Question 1.3

Narrative, interactivity and play – how does Run Lola Run reflect these concerns? How does this relate to Manovich’s concept of transcoding?

If I'm not wrong, the the basis of the module is to understand, basically, how Cultural layers (Narrative) are interpreted by Computer layers (Play) in Interactive media, how their relationship is intrically related and both elements influencing the each other. Our reality is affected (sometimes distorted!) by the visual media we encounter daily in adverts, TV, blog whoring, and when we create our own media, video taping or taking photos, our personal beliefs and what we experienced in viewing media is manifested in that video/photo.

The movie is one story retold in many different pathways and endings, as in a game where you have the reset and load buttons available if the outcome is undesirable. What is problematic is in reality there is no second chance for us: if we die, we cannot reload to the crucial bits in past and expect things to change for the better. It is a narrative told in the game-play interactive form (as exemplified in the deliberate badly-animated scene deliberately to inform us of the presence of interactive media – as a movie-goer you are reminded over and over again of how unreal the movie you are watching is. Most movies are linear in its story-telling and aim to draw you into their world for 1/ ½ hours). Like Lola and Alice in Wonderland, are we caught in the never-ending journey down the Staircase and Rabbit hole, mere characters caught up in something bigger than ourselves, our actions part of a absurd human belief that we can control our lives?

What is useful are the beginning lines: what if every question is the same and every answer therefore the same? What if our lives are immovable as much as we think they would be different if I had left a split second earlier, if the person I met on the road didn’t curse at me? What if either way (as in first and second ending) I will never get to live Happily Ever After with my lover? The question of fate and chance is deeply addressed in the movie. Another example: what if as in an RPG whatever choice you make when face with a troop of bandits

(A) offering them money or
(B) threatening them to back off

is useless and still provokes the bandits to attack? Our pseudo virtual selves are under the mercy of the game master/creator to follow a certain storyline... as if an external audience is watching on and he needs an exciting plotline. What if we are all puppets in a masquerade, duped into believing the reality of choice when there is actually little choice, and little meaning to that choice? (personal note: what if I was meant to end up with my husband, no matter how different I chose to be it was programmed right from the start, at my birth to marry him?) In the movie, this is seen as the father’s friend was fated to crash his car in ALL 3 scenarios and this always involved the burly muscled men.

On the other hand, every choice elicits a response. The fundamental principles of physics: an action is followed by a reaction, and any small decision, action, speech can make a decisive impact on the future of our lives, controllable and uncontrollable. If for example, Lola hadn’t been tripped by the boy the second scenario, she wouldn’t been limping and that single event shifted time and changed everything else. Watching the movie made me remember "The Butterfly Effect" (absolutely gorgeous portrayal of how little things affect big events, but even then the outcome is unexpected and might turn out worse!) and the analogy of the butterfly flapping in one part of the world contributing to the formation of a tornado in another part.

Loved the bedroom scenes where the lovers are conversing, suspended in a trance-like, surreal haze after sex. The stuff dreams are made of, when you’re lying to your partner whilst lying together, one party is testing the other with questions, and you reply in a light, teasing fashion, and neither person expects any seriousness to come out of the conversation. The notion of not knowing what you have till it’s gone (scenes appear after their deaths) and the effect is chilling. Like it doesn’t matter what your answer is, the banality of the conversations (the irony of the situation when they talk about death). I ask “do you love me?” though I know you will always give me a "yes". Yet despite the futility of asking you I cling onto the importance to that question, choosing to ask anyway. Love is after all, a game, one which I play within the boundaries of faithfulness, and occasionally daring to push beyond those restrictions and still hope to win.

Question 1.2

Compare the differing views of Manovich and Crawford on the definition of "interactivity", with reference to your own experience of interactive media systems.

To summarise Manovich: interactivity is just another keyterm used to describe "the modern desire to externalise the mind" when it has always been done in old media such as film, painting, sculpture. New media in computer form is already interactive according to his five principles. Furthermore interactivity is a mythical concept: although there is the option of variability in removing discrete elements according to our liking (deleting film scenes without affecting the rest of movie) and changing the hair colour of my hero in Baulder's Gate, there still exists restricted boundaries, limited choices which we can work with in play. -->Paradoxical nature of interactive media.

My Problem: to him comic books are not interactive because the first principle already doesn't apply (numerical rep.) Also Lone wolf stories (did I get the name right?) and Famous Five interactive mysteries, which are not old forms of media, surely, and involve some form of narrative where the plot line, a mixture of new and old media, both programmed by writer and the customized choices made by the reader.

To summarise Crawford: Interactivity is where you have listening, thinking and speaking between two actors or purposeful creatures who have the ability to do all three. Remove one component and it doesn’t count as an interactive process

My problem: films and books are not interactive because there is no exchange of ideas between the director and viewer, writer and reader. I can use the same example of the stories where you "choose your adventure". Furthermore, I feel movies are interactive especially for contemporary ones where the ending is left hanging and unanswered, and it is up to you for personal interpretation as to what really happened next. Good movies do provoke thinking too. Some challenge conventional story-telling chronological structure as in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", an excellent mish-mash of the past interspaced with the present as reflecting the erasure of memories from the most recent to the least. The speaking comes AFTER, when you converse with your friends about how great the movie was, complimenting its greatness on forums, discussing what made it so great, writing to the director to tell him to make more great movies etc. I do understand why it is only semi-interactive, cos as the audience you’re just passive onlookers, intruders into the privacy of characters’ lives. People are questioned to think, but whether they do is another matter. Same with plays and interpretive dance. (personal note: irritating books like Melmoth the Wanderer and The little friend have disatisfactory, mysterious endings despite sucking you dry into narrative after 600 pages)

I like neither explanation of the term interactivity! If I were to choose the least worst one, I'd have to go with Crawford because I agree with the definition but in a looser term where the 3 pronged process is not necessarily restricted between you and the media.

3 questions. 3 answers. But what if every question is the same? Every question leading to the same answer?

Ok, down to work. The second reading was TOUGH! It took me the entire weekend to perservere through the reading, ouch baby, ouch, but somehow I muddled through, and this is my two cents worth from the perspective of one who's never done computer programming (and nearly died reading all the technicalities and computer terminology). I've tried to simplify the extremely scary chunks into simpler and more comprehensible explanation, here goes:

Question 1.1
Choose an example that you consider to be “new media”, and describe it in terms of Manovich's five principles. What implications do these principles have for narrative and play within interactive media?

I chose Handphone games e.g. playing golf on my motorola

- Numerical representation: the distance the ball travels is calculated by the angle and power of the stroke I choose PLUS the weather conditions; following Manovich's logic the computer component of the golf game itself makes it numerically representable - the graphics are composed of pixels and the user's input (pressing buttons to adjust projectile of ball) is actually all subject to mathematics and manipulation of formulae. Now would probably be the time to admit I never did physics in O levels...groan...

- Modularity: Each game is different, yet same. I suppose this is rather limited in the game because I can't exactly modify the little itsy-bitsy components of game to play better. But I bet there is something in the game that makes its separate, independent parts conjoined althought "stored indepdently" and therefore modular. Still, there's standardization in terms of how the VR Aileen golfer looks like - hideous - and I can save the unfinished game when have phonecall without the game being affected (parts stored separately?)

- Automation: This is probably the most obvious principle in the game. I can play against computer opponents in the competition rounds to gain money, which in turn gives me access to buying better golf equipment. The AI technology versus Aileen's brain is not working out so well for this game, it is so effective in "pretend(ing) to be intelligent" I can't get past the first round. Anyway, I'm assuming the AI has something to do with the Java logo that pops up everytime the game starts up.

- Variability: There are uncountable versions of golf games I can possibly play. Sometimes the first stroke goes into the water, or the sand trap. Sometimes it is the eighth or twentieth stroke. But the permutations are mind boggling because there is no way every game is the same unless I somehow manage to get my ball to land on the exact spot at every hit. The variables include having the freedom to make it My Own Unique Game and adjust the angle of stroke, the golf club used, and even uncontrollable weather factors - sometime raining, sometimes dry. Also, user customization is seen in me turning the annoying music off.

- Transcoding: hmm..playing golf on handphone would affect playing golf in real life? I suppose after playing in Virtual Reality too long, if I actually strike lottory and get a chance to step onto a golf course to play real golf, I might see things in computer blinkers and translate the same strategies for winning to reality when it might not work. I might overlook that golfing with your non AI opponents involves much more psychological manipulation, such as letting him win a little before I trash him in complacency, or other means like bribing his cabby, casually sneezing before they swing or slipping a laxative into their drink before the game.

Implications
Converting golf culture to golfing game involves the element of play where we are led to believe we have a choice in the outcome but there are actually limited options. Does this mean there are really limited options in a golf game? (probability of killing a bird in reality is almost nill but it is not zero) Put in larger terms, does this mean life choices are really limited? Manovich suggests the Myth of Interactivity where in a new media, we are not interacting with the computer and each branch we choose is actually based on "pre-programmed, objectively exisiting assumptions". Which means... the game designer controls me through the game, instead of the other way round! Creepy.

Right. Not sure if this made any sense at all.