in Virtual Reality with particular reference to one interactive narrative, 'The Thing Growing'. In the first section we will briefly discuss the potential of VR as a medium for the production of art and the interpretation of culture. In the second section we describe 'The Thing Growing' project. In the third section we discuss building an interactive narrative in VR using XP, an authoring system we designed to simplify the process of producing projects in VR. In the fourth section we will discus some issues involved in presenting art and cultural heritage projects in VR.
PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality, 2023
Virtual, augmented, and mixed reality technologies offer unparalleled opportunities for embodied presence in immersive digital environments. While these platforms are primarily discussed regarding their technological capabilities for simulating ctional scenes or enabling interactions with virtual entities, their profound implications on storytelling and narrative comprehension remain underexplored. The narrative dimension is instrumental as factors like interactivity, stereoscopic displays, and user mobility de ne what details become available and in what sequence, generating each user's unique vantage point and experience. In order to address the limited theoretical and methodological accounts on immersive virtual storytelling, this special issue brings together multidisciplinary perspectives spanning engineering, psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, and digital activism. With the proposed novel conceptual frameworks, technologies, applications, and inclusivity initiatives, the contributions examine immersive visual narratives in an expansive manner. Thereby, this special issue aims to provide a novel understanding of how virtual, augmented, and mixed reality platforms can be leveraged to craft and experience narratives in profoundly immersive ways. By providing insights into how immersive qualities transform narrative comprehension, this special issue advances our knowledge of the complex relationship between story, technology, and the human experience.
International Journal of Transmedia Literacy, 2018
Immersive Stories From Technological Determinism Towards Narrative Determinism, 2024
This article is part of the issue “The Many Dimensions of Us: Harnessing Immersive Technologies to Communicate the Complexity of Human Experiences” edited by Nicholas David Bowman (Syracuse University), Dan Pacheco (Syracuse University), T. Makana Chock (Syracuse University), and Lyndsay Michalik Gratch (Syracuse University), fully open access at https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.i455 Abstract Following the wave of immersive production that occurred between 2015 and 2018, and in the face of new virtual, augmented, and mixed‐reality devices, this article discusses the need to move from a technology‐ or device‐focused perspective in the analysis and use of immersive technology towards a story‐focused or story‐first perspective. It starts with a technological perspective, contextualising the evolution of immersive technologies and their interpretation from a technological determinism point of view. Secondly, the ecological perspective provides an integrative reading of the technique, its use, and its experience, based on the concept of the environment. Finally, and after acknowledging previous research on the effects of immersive media on the audience, the article considers the narrative elements that are reinforced by immersive technologies in journalism and nonfiction, based on the qualitative analysis of projects. The article highlights narrative resources associated with the social character of the story, the spatio‐temporal framework, and the emotional impact. It suggests a shift towards “narrative determinism,” which would allow us to analyse and employ immersive resources in terms of their contribution to storytelling and to overcome the limitations of perspectives that are highly dependent on specific platforms or technologies. Keywords immersive storytelling; immersive technology; journalism; narrative; virtual reality
2012
How can we use immersive and interactive technologies to portray stories? How can we take advantage of the fact that within immersive virtual environments people tend to respond realistically to virtual situations and events to develop narrative content? Stories in such a media would allow the participant to contribute to the story and interact with the virtual characters while the narrative plot would not change, or change only up to how it was decided a priori. Participants in such a narrative would be able to freely interact within the virtual environments and yet still be aware of the main trust of the stories presented. How can we preserve the ‘respond as if it is real’ phenomenon induced by these technologies, but also develop an unfolding plot in this environment? In other words, can we develop a story, conserving the structure, its psychological and cultural richness and the emotional and cognitive involvement it supposes, in an interactive and immersive audiovisual space? I...
2021
This introduction to the monographic section on "VR Storytelling" aims to outline some of the principal transformations that VR is imparting to audiovisual language and experience, with a particular focus on the impact of these innovations on storytelling. The essays of the section span a variety of theoretical approaches and backgrounds, argumentative styles and case studies (e.g. documentaries, games, art), but all of them share a similar rhetorical attitude: underscoring the potential and novelty of VR but, at the same time, identifying a series of remediations and limitations. In particular, they will show that most of the contemporary discourses on VR need to be reframed critically in order to reflect more objectively on complex notions and dynamics such as screen, interactivity, immersion, presence, embodiment, illusion and empathy.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2019
Today, more than ever, audiences are surrounded by imaginary worlds in which a wide variety of products and activities can be fully explored through multiple media windows. Imaginary worlds allow members of the audience to enter vicariously in the narrative space, spending a certain amount of time in speculative and explorative activities, experiencing the 'possible world' through the stories set within it. According to this, it is possible to differentiate between story and storyworld. While ' stories' are self-enclosed arrangements of causal events that come to an end in a certain period of time, ' storyworlds' are mental constructions shared between recipients and authors in which new storylines can be developed. This paper aims to discuss the implication of world-building activity for the design practice. Considering narratives and world-making practices as a matter of design, this essay will tackle the following question: how can a designer use the creation of storyworlds in his practice to activate new perspectives on specific contexts? In doing so, the first part of the essay is a brief summary of how imaginary worlds have evolved through the decades. Then, the second part is devoted to the
Animation Practice, Process & Production, Volume 7, Number 1, , 2018
The discussion will explore the aesthetic of hand drawn animation and the qualities this brings to the animation story through the analysis of selected practitioners in the field who bring drawn qualities that (could) crossover into 360°. Through the analysis the discussion will demonstrate the convergence of narrative structures and strategies from conventional animation and film narrative theory that are commonly present, applied or adapted within the emerging film syntax and grammar for VR. The article will go on to discuss how these theories and strategies might aid approaches to creative practitioners to enhance the possibilities for immersive storytelling by utilizing the hand drawn aesthetic in storytelling for the VR/360° world. First, to open the discussion, there is a question of the immersion experience and aesthetics present in the emerging media for 360° and VR and aspects of the whole immersive experience that are opening up for artists and audiences.
2020
This chapter questions what differentiates interactive narratives in virtual reality, proposing spatial storytelling as a dimension natural to the medium. We analyze Offland, a project which consisted in the creation of a fictional world and a virtual reality experience, to explore this medium’s immersion and storytelling. The lessons taken from user testing help understanding how goals, exploration, linearity and interactivity relate to the fictional immersion and experience. From there we look at the structure of space and narratives as constructed by virtual objects with narrative value. It is clear that interactive storytelling is based on modularity (Miller in Digital storytelling : a creator’s guide to interactive entertainment. CRC Press 2014; Murray in Hamlet on the holodeck: the future of narrative in cyberspace. The Mit Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2017), and when looking at the spaces, events and action points, objects are what sustain these modules. Objects can be ess...
Advances in Media, Entertainment, and the Arts, 2020
This chapter examines the evolution of trends in the arts, storytelling, and immersive media, along with the emerging awareness, expansion, and deliberate application of social impact entertainment (SIE). The author discusses how the ideas and concepts of transmedia, convergence, and storyworld-building have now expanded beyond academic theory into more organic commercial and artistic applications. The focus is on how this approach relates to extending intellectual properties and stories into immersive media platforms and beyond. Additionally, the author presents several case studies and examples of emerging arts and media formats to support what we might expect to experience in the near future.
Corr, 2007
The main goal of this project is to research technical advances in order to enhance the possibility to develop narratives within immersive mediated environments. An important part of the research is concerned with the question of how a script can be written, annotated and realized for an immersive context. A first description of the main theoretical framework and the ongoing work and a first script example is provided. This project is part of the program for presence research , and it will exploit physiological feedback and Computational Intelligence within virtual reality.
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