Dramatic Foundations - Computers as Theatre - page 65

drama and human-computer interaction; they are the clay that is progres-
sively shaped by the creator, whether playwright or designer, in collabora-
tion with the audience or interactor.
Pattern
The perception of patterns in sensory phenomena is a source of pleasure
for humans. Aristotle described the second element of drama as “melody,”
a kind of pattern in the realm of sound. 11 In the Poetics he says, “melody
is the greatest of the pleasurable accessories of tragedy” ( Poetics 1450b,
15-17). The orthodox view is that “spectacle” is the visual dimension and
“melody” is the auditory one, but this view is problematic in the context of
formal and material causality. If the material cause of all sounds (“music”)
were things that could be perceived by the eye (“spectacle”), then things
like the vibration of vocal cords and the melodies of off-stage musicians
would be excluded. Contrariwise, all that is seen in a play is not shaped
solely by the criterion of producing sounds or music (although this may
have been more strictly true in the performance style of the ancient Greeks
than it is today). The formal-material relationship doesn't work within the
context of these narrow defi nitions of music and spectacle.
In the previous section, we have already expanded “spectacle” into all
sensory elements of the enactment. The notion of “ melody” as the arrange-
ment of sounds into a pleasing pattern can be extended analogically to the
arrangement of visual images, tactile or kinesthetic sensations, and prob-
ably smells and tastes as well (as a good chef can demonstrate). In fact, the
idea that a pleasurable pattern can be achieved through the arrangement of
visual or other sensory materials can be derived from other aspects of the
Poetics , so its absence here is something of a mystery. Looking 'up' the hier-
archy, it could be that Aristotle did not see the visual as a potentially semi-
otic or linguistic medium, and hence narrowed the causal channel to lead
exclusively to spoken language. Whatever the explanation, the orthodox
view of Aristotle's defi nitions of spectacle and melody leave out too much
material. As scholars are wont to do, I will blame the vagaries of transla-
tion, fi gurative language, and mutations introduced by centuries of inter-
pretation for this apparent lapse and proceed to advocate my own view.
The element of pattern refers to patterns in the sensory phenomena of
the enactment. These patterns exert a formal infl uence on the enactment,
11. This element is often translated as “music,” “melody,” or “rhythm.”