Dialogues with the Machine, or Ruins of Closure and Control in Interactive Digital Narratives

Abstract

The interrelations between literary studies, and posthumanism deserve attention beyond the focus on the representation of posthuman identities on the story level. To explore these, this article looks at examples of interactive digital narratives (IDN): Bandersnatch (2018), a ‘choose-your-own-adventure’-type instalment of Netflix’s dystopian SF-anthology series Black Mirror, the short film The Angry River (2017), which employs gaze-detection technology to determine what viewers get to see, and the serious multi-platform videogame The Climate Trail (2019), specifically designed to move players ‘into action’. Straddling the border between ludology and narrative to varying degrees, all offer the chance of ‘do overs’ and the exploration of complex patterns and processes. They raise questions about the co-production of pre-scripted meanings, about authorial and reader agency, conceptions of control, closure, and narrative (un)reliability. Thus, this article argues, they challenge ideas about the potential of narratives in and beyond posthuman digital environments.

Narrative self-recreation in virtual reality

“…Trauma can be understood as an event that cannot be integrated as narrative memory, has no real place, or cannot be understood (Caruth, 1995); as such, the only way to address it is to work on its integration into the personal story and to find its place in time and memory to make peace with it. However, if the person is stripped of the ability to perceive notions of control, authorship, and reliability, as occurs in traumatic dissociation, they might experience further traumatic accumulation or eventually redefine what it means to be a human self in a digital world as a point of view that might oppose the proposal here or give an alternative outlook on such complex processes (Hoydis, 2021). In a sense, a therapeutic approach might be to internalize the fact that sometimes we do not have control and that letting go and building acceptance might form a kind of peace, leading to another level of resolution primarily serving to regain a sense of agency (Roth and Koenitz, 2019).…”

A Systematic Review towards Evolution of Interactive Storytelling and Audience Engagement in Films

“…This film utilizes a new interactive technology introduced by Netflix, where the audience can make a choice for the main character in the film that would shape the ending of the film, creating active audiences that are actively involved in the film narrative. This kind of filmmaking has made room for novel narratives that call for user engagement and interpretation as part of the enjoyment (Daly, 2010), and arguably shows possibilities for audience engagement, immersion, and attention more than non-interactive narratives (Hoydis, 2021). The success of the interactive contents produced by Netflix proves that interactive storytelling is a powerful tool in enhancing audience engagement and level of immersion which brings us to the question, how do one take advantage of interactive storytelling into their contents to improve…”