A Seeing Place – Connecting Physical and Virtual Spaces

In the experience and design of spaces today, we meet both reality and virtuality. But how is the relation between real and virtual construed? How can we as researchers and designers contribute to resolving the physical-virtual divide regarding spaces? This thesis explores the relations between the physical and the virtual and investigates ways of connecting physical and virtual space, both in theory and practice.\ua0The basic concepts of the thesis are Space, Place, and Stage. The central idea is that the stage is a strong conceptual metaphor that has the capacity to work as a unifying concept relating physical and virtual spaces and forming a place for attention, agreements, and experience – A Seeing Place. The concept of seeing place comes from the Greek word theatre, meaning a “place for seeing”, both in the sense of looking at and understanding.\ua0In certain situations, the relations between physical and virtual spaces become important for users’ experience and understanding of these situations. This thesis presents seven cases of physical-virtual spaces, in the field of architectural and exhibition design. The method of these studies is research by design. The discussion then focuses on how each setting works as a stage, and how conceptual metaphors can contribute to the connection between physical and virtual spaces.\ua0Building upon the explorations and experiments in different domains, the thesis contains a collection of seven papers concerning the relations between physical and virtual space in different contexts outside the world of theatre. These papers range from more technical about Virtual Reality (design of networked collaborative spaces) to more conceptual about staging (methods in interaction design) and virtual space (using a transdisciplinary approach).\ua0The results of those studies suggest that the Stage metaphor of a physical-virtual space can contribute to the elucidating of relations between physical and virtual spaces in number of ways. Conceptually, the stage metaphor links together the semiotic and the hermeneutic views of space and place. And, from a practice-based perspective, A Seeing Place view opens up the way to creating contemporary spaces and resolving the physical-virtual divide

Playing with Play: Machinima in the Classroom

“So, machinima is really a genre, and not a medium?” The students in my Digital Media and Rhetoric course are grappling with both how to define machinima and how to evaluate whether one is “good” or not. I frustrate them by refusing to provide a definitive answer to this and other similar questions they have asked about the form. This intentional frustration continues as, after watching a few examples they ask me what grade I would give those machinima, if they were turned in for this assignment. Rather than providing a simple answer I redirect, asking them what criteria they would use to evaluate machinima and how the examples we’ve seen in class stand up to this scrutiny. At the beginning of this particular unit, when I announced that we wouldn’t be writing another research paper, they were exuberant. Now, however, the complexity of the task before them is slowly unveiling itself. While a majority of these students are gamers, few of them have experience in video production. None of them have previously looked at fan culture as a source of meaning and knowledge production. We are in unfamiliar territory, and they are getting restless

Ludotopia

Where do computer games »happen«? The articles collected in this pioneering volume explore the categories of »space«, »place« and »territory« featuring in most general theories of space to lay the groundwork for the study of spatiality in games. Shifting the focus away from earlier debates on, e.g., the narrative nature of games, this collection proposes, instead, that thorough attention be given to the tension between experienced spaces and narrated places as well as to the mapping of both of these

Learning and Teaching in the Non-Formal Virtual World: A Multimodal Study of Learning-Teaching Interaction in the Virtual World of Schome Park

Recently, there has been growing interest in the possibility of utilizing three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds, such as Second Life (SL), as a platform for education. This micro-ethnographic investigation based on video-recorded data, and conducted employing participation observation, explores the way in which the processes of guided participation, are negotiated multimodally, while accomplishing problem-solving tasks, in Schome Park (i.e., a teen grid located within SL). The study reveals that the experts structured novices' efforts and participation by employing strategies such as providing directing instruction, subdividing the task, and demonstration. However, it was found that there was a lack of affordances in order to be able to view demonstration. As a result, the significant aspect of learning that occurs through observation and active participation, or through guided or intent participation, has been demoted in the SL environment. Additionally, it was found that the constraints of technology restricted participants use of speech/voice effectively in the process of pedagogic task accomplishment. Therefore, typed-writing and Netspeak (i.e. hybrid language having features of speech, writing and electronic mediated properties), actions and visual images were the most frequently used modes used to enhance the processes of learning and teaching. Finally, the study highlights some issues and challenges encountered while conducting ethnographic study in a 3-D graphical environment, and also presents some advantages, and limitations, of conducting research using Avatars

Telling interactive stories: A practice-based investigation into new media interactive storytelling

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Telling Interactive Stories is a practice-based thesis, which theoretically and practically probes the field of digital fictional interactive storytelling. The submission takes the form of the interactive cinema installation Crossed Lines together with a written element of the thesis which interrogates historical, contextual, theoretical, technical and critical aspects of the field of interactive narrative using new media. Crossed Lines is an original fictional interactive AV piece, amalgamating multiform plots, a multi-screen viewing environment, an interactive interface and an interactive story navigation form. The installation tells the stories of nine characters in a way that the viewer can constantly explore and switch between all nine forms, using a telephone keypad and handset as an interface, and can simultaneously observe all characters’ presence between the nine remote locations. Several research methodologies are utilised to analyse and evaluate the installation. Quantitative methodologies include the use of user tracking systems where the computational output of the installation provides measurements and timings of user choices and behaviours. Qualitative methodologies include theoretical and visual analysis, and in depth analysis of user responses using interviews, questionnaires, video recordings and cuttingedge eye-tracking technologies

<i>Queer Psycho</i> and the <i>He Circus</i>: Applying Queering, Magic, and More-than-Human Theories to Immersive Visual Story Worlds as an Antidote to Late Capitalism

Abstract Two immersive visual story worlds (IVS), Queer Psycho and HE Circus, are at the center of this article, one made by each of us. Individually we found our works necessitated the development of new frameworks for IVS construction, namely (1) Brechtian a-effect and queering, and (2) magic and more-than-human theories. These new framings were needed to realize our desire to use IVS to create spaces of active resistance from psychological harm imposed by political and ableist structures designed with rigid ways of seeing the world through straight/neoliberal lenses. When both story worlds and their frameworks are viewed side-by-side, they lay bare the prejudices and normative framings of IVS software and industries. Thus, the outline of these new framings with this article makes an original contribution to the field by calling into question those who are designing IVS software and typical frameworks by asking who and what they are benefiting, and proposing alternatives to illustrate how neither should be considered fixed. Finally, the topic of each IVS, that of Hitchcock's Psycho and neoliberal structures of contemporary higher education, offer critiques of systems which serve to highlight our arguments.</jats:p