#Psychologicalconstructions
#audienceinteraction
#Spectatorasaprotagonist
#Suspensionofdisbelief
#authorsnarrative #protagonist #audience #interaction #coauthor #experimentalnarratives #storyworld #transformation #metamorphose #theSpectator #theActant #passiveobserver
#Disbelief #Psychologicalapproach #theActant
What is a way for breaking down a fourth, fifth, sixth … or maybe even a tenth wall in between a spectator and an art work? This question unites all the genres of experimental narratives based on direct interaction with an audience. In that kind of narrative the role of spectator unfolds in a gradient of tones: from co-author to protagonist. A spectator has no obligations, while observing a course of events within full metal jacket of the author's narrative. But since he/she began interacting with the story-world, moving from a passive state to an active one, takes full responsibility for every decision made. He/she is becoming co-creator and any of his/her action will directly affect an outcome of events. Here takes a place the transformation from the spectator (eyewitness) to the Actant (active participant on the events). That metamorphose “flows” with oversensitivity, stumbling on pitfalls wish are located on the border in between the Spectator and the Actant:
The habit of having a role of passive observer
The fear of being watched by public while acting. The fear of taking an action, which will lead consequences.
The inability to accept the world of story as your own. Disbelief.
The inability associate yourself with protagonist.
The intention of destroying the illusion of presence. “the breaking the toy” kind of state, which ruins the dramaturgical mechanisms.
The projects selected as references are combining various media within experimental interactive narratives. For all of them, the psychological approach acts also as a part of narrative structure. By means of that structure a Spectator//User// Immersant[1]// Participant (read as Actant[2]) understands his/her role in an artwork .
Alienation
During the performances of Punch Drunk Theater Company an audience is obliged to wear masks. Beside its first practical purpose (as a remedy against to talkative audience members) the mask works as a "comfort zone". Living that personal space, a spectator can also remain an observer. But at the same time, with mask on, a spectator can come out of his/her shell and accept this conventional carnival role. In atmosphere of theater mystery, an audience is present and ready to play together with actors. Here one can be digressed from habitual behavior patterns and leave day-to-day routine covered up by the mask with new persona .
Responsibility
In an alternative quest-game Stanley Parable, from the premise to the final event, a user is followed by an author’s voice. On the one hand, the voice helps to a user in taking on the role of the main character Stanley (who permanently complies with instruction), On the other, the voice psychologically triggers the user on taking his own decision. that can stay independently from the obtrusive linear narrative. The voice examines a user’s ability of resisting against to inertness of passive observer (who will be certainly following to author’s guidance). The more a user is trying “to break” the game, the more he/she is getting truly interesting events, completing the story’s dramaturgical puzzle in the most surprising way.
Among friends
A Performer and a dramatist, Seth Kriebel creates stories right on the stage in direct interaction with an audience. The interaction model was inspired by the concept of board role playing games, where all the events happen in a imaginary fantastical world created by the participants. Kriebel is a gamemaster, who leads the story from the beginning to the end. In tempo-rhythm of dialog, the Performer (Kriebel) offers to the audience his own imagination as a playground for experiments. The Performer sends any question to a group of participants, so every of them is free to choose: to be just a bystander or….. To be truly engaged with the storyworld. In this way, A spectator is able to keep distance and take a decision voluntarily, whether he/she is willing to interact or not.
Stalker
Simon Wilkinson aka Circa69 (in collaboration with amoeba.theestateovcreation) discovers another formula for psychological contact with the audience. The Cube project inspired by actual events, comprises an interactive VR installation and a theatrical performance. Before being immersed to the virtual space an immersant meets to an actor, who is going to test the waters for the future experiment. The visual style of a real space, the room interior, the location of the actor, his costume, all of those fully correspond to the virtual space of installation. In this performance, the actor appears as not only as an exposition, that prepares an immersant for upcoming events. The actor is simultaneously the stalker and the provocateur. During the conversation (theatrical part of the project), the actor creates psychological portrait of an immersant. Based on that information, he changes the way of interaction within whole virtual reality experience. The actor as a puppeteer manipulating the events happening in VR space. Seating in the front of an immersant he is able to react on actions immediately by the help of control board. The fact that an immersant is interacting with real person, and not with an algorithm is one of the most important points of the Cube project.
Is possible to create an informational essence by distillation of foregoing analysis to these few general methods (psychological structures, establishing the contact with an audience):
Creating generalized portrait of the protagonist as a mythological character. This time an Actant will be able to associate himself/herself with figure of the main hero.
The freedom of being yourself or simulation of that freedom. The rule of magic "if" works as provocative circumstances, where the Actant has to respond directly, without playing any particular role. The more the Actant express oneself, the richer becomes the storyworld.
The characters/actors interact with the Actant, they encourage him/her to take a particular action, required by the role of the protagonist. The “traps” are settled in the way, that the Actant can not behave differently but only like the main character. In another worlds, actors/characters give to the Actant a particular understanding of motivations and goals of the protagonist.
“the Actant in a shade” acting on behalf of the group or acting at the same tie with other participants of the group. In that role the Actant is able to play without being in a "limelight".
Despite having already obtained experience, the evolutionary process from the Spectator//User//Immersant//Participant to the Actant is so far away from its final stage. Interactive storytelling is ready to offer to contemporary audience much more, than they are ready to perceive. This is the further proof of necessity of psychological approaches in general narrative structures.
[1] participant of immersive experience defined by Char Davies
[2]Greimas, Algirdas Julien 1966. Structural Semantics: An Attempt at a Method.