Collaborative Creation
Four Bren School students have created an interactive game called STORYmixer that requires 5 players to work together to combine images, text and sound to create a story.
Marisa Cohn, Silvia Lindtner, Jeff Ridenour, Luv Sharma, with the mentorship of Paul Dourish, professor of Informatics, drew their inspiration from American composer John Cage’s museum exhibition Rolywholyover A Circus and Mozart's dice game.
In both examples randomness “calculated” by machines (computer and dices) contributed to the outcome of the creation.
Cage’s Rolywholyover A Circus, required installers to move exhibit objects every quarter hour based on a random computer-generated score.
In Mozart’s dice game (“Musikalisches Würfelspiel”) the usually passive audience could recombine a number of musical elements through the random function of throwing dice to select the elements (Zweig).
In the STORYmixer this randomness is substituted by individual choice and the willingness (or lack of willingness) of each player to collaborate.
The players need not have an understanding about writing or sound mixing. Art and collaboration are the main game elements and in applying these elements the player is involved in an interactive process to create an artistic piece.
The amount of collaboration, and the speed and interactivity during the game is up to the player. While the experience of the game is centered on the two levels of interactive play, the story and the sound-collage, the outcome is highly dependent on collaborative decisions.
Players who approach the STORYmixer with a competitive game mindset may choose story objects but then find that their choice may not fit well with the selections of the other players.
Through negotiation with other players; they can choose to focus on constructing a story, or a music piece, or both.
The final creation may be absurd, inharmonious, dreamy, mysterious, or a coherent sound and story space.
