One of the interesting features of immersion technology is the blurring of the ‘role of the author’ – and this takes me to the idea of linking ‘authoring’ with ‘authority’. So…
- who has instigated this?
- who is in charge of the outcome?
- who has the ending in mind?
- who knows what to include and what to leave out?
- who knows what is going to happen?
- who gave up doing something else in order to do this?
We seek authorisation – why? Why do I do this?
- to prevent myself becoming immersed…
- if I fantasise that someone other than me authorised my experience then I can disavow some of my own responsibility for it – I can maintain an ironic relationship to my own authority. I think that this is why I postulate there is a god (on those few occasions that I do)…
- in immersive story telling environments, ambiguity – or at least sharing responsibility for interpretation – is central. The author does not say what the ‘show’ means. So, if I seek authority in an-other, I can reduce the risk of ambiguity
Slingshot