Hong Zhang
Digital Arts
hongzhang.chichi@googlemail.com
Abstract
I want to explore difference between immersion in narrative media and simplicity. It seems more information viewer received, the duration of viewer’s experience would be better. However, sometimes too much information might divert viewer’s attention or lead a wrong direction; minimum information might offer immersive experience with a broad space and a chance to create. The purpose of contrast is to prove there is another direction about immersion we can consider instead of saying which one is better.
Research question: How immersion in new narrative media and simplicity affect audience’s habit of thinking?
Key words: immersion, information, narrative, simplicity, minimalism
1. Introduction
Immersion: the action of immersing someone or something in a liquid. ∎ deep mental involvement [The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. 6 Feb. 2010 .]
There are no universally agreed definitions for immersion. It is audience’s subjective nature [P1 drowning in immersion]. Immersion in a virtual reality (VR) environment depends on many factors, including the audiences’ physical senses and mental states, technology involved and types of interaction involved. At the same time, immersion is wide, not just appears under the condition of high technique. It is a derivative analogical term from the physical experience of being dipped in water. I see a couple of different definitions of immersion. Combining these definitions and my points, I understand it to be a feeling of deeply engaged and being surrounded by a make-believe world. Whatever the world is imagined by participants or presented by advanced device. The most important quality is participants with a mental sense of being in an environment and forgetting the real world they are in. One of the most famous examples may be Don Quixote’s story.
He filled his mind with all that he read in them, with enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooing, loves, torments, and other possible nonsense; and so deeply did he steep his imagination in the belief that all the fanciful stuff he read was true, that. . .
–Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1605-1615
He got an immersive experience from a book, and totally focused on a world, which was in the book and created by him as well. However, it’s a period that story only could be presented by printing press or word of mouth. Nowadays, in the age of technology, people always associate immersion with the 3D technology, telepresence, video game and so on, these new medium which are filled with newer and newer technology. This is the mostly direction of modern age: we need faster and better computer configuration to process more complicated operation, to play more exciting video games; we need more functions in mobile phone which can solve all inconvenience and kill time with games when we go out, even hope it would be able to turn off oven when we forgot. New technologies are coming to the scene to simplify our lives, offer the enjoyment of sensual pleasure. Meanwhile, people might unable to solve something without computer, or gradually forget how to reflect and enjoy the process from simple, pure and natural things.
What I want to discuss in this paper is difference between immersion in new storytelling media and in a minimal artistic work. I can give a simple explanation now, immersion in a storytelling like reading a story by someone, immersion in a minimal artistic work like creating a story by you. I can’t say which one is better, or worse. There is no answer.
Then I will introduce the two types of immersion, and contrast their processes, objectives, advantages and disadvantages.
2. New Narrative Media and “Simplicity”
2.1 What is New Narrative Media?
What’s difference between storytelling media and “simplicity”? Let’s have a look at new narrative media. New Narrative Media is media as emergency of digital, computerized, networked and interactive technology with narrative, includes interactive multimedia, video games, cyberspace, and virtual reality. I select virtual reality as a representative of new narrative media, not only because of its complex and new technical requirement, but also it can be applied to games and interactive multimedia.
Virtual reality: A computer simulation of a real or imaginary system that enables a user to perform operations on the simulated system and shows the effects in real time. [The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2009, Houghton Mifflin Company.]
By using various sensors and input devices users can use their own movement to interact with the virtual environment. Many devices and applications have been designed to achieve the objective of virtual reality. I only take one example from a fictional story. The holodeck, comes from an American science fiction TV series Star Trek, is an enclosed room which is a kind of VR cave. The user interacts with the 3-dimensional simulated environment and characters in first person “subjective mode” which the user becomes a character in the fictional world. It’s a fictional facility in similar system with VR, but still more technology required than current VR technology is able to provide. The one of reasons I introduce it is its proponent Janet H. Murray whose review of the holodeck in her book Hamlet on the Holodeck will be cited as a view in this paper.
The holodeck, Marie-Laure Ryan, a prominent literary scholar on new and narrative media, stated that “the holodeck has been proposed by theorist as a model of what narrative could become in a multi-sensory, 3-dimensional, interactive virtual environment” (Ryan, 2001, p4).
2.2 What is “Simplicity”?
“simplicity”: the quality or condition of being easy to understand or do. ∎ the quality or condition of being plain or natural. ∎ a thing that is plain, natural, or easy to understand [The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com]
It’s really difficult to define “simplicity” in artistic works. The word is broad and artistic works of “simplicity” are included in many different art forms. In order to distinguish it from new narrative media and relate to my project, I will focus on minimalism especially digital minimalism and abstract film.
Minimalism describes abstract, geometric painting and sculpture executed in the United States in the 1960s. There is no agreement as to what kind of artistic work belongs to Minimal Art. David Batchelor writes as first sentence in his book Minimalism, “There is a problem with Minimal Art: it never existed” (p6). It may not seem like an appropriate art form to represent simplicity. However, Batchelor gives some samples of works which are identified as minimal art, and summarize the common ground of these works, “uncomplicated” (p8). That demonstrates the direction of minimalism is reasonable. The most important reason that I must choose an art form is theory or conclusion of minimalism will be able to support my point of view instead of the unfixed art of simplicity.
I want to focus on artistic work with much obvious visual content comparing with work with much less narrative or visual content. So I will discuss the merits and demerits of immersion in new narrative media and simplicity with the particular focus.
3. Immersion in New Narrative Media
3.1 Immersion in narrative
Immersion is the key to defining virtual reality, is the sense of being in an environment. So users should be physically based in a real environment but their mental environment is an illusionary one.
To achieve the effective immersion in VR, a life-sized virtual environment is a basic environment where a user must be able to explore in and be able to change perspectives seamlessly. The user should be able to view anything in the environment and the angle of view should change according to where the user’s eyes are. Not just visual component, a virtual environment experience must possess a wide range of information if it stimulates all your senses, such as audio component, sense of touch even sense of smell and taste. These components still contain hardware and software problems what a number of scientists and engineers looking into. Let’s put the technology problems aside, and suppose the holodeck could be made as a VR system. The holodeck requires whole fictional world must be created in very great detail as we said about virtual environment before. What does a number of information mean to the user? What kind of enjoyment will the user receive?
According to Murray, becoming a character in a fiction will be both a pleasurable and learning experience: “The Holodeck, like any literary experience, is potentially valuable in exactly this way. It provides a safe place in which to confront disturbing feelings we would otherwise suppress; it allows us to recognize our most threatening fantasies without becoming paralyzed by them” (1997, p25). In Star Trek, the crew members- we can call them the users- use the holodeck for relaxation and entertainment. Most use of VR is similar to that of the holodeck, including use of the future advanced VR system. The user can do everything they can do in virtual environment, to experience a totally different world. If VR is designed under a plot, the user may feel the joy, anger, fear, hope and grief in the first person mode. It seems like a video game, the user faces many situations and problems, and can react in the environment, hug, beat, run, hide and so on. The difference is the user can have more sensory experience and interactivity in the VR; one of common points is the user always being under the control of plot whatever the user interact or not. In VR, the user can interact with the virtual world, motivate and choose one of the plot branches and eventually will be led to different endings, but the user cannot create a character or landscape by them. Creators must design the images of the system.
Narrative of the system has a problem about leading users to a direction. It’s dangerous if users immerse in the VR environment.
“The ramifications of media systems whose representations are perceptually indistinguishable from their real-world counterparts is both exciting and terrifying—exciting because of the possibilities afforded by such systems to experience distant and nonexistent worlds, yet terrifying because of the blurring of distinction between representation and reality.” –Jonathan Steuer, 1993, p14
Immersive experience is the goal of VR system. That means more immersive users have the better. So the narrative plays an important role to lead users into a new world. Like the Holodeck, users can be a new character in the system to experience some fresh things.
On the bright side of VR, users can experience new world even new lives through their new characters; they can do and experience everything they cannot or dare not to do in real life, like flying freely in the sky, hunting in forest, swimming in the deep-sea world…… Immersion in these concrete virtual environments is really pleasure and instructive experience. The more detailed environment users experience, the truer they feel, the more immersion they get. However, there is not only one kind of fun the virtual environment offers.
Video games are similar to the holodeck, especially in narrative and function parts. They are just not so high-tech such as the interactivity and graphic processing. Some of today’s video games are extremely violent. With the development of computer technology, especially in graphics processing units, the average first person shooter features realistic graphics, physics, and weapons. Video games may lead to aggressive which is a consensus and that is why the ratings of age groups exist. Many video games only allow players to push buttons for interacting at present. What if the virtual reality technology be used in the violent video games? It’s no doubt more aggressive behavior will be led by the virtual violence. Through the advanced technology such as a data glove, the user may feel difference between cutting a body by utility knife or kitchen knife. The real experience is dangerous in this state. The more immersive experience users have, the easier concealed violent temper will be revealed. One of reasons video game violence has much more concern than television violence is the first-person mode which is subjective and self-centred, it lacks of an objective judgment.
3.2 Visual details of immersion in new narrative media
I examined above immersion in narrative theme term. Let’s look at effect of the concrete new narrative media on users’ habit of thinking. Recently many people are talking about James Cameron’s Avatar—just broke several box office records which had been hold for previous 12 years by Titanic which is a James Cameron’s film as well. I watched it twice. First time is traditional two-dimensional projection because tickets for 3-D had been sold out when I went to the cinema. I was impressed by the amazing world on Pandora. Every detail of these creatures on the moon deeply touched me. Then I saw the movie in 3-D. I was immersed in the vivid 3-D world created by James Cameron. It seemed like I experience all these exciting things with Na’Vi. Thanks for the detailed 3-D picture and most advanced technology. Without them, audience couldn’t have so immersive experience. Many reviews from imdb and a movie forum in Chinese I saw are mostly positive, they show that the movie communicates well in China as well.
However, let’s discuss it from another angle. When we are talking about how beautiful the Pandora is, how magnificent the Hallelujah Mountains is, do you realize they are both utter Cameron’s world? In an interview, Cameron said his inspiration was “every single science fiction book I read as a kid”, and it has same theme in several films. I believe that when he read these science fiction books, he had a unique image in his mind, that’s a visual imagination which makes the remarkable film. If Cameron’s first inspiration is from a science fiction movie, could he create so many independent details, wasn’t he visually influenced by the movie? It’s really hard to say. As everyone has experienced, if we watch a film adapted from a novel at first, it’s difficult to get rid of the characters or scene of the film when we read the novel. However, after reading a fresh story in text, we can have a number of visual imaginations. Too much visualized detail could limit audience’s imagination because the first impression of visualization is always stronger than text. When we read a book and immerse in it, we create a world that must be different from the world in a movie adapted from the book. I’m sure about that if we do a test of imagination, the result will be more interesting when inspired by text rather than by visual work. How boring the world would be if everyone’s imagination were fixed or influenced by other’s visual work? That’s not what we want to see. So through the creativity side, more information and more immersion are not better than the simplest narrative media.
Back to the interview, Cameron didn’t say anything like using a texture of a tree from a movie for reference. For an example, when we watch a film, you might find some similar narrative parts with other films but hard to find a similar picture in detail. These visual details must be created in a new way, or be distinguished from other movies at least. To new narrative media, the important position of a great story is not replaceable. All the most advanced technique, remarkable pictures serve for a perfect expression of a story. About many kinds of narrative media, the story itself has the most powerful ability to offer audience a remarkable experience. Like Cameron’s words, “returning to classic tales is a powerful thing…I’ll go to a “Transformers” film for the fun of seeing the spectacle but, personally, my soul craves a little more story, a little more meat on the bone and characters and that sort of thing.” (Los Angeles Times, 2009. James Cameron: Yes, ‘Avatar’ is ‘Dances with Wolves’ in space. . .sorta http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/08/james-cameron-the-new-trek-rocks-but-transformers-is-gimcrackery.html) [Accessed 29th Jan 2010].)
Not that these great details are not important, but they’re changeable. It is like imagining and creating a new visualization when I read a novel and it does not effect the immersion in it. Besides, if the characters or settings are designed to another visualization in a movie, I will enjoy and immerse the same as the original one.
4. Immersion in Simplicity
4.1 More kinds of immersion
Immersion can be thought of as the experience of someone becoming totally surrounded within and transformed by an environment. The “environment” contains reality, virtual reality and imagination. Immersion in imagination, such as daydreaming, dreaming while asleep and so on, is a kind of feeling of deeply engaged. For example, someone could be quite unaware of their current surroundings as they are waiting in queue and daydreaming about something. And a dream can seem vividly real through individual imagination. Oswald notes that some people can have dream experiences when fully awake and in more or less immediate contact with reality. (P2 Drowning in Immersion) So it’s entirely possible to be immersive as see minimalism works because they are reality and could be added imagination into it.
In virtual space, both historically and in the present, the illusion works on two levels: first, there is the classic function of illusion which is the playful and conscious submission to appearance that is the aesthetic enjoyment of illusion. Second, by intensifying the suggestive image effects and through appearance, this can temporarily overwhelm perception of the difference between image space and reality.
— P17, Oliver Grau, Virtual Art: From illusion to immersion
4.2 Immersion in minimal art
Feeling immersive from minimal art may be challenged. Minimal art is abstract, repetitious, simple and lack of expressive facture. Many viewers consider them as contributing factors to the boring. The viewers are bored when they see minimal art work, and might just quickly walk through these works. Basically, minimalism is not for people in a hurry, it needs to be treated slowly. According to Robert Morris, “Such work would undoubtedly be boring to those who long for access to an exclusive specialness, the experience of which reassures their superior perception.”(1990 cited in minimal art, p118) About the audiences feeling bored and unable to deal with the boredom of the new art, Susan Sontag gives an important saying, “There is, in a sense, no such thing as boredom. Boredom is only another name for a certain species of frustration. And the new languages which the interesting art of our time speaks are frustrating to the sensibilities of educated people.”(1990 cited in Minimal art, P118) Boredom is the audience’s state of mind, should not be used to describe the minimal art.
Actually, the abstraction, simplicity and minimalization become one of the reasons for immersion in simplicity for these audiences who really want to see the work. Because of all obvious information is reduced, the remaining information must be focused on by audiences, which is the essence of creator’s thinking. Sometimes, there are not only one understanding audiences have, we can immerse in the unknown imaginary ocean. From information aspect, the Figure 1 shows contrast of two types of immersion in new narrative media and simplicity. When we immerse in the new narrative media, we receive a large number of information, especially for visual side. It’s like creators did everything for audience, the only thing audience should do is being relax and watching it. Immersion in simplicity is a process audience creating information which is a thinking process.
Figure 1
Let’s discuss it through an example. The figure below is Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square (1915) which is one of the most famous creations of Russian art in 20th century. And the geometric abstractive painting is forerunner of Minimalism in 1960s. The whole painting is just a black square on white field. However, as we know, it’s far beyond that. In a 1920 letter to Mikhail Gershenzon, Malevich wrote: “This is the form of a new living organism… It is not painting; it is something else.” And he continued: “perhaps the black square is the image of God as the essence of his perfection on a new path for today’s fresh beginning.” During my investigation for the painting, I found other understanding, like “The square=feeling, the white field= the void beyond this feeling.” (http://www.csulb.edu/~karenk/20thcwebsite/438final/ah438fin-Info.00001.html) [Accessed 9th Feb 2010]
In fact, lay aside these critics’ reviews; let me talk about my feeling about the work. The black square is a deep desperation that will nearly spill over on the white field. When I first saw the painting, the black square is like the black hole pulling me into it, that was an amazing experience. It’s just a black square, but it seemed like contain a magical attraction which made me keep an eye on it. Malevich excluded all narrative, images and details from his painting, and reduced them to the pure shape. That gave me a feeling that the painter wanted to send out a number of information, which all be contained in the black square. I can’t help immersing in the simplest shape and color.
Kazimir Malevich, 1915, Black Square, [Oil on Canvas] (State Russian Museum)
This experience of this work reminds me another interesting project “Printed Eye (Light)” by Fujimoto Yukio. In this artwork, the time viewer watching it is very short, a few second. The viewer looks at a hole of the installation and their eyes are exposed to a weak strobe light of an image of word “light”. That’s it, the viewing is over. But the residual image of “light” is perceived by each viewer as a metaphysical experience created by “light”. Even they close their eyes, still see the image, and can’t get out of it. The word will disappear in four or five hours. The unusual experience is caused by such a simple but powerful work. The lingering feeling is just what the Black Square gives to me.
4.3 Immersion in text
“A stirring narrative in any medium can be experienced as a virtual reality because our brains are programmed to tune into stories with an intensity that can obliterate the world around us.” (Murray, 1977, p98) Just like the example of Don Quixote I quoted in the introduction, text can give immersive experience. These simple words can construct a virtual world that I can experience everything with the characters and even forget myself. Ryan describes the immersive reading experience: “The reader plunges under the sea (immersion), reaches a foreign land (transportation), is taken prisoner (being caught up in a story, being a captured audience), and loses contact with all other realities (being lost in a book)” (Ryan, 2001, P93). The immersion created from textual to visual simulation is not less than that in new narrative media. It’s a virtual reality in my head, a totally mental absorbed in the story.
Like many other book fans, through textual world, I immerse myself in the creations of my own vivid imaginative experience. It’s a unique picture in my mind, not a copy of other’s imagery. I can create my fictional characters, landscapes, and a rich sensory environment from text. It’s the most exiting experience that reading offers.
Conclusion
I compared immersion in two different types of media. And discuss different types of immersion especially on the information aspect. I found that much information might affect the immersive experience and habits. And the effect is not positive. What we are experiencing more and more is neither the only direction nor the best for audience. It’s like the position of technology for life.
Technology can simplify and make easier for our life, at the same time, it makes us unable to solve problems without it. When we immerse in the new narrative media, we are facing problems in the same way. When more and more complicated details prepared for us, we are losing ability to create and think by bit.
As a consequence, our visual habits are becoming more superficial as we strive to absorb the most important information as quickly as possible. A study of the perceptual habits of Google users showed that most users take the time to look at the first three links in a Google search. But from the sixth link, half of the test subjects stopped their investigation. The attention span is only limited to a few top listings. But as we know, besides relevance, sequence of the search results depends on page views and advertising fee which are not needed by Google users.
In this age of information flood, we should reflect, choose and solve more. Otherwise, we will only able to attend to and remember a limited amount of information.
Bibliography
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Battcock, Gregory. Minimal Art: a critical anthology, University of California Press, 1995.
Colpitt, Frances. Minimal Art: The Critical Perspective, UMI Research Press, 1990.
Maeda, John. The Laws of simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life), The MIT Press, 2006.
Stocker, Gerfried, and Christine Schöpf. Simplicity: the art of complexity, Hatje Cantz, 2006.
Grau, Oliver. Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion, Massachusetts Institude of Technology, 2003
Murray, Janet H. Hamlet on the Holodeck: the future of narrative in cyberspace, third printing, 2000, The Free Press, 1997.
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Ryan, Marie-Laure. Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media, the Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
Ryan, Marie-Laure. Beyond Myth and Metaphor – the Case of Narrative in Digital Media, The International Journal of Computer Game Research, Volume 1, issue 1, July 2001
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In Chinese, there is a proverbs “海纳百川(all rivers run into sea)” which describes the sea refusing no river. And we use it to describe something can contain lots of different types, and sometimes to describe a person who is magnanimous, tolerant and forgiving.
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