Reaction to Pods

Lets just discuss new possibilities. Robert Wilson is a great control freak thinking in forms. Once saw him in person, at a lecture about total theatre, during a theatre festival here in Groningen. His speech was triangular shaped: starting with a base as big as the world, ending with him, an uttered ‘me’.

Stoned people always come up with ideas that big, the Spaghetti like stuff in theatre with a device in the hands of the audience to make choices. And they can, because we don’t expect them to follow up on it. As for me, I haven’t smoked any such green stuff in 15 years (and I’m living in Holland, maybe I smoked too much before that, like Obelix I don’t need it anymore). So I have to go through with it.

Some interactive movies have been made where the audience indeed had controlling device in their hands (using three or four computer controlled VCRs, one playing while the others were waiting for the choice of the audience). It was a tree shaped story. And you know what, people came back because they wanted to see it all.

Are people tree shaped? No. As for he artist and for the audience, there is only one right solution to a problem, there is only one right ending to a story. Try telling kids the same fairytale they already heard a thousand times and try to alter it, taking it into a different direction and they go bananas (especially 5 minutes before they actually have to go to bed). But give kids a room full of toys, and no one to talk to for about ten years, and they invent stories for all the objects that are there and while they are at it, they invent a language to go with it as well. (Doesn’t it sadden you to know that we actually had a chance to discover this?)

Living in a 3D world means we can go into different directions. But that’s not the important part about it. It means we have different possibilities. And some of them can be pursued at the same time.

I always liked Riven and Myst, but hated the complex puzzles.

Posted by Jeroen Goulooze at February 11, 2003 01:50 AM