ACT REACT INTERACT

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ACT, REACT, INTERACT:
THE EXPERIMENT IN INTERACTIVE AESTHETICS

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ACT, REACT, INTERACT:

THE EXPERIMENT IN INTERACTIVE AESTHETICS

By

Harvey E. Harrison

PRESENTED AT

SPECIAL CONVERGENCE DAY AT THE WRITERS GUILD

MAY 17, 1997

I. The Mission

For at least fifteen years [1], I have been thinking intensively about the aesthetics of interactive fiction, and this thinking compels me to present this essay. My mission here is to enlist (perhaps "incite" is the more accurate verb) support for an experiment[2] in interactive aesthetics.

II. Interactive Aesthetics: Special Challenges

I perceive two main challenges to the advancement of the aesthetics of interactive fiction. First, there is a lack of basic aesthetic conventions. This is not to say that in the linear audiovisual media people assemble expressly to discuss the aesthetics of motion pictures and television (although some do), while in the interactive media similar people do not. [3] It is a deeper lack: that underlying the actual process of conceiving of and making interactive Fiction, there is a lack of aesthetic convention in comparison to the linear audiovisual media.

This lack is illustrated in a conversation I had several years ago with a friend, then a senior creative executive at one of the most distinguished entertainment software companies. Weary even then of the lack of aesthetic focus, I said, "You know, I think it is just going to be harder than everyone thought to introduce an interactive element into audiovisual entertainment."

He responded, "You mean to introduce an entertainment element into software." This exchange, for me, illustrates two of the main (though by no means the only) competing aesthetic paradigms for interactive fiction; I refer to them here as the following:

1. "the linear plus interaction model" ("linear plus" for short): This is the view I expressed. It presumes that one is essentially telling a linear story, with all that implies aesthetically, but in addition there will be provided an element by which the audience member transcends from passive to active in his or her involvement with the entertainment. The early but presently disfavored "branching" designs were expressions of this outlook. [4]

2. "the game plus drama model" ("game plus" for short): This is the view my friend represented. There is a type of interactive process, usually referred to in interactive entertainment as a "game", which can be regarded I believe as a type of fiction. The game typically consists of alternating, other-directed actions by the audience and the computer (in the case of software; opponent in the case of a non software game). The two sides act and react, again and again. Interactive fictional "entertainment", in the game plus view, is a game with dramatic elements like characters and story added. An exaggerated example of this model would be the following pitch for a new video game called "Chess: The Adventure Game". "Chess" is the story of two feudal domains each ruled by a supremely powerful queen. One queen is good and one is bad. The trick is that they are equally powerful, as are the members of their respective military forces. It is a constant kill-or-be-killed battle of good against evil, each starting the story with exactly equal power. There are appealing supporting characters, like the two vain but impotent kings and the loopy zig-zagging characters known as "knights", as well as a large cast generally (over a dozen pawns alone!).

This model, too, has its weaknesses. Remember Nolan Bushnell’s "Pong". This electronic table tennis game exemplifies turn based gaming at its most fundamental. I am a devoted admirer of Bushnell’s achievements, but one wonders if any augmentation of a pure turn based game model creates the fiction an audience craves: certainly, the game plus model involves a sequence of act, react, and so on, but do all the "acts" and "reacts" amount to "interact" in a robust fictional aesthetic sense?

Proponents of the linear plus model can argue: linear entertainment created the magnificent and stirring tribute to the underdog in the boxing world, Rocky. Add the interactive element, and interactive fiction is achieved. Proponents of the game plus model can reply that the game plus model created the boxing (perhaps "fighting" is more accurate) game classic Mortal Kombat and the successful motion picture based upon it. [5] I will return to these two models again below.

I believe that the second main challenge to the advancement of the aesthetics of interactive fiction is that, at this time, the audience’s suspension of disbelief in the interactive media is vastly harder to achieve than in the linear audiovisual media. I emphasize "at this time" because we are raising a generation of young who will not be socialized out of their innate interactivity as we, the last linear generation and all those before us, were. Moreover, the greater the penetration of interactive media into human culture the more these media may residually maintain suspension of disbelief.

Let us suppose that you and I have just left a theater after watching a poorly made film. You might say that the characters seemed flat and unrealistic. I might say the story was predictable or outlandish. However, what we do not say is the following: it was a disappointing experience for us to spend roughly two hours in a dark auditorium surrounded by strangers rigidly watching a blank wall on which large images were projected from the rear by a bright light through a succession of rapidly moving photographic images synchronized with sound to create the illusion of movement in the images on the wall. We just do not talk or think like that.

However, it is extremely common, in the case of a disappointing computer game to feel and express consciously that one is wiggling a mouse or punching a keyboard or in some other way manipulating and operating a computer. I believe that the requirement of activity on the part of the audience elevates sharply the achievement of the most basic suspension of disbelief.

III. Interactive Aesthetics: Special Opportunities

There are special rewards derived from the challenges for the artist who ventures into interactive art. In the mid-1980’s, approximately, the Writers Guild in association with the USC School of Film and Television presented a day-long event with panels discussing the artistic state of affairs in various media, and I participated on the panel of those discussing the interactive media. Our panel was necessarily vague about technology and budgets and pretty much everything else, but we were resolute about one idea: we invited the artist to consider the creative opportunity of a life-time. To a great extent, it is precisely the special challenges in interactive aesthetics and the chance for the artist to triumph over them that afford the creative opportunities in these media.

IV. Interactive Aesthetics: The Experiment

I am delighted to report that the scope of interactive aesthetics is literally growing. For example, Toby Simpson and Stephen Grand describe their model for the upcoming Mindscape interactive release "Creatures" to be a "biologically inspired architecture for complex gaming solutions".[6] I eagerly await their work, as their description of the aesthetic model employed suggests a sophisticated combination of biochemistry, genetics, digital technology, and art.

Simpson and Grand’s innovations and those of others [7] reveal for me the weakness of both the linear plus and the game plus models: they are aesthetic remodels from pre-existing media, linear audiovisual entertainment and software games respectively, with an additional element (interactivity or entertainment) cobbled on, in a cumulative fashion. In contrast to Simpson and Grand who are profoundly organic in their outlook on interactive aesthetics, the linear plus and game plus models seem lifeless and flat.

My mission here is to open the examination of aesthetics of interactive fiction to a new direction. In light of what I have said above, I seek to explore an aesthetic model that is as completely native to interactivity as possible. To do this, I submit that the aesthetic experience to be studied is that of the actor (rather than the audience) in theater, film, and television: certainly, the actor, as an artist, wishes to produce a desired range of aesthetic effects in the typically passive audience in the context of a linear story. However, at the same time, I suggest that the actor enjoys or participates in a desirable aesthetic experience in the process of performing for his or her audience. It is this later, subjective aesthetic fulfillment that the actor derives from performing (the "actor’s aesthetic") that needs examination or "experimentation". [8]

The experiment I urge begins with general "field work", and by this I mean the following: I suggest that an appropriate individual or group (I especially invite the Writers Guild to undertake this) approach the Screen Actors Guild with the objective of a series of dialogues to investigate the actor’s aesthetic. Next, I urge that these results be analyzed and discussed by an assembly of writers, interactive designers, and story-tellers. We need to understand what it feels like to be an actor in an exciting story, not what it feels like to be an audience in a passive, linear story, in order to understand the aesthetics of interactive fiction.

V. Conclusion

A benefit of thinking about the aesthetics of interactive fiction or any challenging issue for a decade and a half is that it can sharpen and reinforce one’s instincts. All my instincts powerfully affirm the value of the experiment I have called for in this essay.

[1] In terms of references to the passage of time, the writing of this essay coincides to the month with the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of my career, which I was privileged to start with the law firm of Dern, Mason, Swerdlow & Floum, then in Beverly Hills. This privilege was forever enriched by the friendship that also commenced then between name partner Richard H. Floum and his family and my family and me. This essay is lovingly dedicated to his memory.

[2] It may seem unfamiliar to characterize an effort as an "experiment" outside the context of scientific inquiry, and I will attempt here to explain this characterization. Aesthetics deals with art and the values that pertain to art. It is often regarded as a form of philosophy. (Incidentally, the invitation to the Special Convergence Day At The Writers Guild, at which this essay is to be presented, expressly declares the "philosophical … points of view" of "cutting edge technology" as one of the subject matters of the gathering.) Moreover, inspired greatly by and based upon the work of American philosopher William James, I have argued that, first, contemporary Western philosophy needs reformation into two related subfields -- pure and applied philosophy. See Harvey E. Harrison, "Doctor James To The Emergency Room: An Invitation To Applied Philosophy". Second, I have argued that the concept of an "experiment" is exactly suited to the goals of applied philosophy. See Harvey E. Harrison, "Doctor James To The Board Of Directors Meeting: Outline Of An Experiment In Applied Philosophy". (I have provided the Writers Guild with copies of both articles, and I have asked the Guild to make these articles available to Convergence participants who wish to read them.) Thus, since the study of aesthetics can be regarded as a philosophical enterprise, and, since I argue that the concept of the "experiment" is an appropriate form of activity for applied philosphy, I apply that concept to the present discussion.

[3] Interestingly, a large yet swiftly growing congregation of artists and others in the interactive media do assemble expressly to discuss the aesthetics of their work; I believe this reinforces my view that there is a lack of aesthetic convention and a need for the experiment called for here. The congregation to which I refer is the annual Computer Game Developers Conference (hereafter "CGDC"), which can be contacted c/o Software Development Conference and Show Group, Miller Freeman, Inc., 600 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94107. The 946 page volume Conference Proceedings of the 1997 CGDC (hereafter "97 CGDC Proceedings") is an excellent, contemporary source of material on interactive aesthetics and game design. CGDC also maintains and makes available audio recordings of actual CGDC presentations (hereafter "CGDC Audio Recordings").

[4] For a thrilling discussion of why the "branching" model is presently disfavored by many, see Chris Crawford’s speech at the 1995 Computer Game Developers Conference. CGDC Audio Recordings 1995.

[5] For the "digitally challenged" (pun intended), I provide the following synopsis of Midway’s game Mortal Kombat, in its recent Playstation form, prepared for this essay by my son David Harrison, age eleven, to whom I am greatly indebted: "As most of you know, Mortal Kombat is a fighting game, but I’m going to explain more about it. The goal of the game is to be the supreme champion of the MK tournament. You win by defeating all the opponents in your battle plan. A battle plan is the order of the opponents you fight. Once you defeat one, you move on to the next. At the top of the battle plan is the big boss. He is the hardest player in the game. You fight the best of 3 rounds. After somebody wins 2 rounds, a Finish Him message appears. When this pops up, you can enter a series of buttons and you can do a Fatality, Animality, Babality, Friendship, or a Brutality. A Fatality is a way you can kill your opponent in a disgusting way such as decapitating them or exploding them. An Animality is when your character turns into an animal and kills your opponenet. A babality is when you turn your opponent into a baby. A Friendship is when your character does something funny and a Brutality is when your character does a series of hits on your opponent and then your opponent explodes. If you don’t like games with blood and guts, you shouldn’t play this." May 7, 1997.

[6] Toby Simpson and Stephen Grand, "CyberLife: A biologically inspired architecture for complex gaming solutions", 97 CGDC Proceedings, pp. 763-770.

[7] See generally 97 CGDC Proceedings.

[8] In the sense of the term "experiment" that I explained in note 2 above.

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