Interactive Media

Introducing Global Pandemics: a cutting-edge, browser-based, digital learning experience—designed to enhance student understanding of the role of pandemics in world history. One year in the making, and involving a talented, interdisciplinary team from around the world—the new product features cutting-edge digital learning design, web animation, interaction design, and digital storytelling. 

Explore Plague of Athens now!
Experience our fully animated, interactive web app on desktop Chrome browser!
https://pandemics.historyadventures.app/

History Adventures: Global Pandemics
Presenting Chapter 1: “To Do No Harm,” the story of Nikos of Athens, a physician during the Plague of Athens, 429 BCE, who struggles to treat the multitude who fall ill during this world-upending ordeal, causing him to question everything he holds dear, from his faith in Apollo, healer under the gods, to the meaning of his Hippocratic Oath, and what is truly at stake in medical ethics.

Interactive Digital Storytelling
The Global Pandemics prototype consists of over 50 uniquely designed, animated web pages featuring over 2 hours of engaging, rewarding learning material for students to explore. The product combines digital storytelling with interactive learning design to craft a rich, complex pedagogical experience that immerses students in the power of story—narrativizing the experiences of diverse people, around the globe, who lived through history’s worst pandemics—interwoven with rich, multimodal learning content.

Applied Educational Research
Global Pandemics provides historical context for students about the challenges COVID-19 has presented to people around the world. The design of Global Pandemics is positioned at the nexus of innovative pedagogical, theoretical, and technological practices—including narrative studies, multimodal literacies, and game-based learning research. Synthesizing the best of history games, visual learning, interactive textbooks, and history apps, Global Pandemics introduces novel features, design elements, and affordances—demonstrating the effectiveness of applied educational research to enhance learning outcomes. The central question posed is whether—and to what degree—the innovative digital learning design of Global Pandemics will result in a measurable increase in student interest, engagement, and understanding of key concepts in epidemiology as well as the role of pandemics in world history. A secondary question is how to iterate product design to improve engagement and successful learning outcome metrics even further.

Global Pandemics, Chapter 1: “To Do No Harm,”
Plague of Athens, 4th Century BCE

Building on a rich tradition of digital media and learning research, Global Pandemics immerses and engages students through meaningful choice and multimodal interaction design; provide systems-based interpretations that emphasize complexity, interdependencies, and causal connections; played out within a problem space that encourages students to perceive connections between past and present—making that understanding more visceral, tangible, and real—and in the process sparking enthusiasm for learning about the past. Global Pandemics offers an innovative solution for engaging millennial students and inspiring curiosity for learning about history.

This browser-based digital learning experience introduces multiple novel technologies, including:
3D Motion Design to Recreate History
Advanced Web Animation to Simulate Pathogens
Immersive 360 Panoramas of Historical Locations
Animated Historical Timeline & Maps
Choice-based Narrative Design
Interactive Original Historical Documents
Media-Rich Adaptive Assessments

Created by Spencer Striker, PhD
Digital Media Design Professor at Northwestern University in Qatar

Tags
#digitallearning #digital #education #innovation #anthemawards #WebbyAwards #worldhistory #peopleshistory #connectedlearning #curiosity #animation #exploration #revolution #othersideofhistory #narrativedesign #interactiondesign #GamesBasedLearning #chooseyourownadventure #worldofcharacters #jamespaulgee

How do designers of interactive media work on the dynamic aspects of their designs? Previous research has emphasised the role of gestures to express what users and computers do. This paper contributes with a detailed analysis of interaction design master students' enactments. Two kinds of enactive means for expressing behaviour are identified: interaction walkthroughs and improvised role play.

This chapter aims to present mental representations by seven audiovisual specialists on Sirena, the antagonist of a noir fictional story in a multilinear interactive short film script. To this end, a reception study was created with in-depth interviews with specialists after reading the script to discuss its several aspects. This approach is of qualitative character. The study was conducted between June and October 2015 in São Paulo, Brazil. It is possible to perceive that participants have interpreted the character differently in spite of its consistent build. We could verify that the mental representation of the antagonist was aided by the world-view and experience of each interviewed specialist, which has led to unique readings of the character.

By examining the trans-disciplinary neologisms called "terminological junctions" in writings of Arakawa and Gins, one may find adequate conditions for making visible, and perhaps resolving a central paradox in the thinking of Gilles Deleuze, who exhorts us to "forge alliances" across scientific percepts, philosophical concepts and artistic constructs, and yet denies the adequacy of metaphor specifically, and tropes generally, because of the taint of representation and transcendence. Drawing on my earlier work which emphasizes the "agency" of tropes (by reference to Peter Galison and Bruno Latour) I attempt to recuperate tropes from within a Deleuzean frame, through an analysis of of "terminological junctions" as "shocks of thought."

The figure of the VJ or visual jockey is key for understanding the appearance and current
uses of what we shall call the “environment-image”, a kind of image which is produced for
an audience in situ, whose emotional reaction has a retroactive effect on the actual production
of the image flow. It is important to discuss a function related to this type of image, that of
influencing a social environment in order to establish a shared rhythm. Furthermore, this
coordinated rhythm influences the perception of each person in respect to the social group
which circumstantially forms the audience. Citing arguments such as those of the historian
William H. McNeill, the anthropologist Michael James Winkelman or the architect and theorist
Iñaki Ábalos, but also drawing on the observations of audiovisual media creators like Jonas
Mekas, we will see how a considerable alliance of stimuli and conditions in the environment
has an effect on the participants’ states of consciousness, resulting in the appearance of this
idea of the “us” as a link of identity. In short, the research places the practice of VJing as part
of the history of art and the contemporary modes of sociability, taking as principal evidence
the aesthetic and political dimensions of image. In this way, we gain access to a conception of
image by placing attention on the bonds established with the resonant rhythms produced by the DJ and, in addition, with an entire system of environmental and relational stimuli. What’s
more, this leads us to elaborate on the project of Gilles Deleuze, adding to the two types of
image he proposes, the “movement-image” and the “time-image”, a different typology, with
functions and effects that are both also radically distinct.

Challenges and storytelling are mutually exclusive because challenges are tasks with short breath, perspective and horizons for easy entertainment, while storytelling comes with wide horizons, long breath, holistic vision, deep contents, complex relationships along the time dimension for expressing sublime art. Stories are interrupted by challenges. Challenges are the product of a ludic approach to games; but it can exist also a narrative approach, games without "ludum". If gameplay is aimed at challenges, there is no room for expression of stories and contents, which are therefore confined in cut scenes or documents; but that's not interactive narration, it's a coupling of electronic toys & digital cinema. Today narrative design has a wrong approach because story is build around challenges. First has to come story, then mechanics and algorithms for telling story. We need no challenges, but varied actions, mechanics, contexts and situations for moving stories forward through interactivity and processing, just as in Edith Finch. The key is: not to confine narration in cut scenes or documents, but make the flow of events interactive and playable! All actions useful for determining events and relationships should be executed in gameplay through varied mechanics; all situations and contexts necessary for storytelling should be experienced in real time.

Todos los días en Argentina las redes de trata captan mujeres, engañan mujeres, someten mujeres, explotan mujeres, trafican mujeres, desaparecen mujeres. Todos los días en Argentina alguien paga por ellas y el ciclo vuelve a empezar.  El delito de trata de personas implica distintas etapas con características específicas, en cada una de las cuales actúan y operan actores con roles determinados, dando forma a un entramado que posibilita la explotación sexual de mujeres en Argentina. A nivel narrativo, este entramado complejo es abordado a lo largo de diferentes capítulos de un webdoc que permite a los usuarios sumergirse en una historia que recorre las formas de captación, las rutas de la trata de personas, la explotación sexual y el rescate de mujeres sometidas. Este documental transmedia pretende exponer algunas historias narradas por los mismos protagonistas. Ofrece un relato vívido que muchas veces se tiñe con la crudeza de las experiencias de las víctimas de este delito. Mujeres víctimas, familiares, miembros de organizaciones que luchan por esclarecer los distintos casos, funcionarios judiciales, legisladores, miembros de las fuerzas de seguridad y especialistas en la temática abordan las disímiles aristas de uno de los delitos más complejos del contexto actual. La exposición de los datos que la investigación periodística arroja, confirman algunas presunciones y llevan luz sobre otros equívocos. La nacionalidad de las víctimas, el origen y destino de las mismas, los métodos de captación y reclutamiento, las condiciones en las que son explotadas, las modalidades y mecanismos que utilizan las redes organizadas, la legislación vigente que comprende este delito, los procesos judiciales, la asistencia a las víctimas rescatadas y la vinculación de la trata de personas con otros delitos complejos, son algunos de los tópicos que esta producción comparte. El entramado narrativo transmedia se desarrolla a través de diferentes piezas y acciones de intervención territorial, de forma sincronizada, entre febrero y diciembre de 2015.

Enlace: http://www.documedia.com.ar/mujeres/

The Interactive Media Laboratory at Dartmouth Medical School produces computer games and multimedia programs for public health preparedness. With Department of Homeland Security funding, the IML is developing the Virtual Terrorism Response Academy, which uses game technology to prepare first responders for rescue efforts in which hazardous materials may be involved. This paper looks at the history of the "Virtual

As a proof of concept for anticipation based assisted living we introduce a particular kind of adaptive architecture that integrates intelligent materials within the encompassing IoT. For this purpose, data regarding the anticipatory profile of individuals and the use of machine learning in capturing individual needs, was acquired. The structure presented was tested in partial applications. Feedback from those working in assisted living was integrated in pur suant attempts at modelling adaptive architecture structures.

Becoming commercially available in the mid 1960s, video quickly became integral to the intense experimentalism of New York City's music and art scenes. The medium was able to record image and sound at the same time, which allowed composers to visualize their music and artists to sound their images. But as well as creating unprecedented forms of audiovisuality, video work also producedinteractive spaces that questioned conventional habits of music and art consumption. This book explores the first decade of creative video work, focusing on the ways in which video technology was used to dissolve the boundaries between art and music.

Bernard Perron, Professor für Film und Videospiele an der Universität Montreal, legt mit seinem neuesten Buch The World of Scary Video Games: A Study in Videoludic Horror einen äußerst umfangreichen Einblick in das Horror-Genre im digitalen Spiel vor und analysiert darüber hinaus  einige besonders populäre Exemplare. Das knapp 400 Seiten starke „compendium on videoludic horror“ (S.133) bezieht in Teilen auch frühere Werke Perrons mit ein (zum Beispiel Auszüge aus Ders.: Silent Hill: The Terror Engine. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2012 oder Ders.: „Le survival horror: un genre vidéoludique idéal pour une étude genrée“ In: Lignon, Fanny [Hg.]: Genre et jeux vidéo. Toulouse: Presses universitaires du Mirail, 2015, S.95-117) und ist strukturell in drei große Kapitel mit jeweils mehreren Unterkapiteln untergliedert, die sich detailliert mit den Aspekten des interaktiven Horrors, speziell der Kategorie des Survival Horrors befassen.

Günümüz reklamcılığı, her yeni kitle iletişim teknolojisinin yükselişinde olduğu gibi, İnternet kullanımının yaygınlaşması ile çeşitli dönüşümler geçirmektedir. Bu dönüşümler temel olarak İnternetin etkileşim özelliği ve buna bağlı belirginleşen üre-tüketici olgusu ile şekillenmektedir. İnternetin etkileşim özelliğine bağlı olarak bir yandan kullanıcının/tüketicinin aktif hale gelmesi öte yandan ise reklamların hedeflenebilme yeteneğini kazanması çevrimiçi reklamcılığın gelenekselden farklılaştırmasına yol açmaktadır. Bununla beraber, özellikle Web 2.0 ile oluşan yeni medya ekolojisinde, kullanıcıların/katılımcıların tamamının içerik üretim ve dağıtım gücüne/olanaklarına sahip hale gelmesi çevrimiçi tüketici olgusundaki değişimlerin kaynağı olarak görülmektedir. Bu değişim reklamcılar tarafından "katılım çağı" olarak ilan edilirken, üre-tüketici etkinliklerinin, hem reklamcılığı ve ticareti destekleme hem de bozabilme potansiyeline dikkat çekilmektedir. Bu çalışmada, ticaretin yön verdiği İnternet ortamında giderek daha fazla ve farklı biçimlerde işlevsellik kazanmaya başlayan reklamcılık konusuna odaklanılmış ve çevrimiçi reklamcılığın karakteri ve aynı zamanda çevrimiçi tüketici etrafında şekillenen reklam iletişiminin nasıl dönüştüğü açıklanmaya çalışılmıştır.

It is widely considered that technology gave birth and continues to play a vital role in film production around the globe. Technological advancements have shaped film language and the audience experience throughout history. With the emergence of interactivity and the proliferation of new digital media and technologies, new opportunities, discourses and challenges have arisen. In this context, this paper discusses that current classification approaches are not appropriate for capturing in a comprehensive manner the multidimensional aspects of interactive film history. It is proposed that a new classification system is needed in order to map the history of interactive filmmaking and cinema, alongside the development and affordances of the different interactive technologies in use, like the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and web technologies, 360o video, Virtual and Augmented Reality, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) among others. Other prominent characteristics and practices that are considered include the enablement of either single- and/or collective multi-interaction of the audience with the moving image; the role of complex algorithms and the type of data analysis performed; technologies that make direct use of the audience’s physiology and cognitive state, such as the Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs); as well as the gamification of the film viewing experience. Accordingly, a new approach to identifying a suitable systematic structure is outlined, as opposed to recycling the conventional methods of classification, chronological order and genre categorisation.

This document was written for a series of workshops with the intent that on reading and rereading this document it would be possible to understand the main issues surrounding the formulation of a workflow to address data output from digital cinematographic cameras.

Through a reading of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s gamebook The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (1982), this paper is an account of the curiously estranging experience of reading interactive second person narrative. Conflating actual and virtual (story) worlds, the doubly-deictic address of these second person narratives (“YOU are the hero”) suggests readerly immersion. At the same time, the ambiguity of this empty, potentially plural, YOU threatens what I call readerly “dispersion.” In tackling this doubled, and doubling, form of address, my reading of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks considers the book’s illustrations in an exploration of the distinction between empathy and identification.

How do we write stories for interactivity? From a storyteller's perspective, the notion of interactivity challenges the traditional conception of telling stories, defined by an author-driven narrative and a receptive audience. Interactive technologies have pushed the boundaries of those traditional rules, giving storytellers the opportunity to question, redefine and play with conventions almost two thousand years old. This ongoing research focuses on how are our traditional storytelling techniques and strategies affected by the emergence of interactive media, and on how do we adapt what we already know about narrative into an interactive storytelling. 'The Hunter & the Wolff' is an interactive, plot-driven, loose adaptation of the traditional tale 'Little Red Riding Hood', which aims to test the idea of hands-off interactive storytelling in Cinematic Virtual Reality (CVR), by using the Object Based Media (OBM) approach to contents built with reconfigurable prerendered assets. This paper reflects on the process of writing and design of an interactive story within the mentioned frame. It specifically focuses on the development of two elements: a script and a hands-off interactive model for CVR, developed simultaneously to reinforce the narrative and interactive concepts in both media. From a narratologist's perspective, this project explores the possibility of an interactivity that gives users agency over the storytelling devices and techniques instead of affecting characters and environment, what I'm calling On-Narration Interactivity. This creative writing and design process approached the limitations for interactivity in CVR through spatial storytelling techniques; Designing a reconfigurable soundscape with OBM with both dramatic and interactive purposes; Writing a story that facilitates a leaned-back hands-off interactivity and Proposing a type of interactivity based on instant and instinctive reactions. All these challenges merge together in the proposal of an On-Narration Interactivity, aimed to give users the agency to affect the narration instead of the storyworld.

This thesis explores to what extent the use of 3D and 2D in a film changes the information retained, presence achieved and if a difference is observed within the emotional arousal which the formats sustain. This is achieved through using the documentary film Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010), which has both 3D and 2D Blu-Ray versions. The documentary tells the story of Chauvet Caves in Southern France and portrays the oldest drawings of humanity. Participants in 2 different groups, who will watch both versions will watch a 3-4 minute extract from the film and will be given a questionnaire which is assessing how much they have understood the story line and information given, also additionally looking at the self-assured presence questionnaire. In the second phase 2 separate groups who will watch both versions of the film will only go through an EEG assessment that will observe and compare their emotional arousals in both 2D and 3D versions. This will help us investigate whether 3D should further be used in order to achieve the a better engagement with the audience through information and emotional arousal.

Recommended citation: Gifreu-Castells, Arnau (2015). Narrativas de no ficción audiovisual, interactiva y transmedia (Ed. y Coord.). Obra Digital, 8-1. Vic: Universitat de Vic-Universitat Central de Catalunya. ISSN: 2014-5039. 

--------------- ABSTRACT ESP: El número 8 de la revista científica de Comunicación Obra Digital, con seis colaboraciones, profundiza en las formas de expresión narrativas de no ficción audiovisual, interactiva y transmedia. El ámbito de la no ficción siempre ha sido considerado como menor respecto de su homónimo de ficción. Los grandes presupuestos se encuentran en las películas de ficción y no en los documentales, por ejemplo. Esto sucede también en el campo de la investigación, donde las narrativas de ficción audiovisual, interactiva y transmedia siempre han ido un paso por delante de las de no ficción. Este monográfico propone un acercamiento teórico-práctico a las narrativas de no ficción audiovisual, interactiva y transmedia, con el propósito de abarcar diferentes áreas afines y ofrecer una radiografía de su ubicación actual en el ecosistema de medios.

------------- ARTÍCULOS:

- Presentación: Narrativas de no ficción audiovisual, interactiva y transmedia por Arnau Gifreu Castells.

- Evolución del concepto de no ficción. Aproximación a tres modelos narrativos por Arnau Gifreu-Castells.

- El potencial educativo de las narrativas digitales en la comunicación para el cambio social. Jóvenes frente al cambio climático como estudio de caso por Lidia Peralta García, Tania Ouariachi Peralta.

- Presencia e implantación del documental interactivo en los programas de estudio de las universidades españolas por Gloria Rosique Cedillo.

- Atravesar la ventana: Incursiones del documental interactivo en el mundo presencial por Jacobo Sucari.

- El Documental Interactivo en la Era Transmedia: De Géneros Híbridos y Nuevos Códigos Narrativos por Alvaro Liuzzi.

- La capacidad de atención y el consumo transmedia por Germán Llorca Abad.

In this article I am considering the situation of interactivity and interactive film in the institutional context of the cinema that is outlined by the rules of cinematographic industry. I draw attention to the fact that despite the ongoing digitalization in all cinematographic areas: production, distribution, presentation, and reception, interactivity is seen as a non-film feature and, as a consequence, it is marginalized. Cinematography opens up to any digital technological innovations that do not violate a standard model of film experience. Interactivity is seen here as a feature of games and not of films. An interactive film that is thrown to the periphery of institutionalized cinema, becomes a phenomenon of audiovisual avant-garde that is a common part of both cinema and art.

The City is a dynamic, living narrative, an unfolding autobiography, a melding of countless invisible stories; unraveling not in words but in movement, fear, desire, need, coupling the daily of living. The city seen is a narrative; meaning definition is found not in the narrative but in the illegible depths of the unseen city. Art practices of every kind are one fragment of the ever-unfolding narrative. New technological possibilities have also revolutionized the way the narrative of the City can be «told» and «reproduced». Narrative is transcribed into a new cultural code through technological advances. Many works of art tell stories; indeed, most of the humanities involve stories. This paper is going to study a number of innovative projects in digital art: locative media and interactive media. They all reveal how City is seen by them through their ‘stories’ and narratives. It will explore further the role of story-telling processes. All projects are site specific, participatory and interactive. They also have the capacity to map hybrid city in a mobilized and digital world.

How do we picture urban life and formulate our experience of it? How can this experience can be reflected via new technologies? Do new ways of narrative and story telling emerge through new technologies? How does audience respond to these practices? Can these practices be a cinematic means of digitalized story telling? These are some of the questions  that will be answered in this paper.

Interactive digital narrative (IDN) challenges basic assumptions about narrative in the western world—namely about the role of the author and the fixed state of content and structure as the audience takes on an active role and the narratives become malleable. 1 It seems quite clear that narrative theory—as is—cannot fully account for these changed conditions. Many scholars have reacted to these challenges by adapting established narrative theories. This approach has clear advantages as terms, categories, and methods of analysis are already well understood. On the other hand, analysing IDN with theoretical frameworks created to describe narrative in traditional media carries the risk of misunderstanding the nature of the change. In this regard, Espen Aarseth rightfully warns of the danger of " theoretical imperialism " (1997, p. 16). For example, once we focus on similarities with ancient Greek stage play we can become overly wedded to the framework of Aristotle's Poetics and prone to disregard aspects that do not fit that particular frame of reference. A more fully developed theory of digital interactive narrative should be careful to avoid such theoretical pitfalls. Before sketching out a specific theoretical framework for IDN, I will analyse several existing theoretical perspectives to foreground the scope and focus of earlier contributions and investigate which aspects are not fully covered yet.

The built environment must progress in step with progress of society. It is therefore the task of the avant-garde segment of the academic discipline and profession of architecture to theorize and explore how best to guide the development of the built environment in ways that are congenial to the opportunities and challenges of societal development at the frontier of progress.

The paper deals with the use of visual stereotypes in virtual pedagogical agents and its potential impact in digital learning environments. An analysis of the concept of visual stereotypes is followed by a discussion of affordances and drawbacks as to their use in the context of traditional media. Next, the paper explores whether virtual pedagogical characters introduce anything novel with