Narratives Response 03

Interactive documentary – what does it mean and why does it matter?

Along with the development of technology, media is evolving into various forms and branches recently. At the same time, we are experiencing the translation from a literacy, word-based culture to a faster-paced, digital and screen-based one. Among analog media, face-to-face experience, and digital media, each type of media has its own characteristics. As an author, it is our responsibility to learn about their features and take proper advantage of them when creating stories on different media platforms.

As it is mentioned in the article, interactive documentary is "a term used to describe the new possibilities for both the construction and representation of ‘reality’ brought about by the human–computer interface." As an author as well as a designer, although there will be multiple agencies in the interaction process, it is crucial to put human users at the center of the design proposal, and to transform "reality" to "the familiar strange", which is the soul of storytelling in the digital ear.

Creating interactive narratives

管中窥豹：look at a leopard through a tube - to see only one spot; have a limited view of sth.

A single story is only telling one thing time after time. It is about prejudice, stereotype, unequal power and unequal information access. It is emphasizing the difference while hiding the similarities. Undoubtedly, we cannot become totally objective until we see something from all the aspects of it. Taking the game "Detroit: Become Human" as an example, what if the player has a chance to go through the past of Todd's life, who is an violent, alcoholic single father with drug abuse? Will he still be regarded as an insane asshole who is totally intolerable? In another case, people won't feel guilty and admire Snape until they know about his biggest secret after his tragic death.

Therefore, multi media platforms are making interactive storytelling possible. Interactive storytelling provides more space for the audience to explore one particular object from different perspectives, which in some way helps a lot for keeping objective and avoiding prejudice. In addition, from the view of storytelling as a business and an entertainment, there are new approaches to deeper engagement and broader attraction.

Chris Crawford on interactive storytelling

"To grow intellectually, and to understand and cope with more complex problems, we always move to higher levels of abstraction." From my own perspective, whether there is conflict between process-driven narrative and interaction highly depends on how much the audience can engage in the story. In this case, the first level would be only observing the story from different angles, and the most advanced level would be making changes to the story based on the audience's choices and reactions. It is the author's choice how much should the audience be engaged in.

I agree that abstraction is a great way to welcome more possibilities into the story world. The ability to construct basic principles and apply them into instance is also important. However, I don't think abstraction is the only answer to create interactive stories. There is large free space for the authors to play around within the field of interaction.