Reading on a Holodeck

Peter Brantley QWCInternet Archive BrisbaneSan Francisco 04.2011

Originally published 1950September 23 issueSaturday Evening Post

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. Doubleday & Co., 1951.

The rise in the popularity of television had a direct influence on Bradbury’s story “The Veldt.” At the time the story was written, many American families were acquiring their first television sets, and no one was sure exactly how this new technology would impact the relationships among family members.

- eNotes, “The Veldt Summary”

Happy Life Home

A pre-digital glimpse of an immersive and user-driven multimedia experience.

The nursery was silent. It was empty as a jungle glade at hot high noon. The walls were blank and two dimensional. Now, as George and Lydia Hadley stood in the center of the room, the walls began to purr and recede into crystalline distance, it seemed, and presently an African veldt appeared, in three dimensions, on all sides, in color reproduced to the final pebble and bit of straw. The ceiling above them became a deep sky with a hot yellow sun.

[…] George Hadley was filled with admiration for the mechanical genius who had conceived this room. A miracle of efficiency selling for an absurdly low price. Every home should have one. Oh, occasionally they frightened you with their clinical accuracy, they startled you, gave you a twinge, but most of the time what fun for everyone, not only your own son and daughter, but for yourself when you felt like a quick jaunt to a foreign land, a quick change of scenery. Well, here it was!

"Walls, Lydia, remember; crystal walls, that's all they are. Oh, they look real, I must admit - Africa in your parlor - but it's all dimensional, superreactionary, supersensitive color film and mental tape film behind glass screens. It's all odorophonics and sonics, Lydia.” ...

The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such a room would be confining, and a bullet displayed in such a room would be fatal.

- “The Ultimate Display”, 1965

Campfire storytelling, Iga Warta, Northern Flinders Ranges

There is a likely inexorable trend towards increasing immersion in human story-telling using tech.

In many ways, writing is an odd detour.

“For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn it through the neglect of memory, for that through trusting to writing, they will remember outwardly by means of foreign marks, and not inwardly by means of their own faculties. So that you have not discovered a medicine for memory, but for recollection. ” (em. Added)

story telling

is

singing and

dancing

A ‘holodeck’ is anaugmentation of -

expression.communication.sharing.

We have many components.

Remote DanceTele-ImmersionUC Berkeley

Physical engagement:

Nintendo’s WiimoteMicrosoft’s KinectSony’s Move

In 2011:

3d projection augmented reality surround sound gesture detection tele immersion machine vision

Hamlet on the holodeck: the future of narrative in cyberspace.

by Janet H. Murray,Simon and Schuster, 1997.

The holonovel offers a model of an art form that is based on the most powerful technology of sensory illusion imaginable but is nevertheless continuous with the larger human tradition of storytelling, stretching from the heroic bards through the nineteenth-century novelists.

- Janet H. Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck

Eventually all successful storytelling technologies become "transparent": we lose consciousness of the medium and see neither print nor film but only the power of the story itself.

- Janet H. Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck

If digital art reaches the same level of expressiveness as these older media, we will no longer concern ourselves with how we are receiving the information. We will only think about what truth it has told us about our lives. (em. Added)

- Janet H. Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck

Holodeck interpretations would be a kind of community based writing –a new revision of a writing center.

Interactive, individual, and real.

Cf. GAFFTA, San Francisco –

“Guided by the principles of openness, collaboration, and resource sharing, our programs promote creativity at the intersection of art, design, sound, and technology. A conduit for multidisciplinary creative exchange, GAFFTA supports the creation and diffusion of works that engage and inspire audiences, and offer meaningful contributions to the global movement that is shaping our collective experience.”

Cf. Medialab Prado, Madrid –

“Medialab-Prado is a program of the Department of Arts of the City Council of Madrid, aimed at the production, research, and dissemination of digital culture and of the area where art, science, technology, and society intersect. ”

“… MacArthur Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) …announced plans to create 30 new youth learning labs in libraries and museums across the country. Inspired by an innovative new teen space at the Chicago Public Library called YOUmedia and innovations in science and technology centers, these labs will help young people become makers and creators of content, rather than just consumers of it.”

One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back.

- Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky

Sample experience frames …

Experiential – (take us to Patmos)Suspended – (play “Roman Fever”)Interactive – (enter “If on a Winter’s Night ... )Gaming – (contest the Jabberwocky)

Where rests the IP of a holodeck?

If encounters with holodeck experiences build new stories, is each user an author?

Are multi-user holodeck experiences works with multiple authors?

What would ‘moral rights’ mean in a mixed virtual-real shared experience?

As in interactive gaming environments, we will see a re-melding of the roles ofthe author and reader.

Holodecks run a set of interactive frames, not tightly specified narratives.

To ‘write’ may be programming a game. To ‘experience’ may be running a program.

Open-ended. In the player’scontrol.

Holodecks are interpreters.

Code factories.Select the components. Order the sequence.

“Make” an experience. “Run” the program.

When you were young,would you have expectedyour toys to surprise you?

Are holodecks the next-generation personal digital experience? A private fantasy field?

Or, are they the next “3rd Place” – a place of self enactment and story telling in a social context?

Cf. gaming –

“The idea of the lone gamer is really not true anymore. Up to 65 percent of gaming now is social, played either online or in the same room with people we know in real life.”

- Jane McGonigal, Smithsonian Magazine, February 2011

trending towardsophisticationcomplexitysurprise

and deeper social interaction

For the state to see, parse, and recordall the experiences its citizens design.

To control the interpreter.To write the program.

To make handcuffs bind and bullets kill. To make the deck a panopticon.

Are holodecks built or assembled?

Apple iDeck with iTunes?Google Android Holodeck.app?Amazon 1-click Holodeck?

Or the Valve Steam Room?

The real life fact that one most enter a holodeckis critically important.

Real things invite inspection. Sabotage can be detected.Hacking is possible.

“We founded Startl to pave the way for cool new digital media learning products to move from idea to funding and into learners’ hands. We’re working outside the established systems in a public-private partnership to break new ground in the education market and help to launch the next generation of digital tools for learning.”

Fight to control the deck. Start to make your own.

Don’t take experience for granted. Build you own visions.

Saturday Evening Post, cover image, 23 September, 1950. http://curtispublishing.com/images/NonRockwell/9500923.jpg

“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury, accessed on 14 January 2011.http://www.veddma.com/veddma/Veldt.htm

Hamlet on the Holodeck, cover image.http://covers.openlibrary.org/w/id/152123-L.jpg

Hamlet on the holodeck: the future of narrative in cyberspace.by Janet H. Murray, Simon and Schuster, 1997.

“The Illustrated Man”, Wikipedia, accessed on 14 January 2011.https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_Illustrated_Man

“The Veldt: Summary”, eNotes, accessed on 14 January 2011.http://www.enotes.com/veldt/summary

“The ultimate display”, by Ivan Sutherland. Proceedings of IFIP Congress 1965, 506-508.

“veldt rainbow”, by David W. Siu, Flickr.“Campfire storytelling, Iga Warta, Northern Flinders Ranges”

by 澳大利亚国家馆 || Australia at Expo 2010, Flickr.“Lontar”, naypinya, Flickr.Still of Zoe Saldana in Avatar,

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1265536512/tt0499549“holodeck” by learn4life, Flickr.“The holodeck” by A Hermida, Flickr.Bali cakepung, http://blog.baliwww.com/Tele-immersion dance, http://tele-immersion.citris-uc.org/“Hold Hands”, wickenden, Flickr.“Robotic Seal” by Thomas Hawk, Flickr“Bodies of Thought”, Kristin Smith, cellspace.org/new/node/237 - ErikaPR“Teaching how to dance”, William Forrester, Flickr!

peter brantleyinternet archivesan francisco ca

@naypinya (twitter)

peter @archive.org