Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 2.
Video viewing screen.
lected. With each subsequent cycling between the two screens, two things hap-
pen: (1) the system collects and stores information from the choices the user
makes, and repeatedly interprets this information to provide a constantly re-
fined response to the user's interests, and (2) the user sees more and more of the
audiovisual material in a variety of contexts at the service of multiple queries.
The four randomly chosen images invite the user to diverge from a path
of inquiry that can become too narrow and predictable. The user can play for
two minutes or many hours. There is no predetermined beginning or end. But
some video clips are coded to occur as openers, others as closers. Most of the
didactic or pedagogic intentions I may have for this film play themselves out in
the algorithm. I am not saying that my control of the storytelling disintegrates;
it never does. But the system allows a space for the user to subvert the narration
to some degree. The degree of subversion remains to be seen.
References
Bordwell, David (1986). Classical Hollywood cinema: Narrational principles and
procedures. In P. Rosen (Ed.),
Narrative, apparatus, ideology
(pp. 17-34). New York:
Columbia University Press.
Davenport, Glorianna & Michael Murtaugh (1997). Autonomist storyteller systems and the
shifting sands of story.
IBM Systems Journal
,
36
(3), 446-456. Reprint Order No. G321-
5652.
