Environmental Storytelling

This article explores the entwined relationship between agriculture and river health, guided by Zarvan, a timeless witness to humanity’s choices. It traces rivers across England, Central Asia, and the Tisza basin, showing how intensive farming has drained aquifers, fueled nutrient runoff, created coastal dead zones, and even shrunk inland seas like the Aral.

Drawing from ecology, policy, and cultural memory, the narrative blends science with story: riparian buffers, wetlands, agroforestry, and restored floodplains appear not only as ecological tools but as moral compacts. Rachel Carson’s prophetic warnings echo throughout, alongside contemporary research on ecosystem resilience and the lived testimony of communities that have seen water vanish within a generation.

At its heart, the article argues that agriculture and river health are not opposing forces but choices written into soil, water, and time. Healing requires courage, reform, and recognition of rivers as living kin. In closing, it insists: the river asks, and humanity must answer.

This essay uses repeat photography, a method in the natural sciences for studying change over time, to reexamine the conservation status of Baja California as a 'living museum' of pristine wilderness and relic of California's ecological past. My focus is the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir National Park, a portion of northern Baja's forest symbolizing conservation's narrative of Baja as the 'before' to California's 'after'. While this narrative has protected this ecosystem, I argue that it has also been instrumental in expanding a U.S. conservation model into Mexico and casting local, land-based people with centuries of land tenure as enemies of conservation. While repeat photography can corroborate conservation's story, I propose a critical re-photography that turns the lens back onto ourselves as the makers of landscapes. I leverage repeat photography's implicit reflexivity to reveal the scientific and cultural priorities that have relegated land-based people to the past and threaten to exclude them from the future.

This dissertation explores the concept of engagement, i.e. how it can be described in interactive media and digital games, how it can be evaluated and how it can be applied, not only in interactive experiences such as interactive storytelling, but also while learning and teaching serious, educational and purposeful content. Currently, there exists a variety of research on how games entertain and why players have fun while playing. The concept of engagement is used in different ways in the literature and has been associated with numerous other concepts such as enjoyment, flow, presence, immersion and fun. However, few investigations focus on player engagement vii Preface This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree in Media Technology at the Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology (AD:MT), Aalborg University. The doctoral work has been performed at the section of Medialogy, with Professor Lise B. Kofoed as supervisor. This project documents work carried out between September 2007 and April 2012. During this period, 40% of the time was allotted to functioning as a lecturer, supervisor and semester coordinator on the Bachelor and Master Medialogy educations at the AD:MT department. Summer, 2012 Copenhagen Henrik Schønau Fog viii Acknowledgements Many fantastic people have been involved in this project in one way or another, and without them this project would not have been as inspiring to work on as it has been over the last few years. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Lise B. Kofoed for her great support and for always having the time to discuss my project and ideas whenever required. Professor Emeritus Erik Granum also deserves thanks for helping me in the initial phases of the project and for his guidance in the later stages of my research. I am also thankful to the Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology at Aalborg University, Copenhagen for giving me the opportunity to pursue my research interests by providing me with a doctoral dissertation scholarship. I am moreover deeply grateful to Faysal Fuad Khalil and Jawid Faizi, both M.Sc.'s from Medialogy, for their contributions and hard work while developing and testing the First Person Victim prototype-without you this project would not have been nearly as engaging. I also want to thank all my current and former colleagues-'no one mentioned, no one forgotten'-at the Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology for helping me in one way or another and for the many fruitful discussions we have had during the duration of the project. Thanks also go to the Master and Bachelor students in Medialogy, who were always willing to answer a never-ending series of questionnaires, to try out some of my ideas, and who enthusiastically debated the many facets of engagement, games and interactive stories with me: you know who you are. Furthermore, this project has been deeply inspired by the people I have met along the way at conferences, visits and courses.

This paper is a reflective description of the development and the evaluation of the experimental game 'Aporia'. The project demonstrates an exploration of interactive environmental storytelling and an evaluation of engagement as measured by continuation desire in a non-violent first-person computer game. The test method involves the interruption of the player during gameplay at specific points and assessing their desire to continue. The objective of the interactive experience in the game is to convey a pre-written story through environmental storytelling by the use of pictorial cues in an immersive, atmospheric and aesthetic environment. The findings suggest that Aporia appears as a non-linear emergent narrative experience with a high level of engagement facilitating a desire to continue playing the game.

The article explores interactive storytelling in augmented and virtual reality. It is based on the research project Immersive Media Lab, bridges the gap between technological developments and their application, and aims to combine art, economy, and science. Due to their increased availability, virtual and immersive technologies have not only seen a resurgence in their popularity but also offer intriguing new perspectives regarding their use in different contexts. Consequently, the notions of interactivity and immersion also play significant roles in the study of storytelling in conjunction with virtual and augmented reality. The Immersive Media Lab has employed state-of-the-art AR/VR technology in five use cases: VR Interaction, Artistic Motion Tracking in AR/VR, Audio AR for Industry, AR/VR Interfaces for Industry, and AR Education for Patients. All of them, but one, developed prototypical applications related to the central concept of interactive storytelling. Furthermore, each use case addresses three distinct dimensions of storytelling: the production of a coherent story, the collection and transfer of knowledge, and the specificity of the technology used. Covering the areas of Creative Media, Smart Manufacturing, and Healthcare leads to a particular research design, as each area is connected to different research contexts and comes with appliances of immersive media. The article focuses on various theoretical inputs regarding interactive and immersive storytelling in general and relates them to the academic background of the five use cases. Furthermore, each use case defined a story in its context, the purpose of its narration, and its media-specific context. Finally, the paper reflects on the outcomes of the use cases and outlines their potential for future applications of interactive storytelling in immersive media.

In 2012 The Chinese Room launchedDear Esther, a video game that would go on to shape video game history and define a new genre: the walking simulator. Walking simulators renounce traditional game tropes and foreground walking as an aesthetic and as a dramaturgical practice, which engages the walker/player in critical acts of reading, challenging and/or performing a landscape. In October 2016,Dear Estherwas adapted as a site-responsive, promenade performance set on the Scottish island of Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth. The resulting performance,Dear Rachel, was then experienced alongside the game under the umbrella nameInchcolm Project. This hybrid event ‐ multimedia (promenade performance, gameplay and musical performance) and mixed-reality (with physical, augmented and virtual components) ‐ required the development and implementation of complex processes of remediation and adaptation. Drawing from a range of theories and practitioner reflection, this article puts forward a design f...

This article explores issues associated with immersive storytelling in order to examine how the field of World Building can constitute a theoretical framework for practice in the context of VR-based and Full Dome artistic projects. With respect to immersion, the intent will be to interpret the concept of storytelling in relation with the recent formulation of the concept of extended reality (XR). The very concept of World Building is transauthor and transmedia by nature. The transauthor dimension of World Building resides in the idea of subcreation, i.e., designing environments and interaction rules that help create a storytelling basis for generating multiple stories. Once the universe has been conceived, stories written by different authors take shape through transmedia processes across multiple distribution media (film, video games, web, etc.). The question then arises: How can the World Building approach shape the construction of immersive experiences? The article sets out to an...

This article explores issues associated with immersive storytelling in order to examine how the field of World Building can constitute a theoretical framework for practice in the context of VR-based and Full Dome artistic projects. With respect to immersion, the intent will be to interpret the concept of storytelling in relation with the recent formulation of the concept of extended reality (XR). The very concept of World Building is transauthor and transmedia by nature. The transauthor dimension of World Building resides in the idea of subcreation, i.e., designing environments and interaction rules that help create a storytelling basis for generating multiple stories. Once the universe has been conceived, stories written by different authors take shape through transmedia processes across multiple distribution media (film, video games, web, etc.). The question then arises: How can the World Building approach shape the construction of immersive experiences? The article sets out to an...

This paper is a reflective description of the development and the evaluation of the experimental game 'Aporia'. The project demonstrates an exploration of interactive environmental storytelling and an evaluation of engagement as measured by continuation desire in a non-violent first-person computer game. The test method involves the interruption of the player during gameplay at specific points and assessing their desire to continue. The objective of the interactive experience in the game is to convey a pre-written story through environmental storytelling by the use of pictorial cues in an immersive, atmospheric and aesthetic environment. The findings suggest that Aporia appears as a non-linear emergent narrative experience with a high level of engagement facilitating a desire to continue playing the game.

Narratives of and for virtual reality are recurring discourses that circulated from medium to medium throughout Western history. But what makes the immersivity of the stories designed for (and experienced via) real or imaginary VR systems so different from other narrative experiences? Through an enactivist perspective on media archeology, I will outline a definition of virtual reality storytelling (VRS) as the art of crafting ‘inhabited stories’ and a place of circulation of narratives about VR. Accordingly, I will propose a media archaeology of two VRS genealogies. Firstly, I will address the relationship between story-making and place-making by discussing different examples of VRS from peep media tradition, gaming, and VR cinema. Secondly, narratives regarding discourses on human enhancement via VR will be confronted with design goals and narratives of real and imaginary neuro-technologies. In doing so, I will highlight some recurring narrative strategies at the basis of VRS: (i) the illusion of non-narration, i.e. the ability to direct the story-making activity of the visitor without his/her awareness; (ii) the craftsmanship of paths of ‘attentional matching’ made of haptic responses and spatialized stories; and backwardly (iii) the design of new senses which can disclose enhanced processes of world- and story-making.

This paper is a reflective description of the development and the evaluation of the experimental game 'Aporia'. The project demonstrates an exploration of interactive environmental storytelling and an evaluation of engagement as measured by continuation desire in a non-violent first-person computer game. The test method involves the interruption of the player during gameplay at specific points and assessing their desire to continue. The objective of the interactive experience in the game is to convey a pre-written story through environmental storytelling by the use of pictorial cues in an immersive, atmospheric and aesthetic environment. The findings suggest that Aporia appears as a non-linear emergent narrative experience with a high level of engagement facilitating a desire to continue playing the game.

Los videojuegos de mundo abierto se han popularizado en los últimos años erigiéndose como una nueva forma de diseñar experiencias de juego, ofreciendo nuevas técnicas narrativas, alternativa a otras lineales más tradicionales. Su proposición lúdica está basada en amplios espacios transitables, poblados por personajes controlados por inteligencia artificial y un uso intensivo de la narración ambiental que permite a sus creadores explorar nuevas formas narrativas. El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo proponer un modelo de análisis para el estudio académico de videojuegos de mundo abierto, tomándolos en consideración como construcciones ludonarrativas. El trabajo se fundamenta con teorías científicas de los primeros académicos que se han aproximado a este tipo de videojuegos, pero también con base en la visión de los creadores que han dedicado parte de su carrera a diseñarlos. El trabajo, por último, se completa con una puesta en práctica del modelo de análisis sobre Death Stranding, videojuego de mundo abierto, y una discusión de los resultados.

Mixed Robotic Interface is a project-based design-research investigation, studying new ways of creating hybridized cyber-physical design and experience interfaces, at the intersection of robotics—as its core component, and augmented reality, game design, projection mapping, and digital fabrication. Mixed Robotic Interface Г—as part of Mixed Robotic Interface series of research projects, focuses on using “actual” and “virtual” robot arms as a possible creative medium and extensions of design/gaming environment creating immersive atmospheres for “experiencing” design. This research questions the possibilities of creating an architectural/spatial atmosphere through digitally enhanced experiences. Different from some of the current experiments with augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and projection-mapping in architecture, Mixed Robotic Interface Г is not looking into “immersive” experience as a way to “blur” the boundaries of digital and physical—similar to virtual reality exp...

Architecture practice is reshaped by new technological developments such as virtual reality, augmented reality, 3D printing, computational design, robotics, etc. Future architects are expected to deliver spatial solutions, to understand changing living conditions and to discover the different future by responsing technological improvements. In architecture schools, students should explore and investigate design practice with different production methods, systems and materials by using various technologies in collaborations with interdisciplinary partners and industry. The study aims to understand the STEAM concept which is considered as a promising education approach and formulated; science, technology, engineering, math and then adds an ‘A’ for arts which represents the creative thinking and design approach. The STEAM concept and its place in the architectural education are discussed. The discipline of architecture is an intersection of technology, art and science. The architecture...

Discussions of the relationship between humanity and built environment usually focus on the human’s relationships with the earth’s surface. Less attention has been given to underwater environments, a relatively underexplored research area at the intersection of user experience design and psychology. This paper shows the initial findings of experiments on divers, which can guide the design of augmented reality tools for underwater environment. The comparative evaluation process demonstrates an increase in psychological restorativeness of users in relation to ambiance design, indicating a difference between a specifically designed environment and a naturally vacant area for first time divers. Future studies will explore immersive design of underwater ambiance through augmented reality tools, proposed as a product design and framework, in order to improve psychological restorativeness.

Global change" is a complex term still widely unknown, and often confused with climate change. The Spanish Secondary School Curriculum indicates that the idea of global change is absent. Globalchange components are distributed among different subjects and courses. This scattering of the subject matter hinders students from gaining a cohesive understanding of global change and its implications. The main objective of this proposal is to develop an educational approach aimed at expanding children's knowledge regarding global change, and fomenting awareness of the interrelations between human actions and this environmental crisis. In addition, we seek to aid students in understanding that the adoption of certain practices could help them achieve a sustainable lifestyle. To this end, we have designed and manufactured a prototype board game called "A Planet on the Abyss", with a cooperative play. The pilot study realized have showed that the students recognize that Global Change incorporates more components than climate change and the students related Global Change with an anthropocentric origin and they became to use new terms, such as habitats, ecosystems, deforestation, etc.

In the last decade, the advances in mobile technologies and location-based applications reshaped our mutual relationship with the urban environment. These technologies, as both a mean and barrier to the engagement between humans and their environment, have transformed the urban experience in profound ways. Urban experience is a relatively new concept introduced with the rise of modern cities in the nineteenth century. Its loss due to the rapid urbanization has been a subject of debate since then. Among the discussions that take place in this debate, the figure of ‘flâneur’ plays an extensive role. The flâneur is a figure who wanders through and appropriates the metropolitan city in pursuit of urban experience and reaps aesthetic meaning from the spectacle of the teeming crowds. Flânerie, or the act of wandering, and its implications for our understanding of urban life have been profound. Today, mobile technologies create a new kind of urban wanderer which is described as “post-flâne...

This paper presents the advancements of an applied methodology developed by the authors, namely an architect and two environmental psychologists, based on Virtual Reality coupled with psychological surveys − developed ad hoc by the authors − for urban design; in particular, the paper discusses its application in the field of architectural higher education. The proposed method is based on the pre-evaluation of people’s urban experience for testing the effectiveness of design solutions, discovering the unforeseen, and reducing the risk of failure. The method connects architectural to psychological approaches and investigations. The procedure can be schematized as follows: (1) final users navigate the simulation of the design scheme and feedback is collected; (2) the analysis of these collected data is run by professionals and discussed with the designers that then develop the final design solution. In this contribution, we illustrate the application to the urban design development car...

The article analyses how historical memory is being formed in the modern digital realm. The authors show the emergence of a new form of historical memory, characteristic of the digital era, which we call "media memory". Using the methodology historical epistemology, media philosophy and memory studies, the authors demonstrate the change in production and replication of knowledge about the past due to the spread of digital media. The distinctive features of "media memory" are: massive non-professional production of historical content, democratic character, speed, subjectivity and emotional intensity. These features are associated with the combination of prosuming and crowdsourcing, which increase the activity of history lovers and non-professional volunteers in social media. Considering the largest historical digital projects, which have brought together the efforts of millions of history lovers, the article comes to the conclusion that academic historians are los...

This research explores colored light from historical, scientific, and technological vantage points. Effects of colored light on the human condition are examined on multiple levels, comparing theories in physiological, psychological, and phenomenological areas of study, addressed across a broad scope of literature. The focus of this research is to gain an understanding of the effects of colored light on the human condition, and how designing with it can provide an engaging phenomenological experience which marries centuries’ old design techniques with modern technological innovations. The stages of research include a literature review, followed by a series of creative explorations with light, texture and form through small-scale models. Data gathered is then analyzed, categorized, and used to create a taxonomy for designing with colored light. Research is then explored on a larger scale through a pilot study conducted in a 5’ x 9’ room designed to create an experience of being bathed...

This article explores issues associated with immersive storytelling in order to examine how the field of World Building can constitute a theoretical framework for practice in the context of VR-based and Full Dome artistic projects. With respect to immersion, the intent will be to interpret the concept of storytelling in relation with the recent formulation of the concept of extended reality (XR). The very concept of World Building is transauthor and transmedia by nature. The transauthor dimension of World Building resides in the idea of subcreation, i.e., designing environments and interaction rules that help create a storytelling basis for generating multiple stories. Once the universe has been conceived, stories written by different authors take shape through transmedia processes across multiple distribution media (film, video games, web, etc.). The question then arises: How can the World Building approach shape the construction of immersive experiences? The article sets out to an...

This article explores issues associated with immersive storytelling in order to examine how the field of World Building can constitute a theoretical framework for practice in the context of VR-based and Full Dome artistic projects. With respect to immersion, the intent will be to interpret the concept of storytelling in relation with the recent formulation of the concept of extended reality (XR). The very concept of World Building is transauthor and transmedia by nature. The transauthor dimension of World Building resides in the idea of subcreation, i.e., designing environments and interaction rules that help create a storytelling basis for generating multiple stories. Once the universe has been conceived, stories written by different authors take shape through transmedia processes across multiple distribution media (film, video games, web, etc.). The question then arises: How can the World Building approach shape the construction of immersive experiences? The article sets out to an...

Les Planètes is a "FullDome" immersive concert generated entirely in real time. The concert is made possible by the "Piano-of-Lights," an instrument that enables a visual dialogue with pianist Louise Bessette during a novel performance of the work Les Planètes from composer Walter Boudreau. The Piano-of-Lights' dynamic constellations of small spheres are projected across the space of the satosphere of the Society of Art and Technology (SAT) in Montreal. The visual shapes are based on an analysis of the different sections of the score. During this process, the Piano-of-Lights emits light particles, becoming a catalyst for the dynamic constellations distributed across the dome. The project blends the tradition of colour organs and the live A/V approach of digital technology, bringing together an analogue piano, digital recording and immersive projection. The originality of this research primarily lies in the use of a colour-piano, which was designed to create a synthesis of the colour-sound association in an immersive format.

This article explores issues associated with immersive storytelling in order to examine how the field of World Building can constitute a theoretical framework for practice in the context of VR-based and Full Dome artistic projects. With respect to immersion, the intent will be to interpret the concept of storytelling in relation with the recent formulation of the concept of extended reality (XR). The very concept of World Building is transauthor and transmedia by nature. The transauthor dimension of World Building resides in the idea of subcreation, i.e., designing environments and interaction rules that help create a storytelling basis for generating multiple stories. Once the universe has been conceived, stories written by different authors take shape through transmedia processes across multiple distribution media (film, video games, web, etc.). The question then arises: How can the World Building approach shape the construction of immersive experiences? The article sets out to answer this question, and in doing so, to contribute to the research on environmental storytelling.

A story of never ending rain and dark, never diminishing souls and non- stop revenge. With a perfect plot full of organized crime and corruption, Max Payne stands as a great example of New York crime story and it is much more than a video game. The question is, is he a true hero or an anti-hero?

This paper aims to expand existing knowledge on narrative game design. Specifically, the paper discusses the importance of game design patterns for the analysis of narrative game mechanics. By bringing together insights from cognitive narratology and game design theory, the paper creates a preliminary theoretical perspective for deconstructing the design of mechanic-driven narrative games. To support the theoretical argument, the paper discusses Papers , Please as case study.

ATMOSPHERE 10 explores Fabrications. Fabrications implicate diverse artifacts and modes of making, together with the places, practices, contingencies and intentions that enable and contextualize making. In other words, this symposium will examine not simply what, how and why we make, but sites and situations of making. The aim is to explore how cultural and environmental circumstances become meaningful catalysts of design, building, teaching and research. This theme encompasses manifold concerns beyond the digital: complexities of urban and social fabrics; intricacies of environmental skins; potentials of building sites and workshops; as well as the stories and arguments through which we craft shared understandings of our fabricated world.

Abstracts due Nov 1, Symposium Feb 1-3, 2018 University of Manitoba, Winnipeg.

Keynote Speakers include: Brian MacKay-Lyons & Philip Beesley
http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/architecture/atmosphere/2018/brian-mackay-lyons.html
http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/architecture/atmosphere/2018/philip-beesley.html

This paper explores the notion of narrative game mechanics byapposing theories from the field of cognitive narratology with design theorieson game mechanics The paper aims to disclose how narrative game mechanicsinvite game agents, including the player, to perform actions that support theconstruction of engaging stories and fictional worlds in the embodied mind of the player The theoretical argument is supported by three case studies The paper discusses examples of games that employ mechanics and rules to createengaging story events, focusing on! building tension through spatial conflict,evo"ing empathy through characteri#ation and creating moral dilemmasthrough player choices.

An accurate analysis on the storytelling of Max Payne, divided in 2 parts. In the first part an  analysis using the 12 Chapters method, described by Vogler in his book “The Writer’s  Journey”. In the second part, a list of method used by the game to delivery its story and on  the time that the game use to tell it.

The genre of interactive narratives in computer games has been researched extensively in the past. However, it still seems that there is a potential for investigating how a narrative can be conveyed solely through environmental storytelling. This paper reports an experimental study which examines the understanding of a pre-written story which is mediated without the use of characters, dialogue, or words and only through the environment in the prototypical game 'Aporia'. The evaluation of the story construction in Aporia analyses and quantifies written open-ended answers and compares them to the pre-defined elements of the story. The findings indicate that Aporia mediates a narrative potential, which generates emergent narratives among users rather than mediating an embedded and evoked narrative.

This paper is a reflective description of the development and the evaluation of the experimental game 'Aporia'. The project demonstrates an exploration of interactive environmental storytelling and an evaluation of engagement as measured by continuation desire in a non-violent first-person computer game. The test method involves the interruption of the player during gameplay at specific points and assessing their desire to continue. The objective of the interactive experience in the game is to convey a pre-written story through environmental storytelling by the use of pictorial cues in an immersive, atmospheric and aesthetic environment. The findings suggest that Aporia appears as a non-linear emergent narrative experience with a high level of engagement facilitating a desire to continue playing the game.

The genre of interactive narratives in computer games has been researched extensively in the past. However, it still seems that there is a potential for investigating how a narrative can be conveyed solely through environmental storytelling. This paper reports an experimental study which examines the understanding of a pre-written story which is mediated without the use of characters, dialogue, or words and only through the environment in the prototypical game 'Aporia'. The evaluation of the story construction in Aporia analyses and quantifies written open-ended answers and compares them to the pre-defined elements of the story. The findings indicate that Aporia mediates a narrative potential, which generates emergent narratives among users rather than mediating an embedded and evoked narrative.

This paper is a reflective description of the development and the evaluation of the experimental game 'Aporia'. The project demonstrates an exploration of interactive environmental storytelling and an evaluation of engagement as measured by continuation desire in a non-violent first-person computer game. The test method involves the interruption of the player during gameplay at specific points and assessing their desire to continue. The objective of the interactive experience in the game is to convey a pre-written story through environmental storytelling by the use of pictorial cues in an immersive, atmospheric and aesthetic environment. The findings suggest that Aporia appears as a non-linear emergent narrative experience with a high level of engagement facilitating a desire to continue playing the game.