SGER - The Grammar of Immersive Interactive Narrative

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This project will pioneer a technical, social, and aesthetic grammar for fully immersive interactive installations. This project will identify breakthroughs in the grammar of interactivity analogous to the development of cross-cutting in cinema, which transformed cinema from a diversion to a powerful communication medium; or the introduction of hyperlinking to digital texts on the Internet, which transformed reading from a passive linear activity to an interactive nonlinear one. The intellectual advances will include: ? New systems and technologies for full-body interaction with projected interactive installations that go beyond simple physical cause and effect, including real-time computer vision analysis of viewers? body language, culture and mood; and analysis of large crowds? movements. ? High-level principles of this medium for effective communication. Communication will be explored in the educational (science themes) and the cultural (art and humanity themes). ? Human-Computer Interface analysis of immersive interactive media, including a comparison with passive media and studies with psychologists for independent analysis (pending human subjects review). The broader impact is the development of a new medium which is as powerful as cinema, and yet where the viewers remain aware of themselves and the people around them as active participants in a mutually created narrative story. This medium may become the dominant means for education and communication in public institutions as the internet subsumes traditional "kiosk" and "wall text" installations.