Everyone's Cinema: Towards the Future of Cinematics

What is cinema becoming? All around us -- in the laboratory, in theme parks and museums, on CD-ROMs and home computers, across the World Wide Web -- stories are being transformed by technological possibility. The proliferation of VCRs, the remote control, and affordable home video cameras have already created a society of audience which expects a certain amount of individual control over their own information destiny. As new and more powerful devices appear and proliferate, storytelling media will transform into something more personalized and conversational; as "stories with a sense of themselves" come into being, narrative will evolve from fixed, monolithic forms into something more personalized and responsive to the wishes (and whims) of their audience. A dynamically adaptive, interactive story can be likened to a shapeshifter which transforms its appearance by reconfiguring its component parts and perspectives. Sometimes it will also play the role of mentor, helping the audience discover the methods and "hooks" by which they can steer its playout. A "story with a sense of itself' must posses thorough knowledge about its own parts, and it must be able to sense and respond to the desires of its audience. This requires a repositioning of the viewer, both psychologically and physically, from outside to inside the story form. We must offer the audience passage into an immersive environment where the real and virtual worlds meet to engage her mind and senses. As the audience becomes absorbed in the narrative experience, the story itself becomes a stronger, more immediate physical and spiritual presence in the environment. The modem storyteller must construct her tale to best exploit the properties of the specific display and sensor technologies being used; at the same time, she must not forget that the audience's