Telling Stories

1. TELLING STORIES
TECHNOLOGY & MEDIA
DREW DAVIDSON

2. A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME

3. STORIES
• Fairytales, Folktales, Myths, Legends, Fables
• Narratives, Fictions, Tales, Dramas
• Once upon a time… Everyday… But one day… Because of this…
Until finally… And ever since then… The moral of the story is…
- Kenn Adams

4. (QUICK) HISTORY OF STORYTELLING
• Oral (Performance, Music, Art, Dance
• Drawing (Cave, Rock
• Writing (Tattooing, Wood, Clay, Parchment, Canvas, Paper
• Mass Printing (Books, Newspapers
• Analog (Photo, Radio, Film, Television
• Digital (Computers, Internet, Mobile, Social

5. STORIES & HISTORY
• Humans are Hard-Wired for Stories
• Stories are *Not* History
• Seduction of Narrative, Not Understanding Reality of Events
• Emotional Impact and False Sense of Comprehension
Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form.
- Jean Luc Godard
History is written by the victors.
- Winston Churchill

6. TECHNOLOGY & MEDIA
• Similar but Different
• Technology More of a Tool
• Media More about the Making of Meaning

7. STORYTELLING, TECHNOLOGY, MEDIA
• Writing
• Printing
• Radio
• Film
• Television
• Internet

8. STORIES
• Creativity
• Technology - Media
• Engagement
• Exploration
The story is not in the plot but in the telling.
- Ursula K. Le Guin

9. STORYTELLING & COMPUTERS
• Writing
• Text
• Reading

10. WRITING
• Programming
• Binary
• Code
• Writing
• Applications
• Storage
• 1s and 0s

11. TEXT(S)
• Documents
• Webpages
• Images
• Movies
• Games
• Etc.

12. INTERFACE
• Input and Output
• On Screen, In Space
• OS
• GUI
• Designed Experience

13. READING
• Hardware & Software
• New Media Literacies
• Interactivity
• Multimedia
• Social
• Immersion

14. (NEW) STORYTELLING
• Agency
• Interactivity
• Across Media
• What Stories Are and Can Be

15. (NEW) STORYTELLING
• Director, Writer, Painter, Choreographer, Curator, Artist,
Programmer, Designer
• Co-Author, Reader, Guest, User, Theater Goer, Movie Goer,
Museum Visitor, Player

16. NEW STORIES
• Performances
• Problems
• Promises

17. PERFORMANCES
• Agency
• Reading, Writing
• Compelling, Engaging

18. PROBLEMS
• Spoilers
• FAQs
• IP
• Messy

19. PROMISES
• Ownership
• Read/Write
• Fan Fiction
• Avatars

20. STORY JOURNEY
• New “Writing” & “Reading”
• Across Mediums
• Interactive
• Engaging

21. ACROSS ALL MEDIA

22. HOW?

23. FINDING MEDIA
• Social Thinking Skill
• Books, Music, Video, Games, etc
• City or College

24. INTERNET
• Search
• Recommendation, Aggregation
• Long Tail
• Persuasive Profiling
• So Much

25. POST-SECRET WORLD
• No Secrets
• Personally
• Globally

26. 3 POST-SECRET ASPECTS
• Personal Privacy & Oversharing
• 24/7 Pop Culture Media Coverage
• Spoilers Everywhere

27. PERSONAL PRIVACY & OVERSHARING
• Share Personal Info
• Post Secrets, Pictures, Videos
• Everyday Star

28. SPOILERS
• Wikipedia
• IMDB, GameFAQs
• Web

29. 24/7 COVERAGE
• Pop Culture
• Previews
• Demos
• Blogs

30. SNACKABILITY
• How Convenient and Easy it is to Eat a Snack
• “Twelve Easy Pieces” NY Times 2006
• “Snack Culture” Wired 2007

31. STORIES & SNACKS
• You Can’t Eat Just One
• Just One More…

32. SNACKABLE MEDIA
• Characteristics
• Design

33. CHARACTERISTICS
• Time
• Complete Part of Experience
• Micro/Macro Challenges/Rewards
• Reduce Friction

34. SNACKABLE DESIGN
• Bite-Sized Story
• Chunking
• Flow
• Fun

35. STORIES & MEDIA
• Across & Between
• Text
• Audio/Visual
• Interactive

36. STORIES ACROSS MEDIA
• Connected
• Continued
• Collected

37. STORY EXPERIENCE

38. TRANSMEDIA STORIES
• Storytelling across Multiple Forms of Media
• Multimodal Representations
• Various Entry Points
• Social Authorship
• Franchise, Marketing, Native

39. ACROSS MEDIA
• Books, Comics, Movies, TV, Web,
Games, Mobile, Toys, Music, etc.
• Goals & Glue
• Transparency, Ubiquity
• Ethics, Literacy
• Tentpoles & Rabbit Holes
• Story Tree

40. GOALS & GLUE
• Threads Across & Between Media
• Connections
• Throughline
• Purposes for Deeper Engagement

41. TRANSPARENCY | UBIQUITY
• Fitting into Our Lives
• Distributed All around Us
• Easy to Use
• Cloud Media
• Snackable

42. ETHICS | LITERACY
• Privacy & Freedom
• IP & CC
• Open Source
• Read/Write
• Attention/Cognition

43. TENTPOLE
• Central Media Experience
• Supports All Other Media

44. RABBIT HOLE
• Entry Point into Fictional Universe
• Down into the Story

45. STORY TREE
• Trunk
• Heart of the Tale
• Branches
• Inter-related Threads

46. EXPERIENCE
• Critical Creation
• Ultimate Design Goal
• For the User, Player, Guest…
• Interest Curves, Flow,
Procedural, Interactivies

47. INTEREST CURVES, FLOW, PROCEDURAL, INTERACTIVITIES

48. INTEREST CURVES

49. FLOW

50. PROCEDURAL

51. INTERACTIVITIES

52. ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGY

53. VR/AR/MR/XR & STORIES
• Immersion
• Agency
• Spatial & Physical

54. IMMERSION
• Embodied
• Within the Story
• 360

55. AGENCY
• Choices
• Decisions
• Impacts

56. SPATIAL & PHYSICAL
• Mobility
• Involved
• Perspective

57. AI/ML & STORIES
• Adaptive
• Co-Creative
• Replicative
• Restrictive

58. ADAPTIVE
• Real-Time
• Flow
• Pacing, Ending(s)

59. CO-CREATIVE
• Assisting
• Simplifying
• Enhancing

60. REPLICATIVE
• Mimicry
• Fake Reality?
• A/B

61. RESTRICTIVE
• Data
• Limitations, Biases
• Similarities, Differences

62. ATTENTION & STORIES
• Sensors
• Analytics
• Recommendations
• Choices

63. SENSORS
• Eye Tracking
• Galvanic Skin Response
• Heartbeat

64. ANALYTICS
• Algorithms
• Emotional
• Persuasive

65. RECOMMENDATIONS
• Trends
• Profiles
• Connections

66. CHOICES
• Illusion
• Abundance
• Indirect Control
• Autoplay

67. HUMANS & STORIES
• Ludic Narrans
• Aesthetic Intelligence
• Creative Chaos
• Communication
• Transcendence

68. LUDIC NARRANS
• Homo Ludens
• +
• Homo Narrans
• =
• Ludic Narrans
• Playful Stories

69. AESTHETIC INTELLIGENCE
• Not just Art Appreciation or Art Criticism
• Experiential, Social, Making Meaning Together
• Poetics, New Poetics
• Creative Cognition
• A Philosophical Exploration
• What Do We Mean?
• How Do We Know?

70. CREATIVE CHAOS
• Diversity is Valuable & Challenging
• Inclusion Leads to Innovation
• Supportive Orchestration
• Making The Magic,
Changing the World

71. COMMUNICATION
• Organization
• Presentation
• Interpretation

72. TRANSCENDENCE
• Limitations
• Empathic
• Creativity - Curiosity
• Personal - Universal
• Awe - Wonder

73. STORYTELLING
No amount of technology can solve a bad idea.
- Brenda Bakker Harger

74. MORE STORIES PLEASE
• More & Different
• Perspectives & Experiences
• Diverse & Inclusive
• Product & Process
• Culture & Community
• Difference & Progress
• Do It Together & Change the World

75. TELLING STORIES
• Technology & Media
• Creating Culture
• Medium is the Message

76. …AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?
• Thanks!
• Questions?
• waxebb.com/slides
• drew@andrew.cmu.edu
- Neil Gaiman