Narratives within immersive environments and worlds have many concepts surrounding them and how they are used. Narrative structures using immersive techniques are so incredibly powerful and can have a huge impact on the audience. Due to this form of storytelling being so powerful it can permit a new way of demonstrating or simulating real world issues either through projection, documentaries or so forth.
These can be done by one technique to multiple applied techniques such as specific lighting effects that can tell a story or can add visually to a narrative to demonstrate some of the beauty and destruction of the world. Other ways would be within technologies such as VR and making 'Presence' in order for the participant to gain the message of the story and connect to it.
In order to do this however there are academics that would allow us to understand how interactive works with narrative structure as well as the idea that there could be a chance that they could go against one another. (Koenitz et al., 2015) Thus suggesting making an impactful statement to engage with our target audience we have to consider how much interactivity would impact the narrative and how having little interactivity could break the illusion of immersion. Alongside this to form any concept into an impactful story whether it would be covering a real life problem to pure fiction there are a range of technique that goes into keeping the illusion of immersion and it can often be dependant on what you are trying to portray as when it comes to engage within immersion the use of ‘colour, touch, music, spectacle, light, and darkness to confound expectations, flattening space through animation and abstraction, or heightening the illusion of three dimensions’ (Chrissie Iles and Museum, 2016) can be highly important.
There are other important theorists, that I reserached into, surrounding narrative and having these different ideas of what makes up immersive narrative to this day, each suggesting their own take on different aspects of storytelling:
Often fiction is the most enticing aspect of stories, 'Modern literacy criticism was slow to discover the importance of the concept of fiction' (Grishakova and Ryan, 2010);
'Narrative proliferation: a world with many stories' (Hatavara et al., 2015);
Interactive “branching” narrative episodes (Engelbrecht, 2017);
Technoculture (Lister, 2010);
'interaction can be employed in branching comic designs to narrow down focus in or around certain panels or groups of panels.' (Andrews and Baber, 2014).
Studies of such hypermedia have typically analyzed their user experiences. However, there has been relatively little exploration of the impact such presentations could have upon the comprehension of stories, and the implications this may have for the design of branching comics, or other interactive stories and visualizations. (Andrews and Baber, 2014)
Case Study: Layers of Fear - VR (Bloober Team, Asher Studi os and Incuvo, 2023)
Layers of Fear is all about art within art, distorting reality whilst uncovering the story behind the twisted mind experiencing the grief, addictions and abstractions of life. Dealing with the fears within this game engaging the audience with the twisted tales and demonstrating that even the most convoluted and haunting tales must come to an end. The unfinished canvas becomes used. The stage and book always have an ending even if it is not the one you want or expect. This game is a narrative-driven psychological horror experience nearing the end of its story, its curtain call, and its final chapter.
Layers of fear is specifically designed to provoke fear using reality manipulations and creating paranoia within its player. It distorts the world around the player making the immersion more realistic by making the audience not know what is reality within the environment that they are in. The game manipulates fear, grief and addiction (in VR) as an immersive experience using its stylised narrative to show an extreme demonstration of a twisted, killer mind after experiencing great loss, tragedy and pain.
VR is a good way of adding to the concept of using senses to enhance emotion and using all senses could completely immerse a participant, even though as of right now applying all the main senses (DeStefano, 2019) is difficult to do outside of an experimental or staged environment. However, that has not stopped creatives from exploring the effects of the concept and how it could be done to create immersive engagement for the participant and adds to a storied environment (Chadwhich, 2023).
Conclusion:
In closing this there are many different ways of presenting a story and many theorists around the different concepts surround interactivity, narrative and immersion. Using these different ideas of presenting immersion we could create whole stories that provoke and use emotion or the senses to manipulate the audience into experiencing stories, histories or events they would not have previously experienced.
References:
Andrews, D.M. and Baber, C. (2014). Visualizing interactive narratives. In: Human Factors in Computing Systems. [online] Association for Computing Machinery. doi:https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557296.
Big Bad Bear and Netflix (2023). Arcane Season 2 - Date Announcement Trailer. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://youtu.be/YDBrBA0HZKE?si=XP_M_aVp0QcsNOP_ [Accessed 13 Dec. 2023].
Bloober Team, Asher Studios and Incuvo (2023). Layers of Fears. [online] layersoffears.com. Available at: https://layersoffears.com/.
Chadwhich, C. (2019). RACING THE KING TIDE | Adaptation to Sea Level Rise. [online] Racing The Tide. Available at: https://racingthekingtide.com/ [Accessed 8 Dec. 2023].
Chadwick, C. (2023) Interview: Immersion and Senses | Conducted by Kieran Lei, Konrad Skubis, and Xuduo Zhang. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kkW3TI86flbah79ZAweXWygft3pT9e5q633ad-IAF5s/edit [Accessed 8 Dec. 2023].
Chrissie Iles and Museum, W. (2016). Dreamlands: Immersive cinema and art, 1905-2016. [online] New York [New York] Whitney Museum Of American Art. Available at: https://whitney.org/exhibitions/dreamlands [Accessed 4 Dec. 2023].
DeStefano, P. A. (2019). Immersion 101: Senses. [online] Tainted Dragon Inn. Available at: https://tainteddragoninn.com/immersion-101-senses [Accessed 8 Dec. 2023].
Engelbrecht, C. (2017). Interactive Storytelling on Netflix: Choose What Happens Next. [online] About Netflix. Available at: https://about.netflix.com/en/news/interactive-storytelling-on-netflix-choose-what-happens-next [Accessed 2 Dec. 2023].
Google (n.d.). Title: Feyrazzle Layers Of Fear GIF - Feyrazzle Layers Of Fear Ttv ... [online] www.google.com. Available at: https://images.app.goo.gl/n64jk4TDniLbHdZE9 [Accessed 13 Dec. 2023].
Google Images (n.d.). Title: The Last Guardian Movie Adaptation Rumored to Be in the Works. [online] www.google.com. Available at: https://images.app.goo.gl/9x2Wc5c8U52JqjkCA [Accessed 13 Dec. 2023].
Grishakova, M. and Ryan, M.-L. (2010). Intermediality and storytelling. Berlin ; New York: De Gruyter.
Hatavara, M., Hyvärinen, M., Mäkelä, M. and Mäyrä, F. (2015). Narrative Theory, Literature, and New Media. Routledge.
Koenitz, H., Ferri, G., Haahr, M., Sezen, D. and Sezen, T.I. (2015). Interactive digital narrative : history, theory and practice. London And New York: Routledge.
Lister, M. (2010). New media : a critical introduction. London ; New York: Routledge, , Cop.
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