Category Archives: Media Space

Environmental themes

Before things heat up in the classroom and online, I’ve decided to get through as much of Half-Life 2 as I can and then do some comparative writing on Galatea, Facade, and this graphic intensive shooter.

I find similar and interesting environmental themes between these works. In Half-Life I’m currently zapping zombies and tossing things around with a gravity gun.

Code Views

After spending so much time in the Flash Actionscript code view, I’ve returned to Dreamweaver to work on course materials. There was a time when I had to work in both code and design view in Dreamweaver, squinting and struggling when one didn’t match the other. What a change now.

Design view is still open but my comfort factor is at a much higher level. I don’t know what it is, but being buried in Actionscript has made all the difference in helping to conceptualize from HTML and CSS. Everything seems to make more sense. I see this as one of those elements so critical to learning something new and complicated. You work through the strange and mysterious, grinding your teeth, struggling, uncomfortable, and then find that all that work comes in handy later in other, more familiar territory, a territory that’s no longer the same. It’s like going back to Milton after ten years and so much in between and finding a poem that’s totally new yet familiar, more eloquent and inspiring yet still so glowing with what had brought you to it in the first place.

I will show you fear in a fistful of functions.

Facade and “realism”

Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern’s Facade has an interesting and compelling way of drawing you into the lives of Trip and Grace, the two principle character’s of their situational sim. Ultimately, the concept is wonderful, but it’s also tricky and frustrating. You play the role of an old friend come for a visit and find yourself in a wreck of a relationship. The problem with the relationship is simple: both Trip and Grace feel as if they are not living their “true” lives. Are they mere decorators; have they failed at designing their lives or take the right path? It could be your job to see them through to the truth, whatever that truth may be: is Grace an artist? Is Trip enlightened? Should they stay together or find freedom on their own? Are they lying to themselves and to you? Are these lies healthy or caustic?

The compelling part is to dig deep enough into Grace and Trip to find some resolution to their situation or to learn “the heart of the matter.” And so you keep coming back to their amazingly liquid environment to interact, to try different words, gestures, questions, and phrases. I keep returning with question as to the extent of the vocabulary the “system” will respond to. The frustration comes when you feel that you’re not being listened to or that the AI engine’s direction takes off without any ability to restrain it and that indeed words that you think are perfectly appropriate for response, such as “love” and “explain” seem to be unrecognizable. In a conversation with old friends–whatever the situation–you can direct comments or questions to an individual, but in Facade it appears that “directing” a question to Grace can lead to a “question” to Trip, one that you hadn’t intended (this kills the drama), and this makes for odd and flat and bewildering outcomes. So you close and come back and try something else.

In one run, I asked about a sculpture and Trip wondered why I was criticizing him. In another, I asked for water, breaking a scenario that would’ve led to an argument about making drinks. This led to a screaming match that seemed to come out of nowhere, causeless (a drama killer).

But I keep coming back. In another session, Grace finally came to the conclusion that she was an artist and that was that. But the realization was “flawed.” I didn’t generate “the outcome” and Grace continually referred to things that I had not remarked on, such as the view outside their apartment and some unstated agreement I had supposedly made on her behalf (against Trip). But I keep coming back.

In another scenario, playing the role of “Carol,” I attempted to comfort Grace but she seems to want to take this as flirtation. The AI forces a flirtation scenario so forcefully that Grace’s reaction is “no longer” dramatic but predictable (Grace will almost always assume that if you have chosen a woman’s persona at the start of the drama, Trip must have latent feelings for you) and this generative scenario, when it arises, makes you shake your head, visualizing the machine.

This is both the failure of the simDrama and its saving grace. I have it in my head that if I learn to be a “better” friend, then Trip and Grace will learn from my best wishes. Grace and Trip are strange, just like friends in need. And I think I should keep trying.

Does Facade generate dramatic outcomes that give a sense of closure? My answer is no. The eventualities don’t surprise, and the reactions of Grace and Trip to your interactions come off as programmed. As you interact you feel a part of the scene and not a part of the scene. You are there and not there. Still, this may be my mistake.

Facade is made for experiment, for different approaches, for answers beyond what may be obvious, but I have yet to fall into the propensity to snap or call Trip a butthead or Grace a lesbian just to see what will happen (which seems to be a favorite approach on discussion boards). I think this not only diminishes Andrew and Michael but also Grace and Trip. I don’t want to do this, although I made lots of mistakes at the start by unintentionally poking Trip in the eye before learning how to use the arrow keys to enter the apartment.

I come back to see if I can keep them together or learn something new from them (how have parents pressured them; is sex an issue?)–I think I did, by drawing Grace and Trip into a situation where one came to aide of the other and I as Brenda was dismissed (but always to the same eject)–but why couldn’t I have stayed and enjoyed some happier resolution in this specific case?

As a look into a “holodeck of sorts,” a term I use with inexactitude, Facade fascinates–the possibilities that this digital stage opens up are incredibly interesting. And I look forward to more approaches like this, but it will be a long hard road until a true sense of meaningful “interaction” surfaces so that an avatar, such as Al, can get beyond sensing the machine mind behind the characters with whom you interact.

I’m still looking for a real sense of “choice” and “causality,” for the mobility to “shape” the outcome, in Facade. Should I expect Grace and Trip to learn from “me”? At this point this “learning” has yet to surface. But I keep coming back. I wonder how deep I can go.

To enjoy the drama yourself, you can download Facade here.

Priorities

There are times when you have to trust that the government knows what it’s doing. When those times will come, I have no idea.

Various agencies, including the UN, have been crying for help in Niger and other places (including our own cities and schools) for long enough to have been heard by countries with the wherewithall to put the thumb to some portion of the cracking dike. The president is supportive of Intelligent Design (now that’s news), yet people who should know better can’t intelligently design some means of providing food to the hungry (and gifts of wonder to systems in bad need of repair). Let’s give tax dollors to profitable energy companies (how many times do I have to pay the power company?) so that they can profit more in my name. Sure, it’s a Christian country. When it’s easy.

Shame on us.

Short Forms

I had the nice pleasure of viewing Vicky Jensen’s oddly sensual short film Family Tree on Tuesday in the company of the great John Timmons.

The short film form, much like the short story, is intense and unforgiving. I can’t think of a portion of Jensen’s film that lagged, stumbled, or paused for something better to come along, such as a long car chase that “makes” the film worth it or that one dazzling shot that will make the audience go “wow, I’m glad I paid 8 bucks for this.” The film, which follows a couple’s family gathering and draws its energy from “those truths of family history and story” every “spouse” marries into and must learn to live with or understand, was consistently energetic and visually intense, every word, phrase, and transition necessary to the “whole.”

Photographic language or composition was important to the film’s sense of pace, scene, and narrative shape. One scene struck me in this context: the simple flow of water over vegetables from the tap in slow motion and the dance of “family” in the kitchen–the connection to flow (narrative), to watching for those things we often miss in the slightest human and phenomenological gesture–all this amassing more power than than motorcycles zooming through the canyons of a matrix.

What’s the point: the short form covers lots of ground in a short space. The form is not about “making it short”; it’s not about “attentions”; it’s about shaping narrative by shaping time.

When friends come to call

What’s this? Is this Jayne Pynes come calling at this weblog, commenting in this post? Yes, it is. And thus some background.

Jayne (and correct me if this is true–are you done with the Rhet/Comp Ph.D?) is one of my oldest and best friends back in El Paso, along with her husband, Pat, a potent historian and Ph.D candidate at the University of Texas at El Paso. The history goes farther back to Catholic church and other familiarities. All of us were very close in undergraduate and grad school and had lots of adventures. My wife and I still cringe at the image of a heavy ladder almost taking off Jayne’s legs during a paint job at our old house.

Moves have separated us and yet while separated we’ve maintained contact (somewhat) and hope to hook up again for more games in the future. It’s tough with children on both sides and growing families and lots of work to keep everyone busy. And now Jayne tells me she’ll be hitting the classroom at Coronado, one of our nemeses in high school.

Thanks for stopping by, Jayne. Come back and often.

Distance Ed headaches

In an online course, no matter how complex, material should be presented in such a way that the content and the experience of that content is augmented by the tech. Susan Gibb has this to say about her experience

Honestly, I wish I could give you the ID and password to show you how impossible these lectures are to listen to and learn anything from because of the poor quality audio. The text notes follow the lecture slides, but much of the audio explanation of the outline format is necessary to understand what is being presented. For example, the text may pose a question, but the answer is only in the audio portion, and the static makes it extremely annoying–I’m talking hours of lectures here–to listen to it all.

If this is the case, then I’d say she should get her money back, but then again, if the course is required, what is one to do: wait another semester, delay what may or may not be needed to close the degree? The again, even if she’s successful, what good use will the content be put through given the context. So much of education is like this: motions, degree plans, rather than important consideration of the overall importance of the parts.