Brenda Laurel
Computers as Theatre – Second Edition
Assembling micro events into the arc of drama…
Side Bar page 81
In the sense that I speak about “human-computer interaction,” I mean enabling and representing actions with human and technological participants. I’m looking at a larger granularity than a single touch, swipe, or keypress. Events with such short duration cannot assume dramatic form in themselves, since time is an intrinsic factor in producing a dramatic shape. If we are looking for coherent wholes, we need to think about the whole action of a human’s interaction with a computer: for example, playing a chunk of a game, searching for information, doing the taxes, or writing a letter. Such whole actions may occur in one session or over a course of time-bounded sessions. My contention is that the session itself is more pleasurable if it has a dramatically pleasing shape and that the completion of a whole action over several sessions may be measured by that same criterion.
… every keypress, every swipe, every touch is about a body in motion, a sensing body in motion. As dramatic as inhalation and exhalation. As small as they may be these human-machine interaction cumulatively form whole dramatic shapes like modern dance.
And so for day 2924
14.12.2014