ICAT__Story and Interactivity Seminar__Report on 3rd Session
Dear ICAT Students,
The 3rd session of the “Story and Interactivity”
Seminar proceeded yesterday, on a rainy afternoon
before Diwali.
The story of Pygmalion was told and discussed.
Pygmalion was a sculptor who lived in Cypress
(an island in the Mediterranean Sea, near Greece),
over 2,000 years ago. As legend has it, he fell
in love with a life-size sculpture he had made
of a woman, and -- through the intervention of the
goddess of Love, Aphrodite (also known as, Venus) --
the sculpture came to life, and Pygmalion and his
living sculpture married, and had two children.
This and similar stories about bringing inanimate
figures to life (such as Pinocchio, and Frankenstein)
have been popular throughout history (in the west
at least).
We related the Pygmalion story to the general
human inclination to create realistic and life-like
images and objects -- including today’s 3D animated
avatars -- to represent oneself and others. We
confirmed our sense that whether people might use an
increasingly realistic and naturally-looking-moving
avatar, or a real-time video image of oneself --
whether for game-play, other play, or just
conversation -- there is a trend toward engaging
through and with such computer-generated figures
via the Internet.
We reviewed Myron Krueger’s statements in _Artificial
Reality_ that “an artificial reality perceives human
actions in terms of the body’s relationship to a
simulated world” (Krueger, p. xii), and that he has
been “committed to unencumbered full-body participation”
in such simulated worlds (Krueger, p. xv). We read in
_Artificial Reality_ his repeated comments that
1
"... a cultural implosion is now underway: the
integration of all aspects of society by inter-
connected information, communication, and control
systems. These networks and the computational power
they bring will permeate our lives much as electricity
does today (Krueger, p. xii).
2
“What we are now witnessing is a birth process --
the birth of the artificial entity as an integrated,
perceiving, behaving system" (Krueger, p. 5).
3
"We are now proceeding toward immersion in a world
created by the computer" (Krueger, p. 9).
The word “immersion” in the above sentence reminded
us of the discussion of water in _Hero with a
Thousand Faces_: there Joseph Campbell points out
that the hero’s/heroine’s journey often begins by,
or is entirely framed by, his/her crossing a body
of water.
In water, it can be said that we are transformed,
born again: when passing through that which is
dissolved and liquid, to some degree we also are
dissolved and then reformulated.
It has become clear that one of Campbell’s theses
in _Hero with a Thousand Faces_ is that both myths
and the individual’s unconscious and dreams can
supply symbols which can prompt the individual’s
psychological and spiritual development.
It seems that Campbell’s concept of a “monomyth”
(the single great story that he sees in heroic
stories in general) can involve a heroic journey
into many different realms, including: 1) to the
far reaches of the physical world; 2) into one’s
own unconscious; and 3) into the Internet, which
can be seen as a collective consciousness of
humanity.
Immersion into any one of these oceanic realms
can certainly transform an individual. It seems
that whatever else a hero/heroine might bring
back to his/her community members to help them,
the first thing the returning hero/heroine
brings is a transformed self -- the old narrow
self has died, and a new wiser self is now in
its place.
In our Seminar’s reading of _Hero with a Thousand
Faces_, the book’s discussion about the obstacles,
and possible helpers, that heroes/heroines may
experience in the course of their journeys, is
now just beginning. We are underway!
The Story and Interactivity Seminar will now go
on hiatus for three weeks. The next scheduled
session is Friday, 21 Nov. In preparation for
that session, pages 30-50 of both _Artificial
Reality_ and _Hero with a Thousand Faces_ could
be read -- and if possible please come to the
Friday, 21 Nov session of the Seminar with some
written comments about the material in these pages.
Of course, people who have not read any of either
of the books -- and who may have not attended any
of the previous sessions -- will also be most
welcome to attend the next session, and every
session, of the Seminar.
I am in the process of setting up a blog for the
Seminar -- I will keep you posted.
And -- please feel free to consult with me
regarding any story- or storytelling-related work
you might be doing for any module at ICAT.
Many thanks,
- Prof E
Media Studies Dept, ICAT-Chennai
98403 94282
http://www.storytellinginstitute.org
http://www.storytellingandvideoconferencing.com
"Tamil Nadu in 2020", an essay --
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~emiller/Tamil_Nadu_in_2020__in_English.pdf
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~emiller/Tamil_Nadu_in_2020__in_Tamil.pdf
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