Identity in Flux: Cinematic Destabilization in Narrative and Form

This thesis explores the current transitional moment in culture as cinema, identity, and a mediated society interact in a state of flux. My film project, Photostoria, was produced to addresses issues of memory, history, and identity in a digital, socially networked age, through the relationships of the characters/actors and through cinema\u27s unique aesthetic language. The film uses a convergence and remediation of media to reflect the confusion and destabilization of identity formation in cultural terms. Specifically, time travel narratives create a metaphor for the experience of displacement in a hypermediated society. Photostoria is analyzed by way of narrative theory, new media studies, genre theory, and cultural studies in order to expose the affect in on and offline identity as consumer and producer fade into one another. The transmedia and collaborative element of the project presented through the connected website and kickstarter campaign demonstrate the way that the narrative fluctuates between virtual and non-virtual worlds

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

Mosaic narrative a poetics of cinematic new media narrative

This thesis proposes the Poetics of Mosaic Narrative as a tool for theorising the creation and telling of cinematic stories in a digital environment. As such the Poetics of Mosaic Narrative is designed to assist creators of new media narrative to design dramatically compelling screen based stories by drawing from established theories of cinema and emerging theories of new media. In doing so it validates the crucial element of cinematic storytelling in the digital medium, which due to its fragmentary, variable and re-combinatory nature, affords the opportunity for audience interaction. The Poetics of Mosaic Narrative re-asserts the dramatic and cinematic nature of narrative in new media by drawing upon the dramatic theory of Aristotle’s Poetics, the cinematic theories of the 1920s Russian Film Theorists and contemporary Neo-Formalists, the narrative theories of the 1960s French Structuralists, and the scriptwriting theories of contemporary cinema. In particular it focuses on the theory and practice of the prominent new media theorist, Lev Manovich, as a means of investigating and creating a practical poetics. The key element of the Poetics of Mosaic Narrative is the expansion of the previously forgotten and undeveloped Russian Formalist concept of cinematurgy which is vital to the successful development of new media storytelling theory and practice. This concept, as originally proposed but not elaborated by Kazansky, encompasses the notion of the creation of cinematic new media narrative as a mosaic – integrally driven by the narrative systems of plot, as well as the cinematic systems of visual style created by the techniques of cinema- montage, cinematography and mise-en-scene

A Creation of Personal Piety: The Performance Art of Medieval Pilgrimage at Montserrat

This thesis begins with a reconceptualization of medieval pilgrimage as a performance art. The consideration of pilgrimage as an act of creation where the individual pilgrim (lay or ecclesiastical) serves as the artist and audience of the performance introduces an alternative way of looking at the space, interactions, and activities involved during the course of pilgrimage. The performances and pilgrimages are unique events and personal acts of piety that engage the actor and landscape in distinct ways, but also derives shape from the textual and cultural contexts tied to the specific site and time period where each performance occurs. Chapter One provides the theoretical background necessary to begin identifying pilgrimage as performance art through an analysis of David Davies’ performance theory. Chapter Two introduces and explores the sixteenth- and eighteenth-century literary sources that are the bases for the discussion of the foundation myths associated with Montserrat and the creation of the cult of the Virgin of Montserrat. Chapter Three explores Montserrat’s natural and architectural geography, the role of the physical presence of the pilgrimage site as a tie to the ascetic and eremitic heritage of Montserrat, and the setting’s link to the foundation myths. Chapter Four analyzes the mountain landscape utilizing arguments of liturgical drama to determine the degree to which a single narrative path exists during the enactment of pilgrimage and can be determined from Montserrat’s miracle texts. Chapter Five looks further in depth at the miracles to determine if a realistic rather than symbolic landscape should be considered when analyzing pilgrimage and how the landscape affects the pilgrim’s individual performance and identity

‘Chronovist’ conceptualisation method: exploring new approaches to structuring narrative in interactive immersive audio/visual media.

This research investigates whether the application of the initially literary concepts of Bakhtin’s ‘chronotope’ and ‘utterance’ to the field of interactive narrative audio-visual media can lead to the development of new approaches to structuring narratives. By extending Bakhtin’s concepts to the analysis of interactive immersive audio-visual media I analyse interactive immersive cinema as a first-person experience of a chronotope. Further, I propose to approach chronotope as a real physical space or environment and I supplement the concept of chronotope with an architectural concept of Benedikt’s isovist, expanding its definition from ‘location-specific patterns of visibility’ to a general term for calculating the distribution of a certain spatial or temporal attribute from a vantage point throughout the space. The result is a new conceptualisation tool, which I call ‘the dynamic isovist of a chronotope’, or a ‘chronovist’. The research discusses the implications of this tool for interactive immersive cinema authorship and shows how it can lead to new narrative paradigms (models). It maps the practical uses of such approaches for interactive authors, as well as for authors migrating to interactive i mmersive cinema from conventional (non-interactive) filmmaking, and suggests how existing interactive works by other artists can be ‘remixed’ using the chronovist approach. Using one of my feature films, ‘Dog’s Paradise’, which was completed while undertaking this research, I analyse narrative devices used in the film that were developed using the chronovist approach and suggest how the film could be further developed as an interactive cinema piece. The research also suggests how this conceptualisation tool can be extended to other ‘genres’ of interactive art and what its implications might be for future researchers and interactive authors