Chapter 3

Chapter 3
3.0 Summary of what was revealed
The intentions of this thesis were to investigate the interplay between narrative, image and interaction, and ultimately develop new practice, which primarily within the experiencing of the artwork articulates a new contribution to the field of study. The dual literature and contemporary practice reviews highlighted this as desired output. The predominant research in the field was not focused on the production of new projects but used various forms of literary and critical theory to search out new interpretations and structural understanding of the artefacts in question. Similarly the reviews revealed a strong set of visual hegemonies in which my own practice sits in-between, and as such my work can be said to function with a uniqueness. The interstitial paradigm was then used to support the practice, as parallels were drawn not only in the aesthetics of the work but also the politic of the communication - that being, problematised, tricky and demanding.

The research questions were developed to reveal creative possibilities and explicate the often embedded or hidden insights into how responsive practice is developed from the practitioner's perspective. Research question A was focused on the structural possibilities available when the artist withdraws from using conventional interaction mechanisms learnt within the context of traditional and new media narrative forms. The outcomes of the question i.e. proposing that the visuality is equal to the formal structuring of the system, fed into the more practice integrated research question B. Question B reflects the ultimate goal of the thesis, that being how to create an emotionally rich visual immersive experience that still counters the standardized HCI intuitions of the participants and all the while generating multiple readings around the narrative content?

The combined and concluded outcomes of both research questions are situated in the new artwork Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw. What follows below is a summary of the findings from the project, which are supported by the external participants comments, analysis of what the thesis has achieved and possible vistas for the future.

Aesthetics Techniques
1.	Difference and the digital surprise
	I've shown a new model of responsive communication exchange, one that uses a combination of disturbance, subtlety and difference. This creates a particular atmosphere that is successful in immersing the participant in the artwork. The "difference" or unconventionality was by far the most controversial aspect as revealed by the expert participants . My practice over these last few years has been testing the limits and scope of difference -- in that difference in the correct dose and or context can be a positive factor, as it creates attention, feelings of surprise and pleasure [1]. However, in a dose that is overwhelming, it can create sustained confusion and/or irritation. This testing the limits of difference progressively culminated in the Deviant project, which as detailed previously, is unconventional in multiple aspects .

2.	Intimacy
	"I personally felt, she being a child, that it was something that threatened her--and not that she might be a threat to others, though those are co-ordinate. I think the piece is extraordinary at building up the sense of secret bad stuff happening that 'the authorities' have no authority over. By contrast Red Riding Hood , though flipping that story, seems jocular, eye-winking. Of course, the fairy stories to begin with have done the job of 'normalizing' frightening content." [Strickland email correspondence 22.06.04]

	One of Deviant's predominant strengths is the intimate relationship formed between the participant and the artwork. This is located in the visual vocabulary , the types of interactions required and the viewing platform. As discussed elsewhere , the last one is created by an unusual or oxymoronic sense of remoteness and connectivity, in that the participant has a sense of physical closeness to the online[2] artwork.

3.	The Visual Vocabulary
3a.	Layering
	The presentation of the Deviant project is primarily done pictorially using layers. These overlap on top of the main tableau composition. As mentioned previously , this stacking technique is in opposition to conventional filmic animation [3]. Instead, the world and its interrelationships are presented as something different, something "other". The spatial metaphors of inside and outside, secret and public spaces, as built upon from The Bloody Chamber project, create a sense of exploring private spaces. This enables a more heightened emotional engagement [4].

3b.	Pixel detail
	A unanimously held opinion about the project was that, in visual terms, the project is successfully compelling . The design choices such as the depiction of the protagonist and the large level of detail within the drawings were most valued. The latter was frequently mentioned, not only in rendering terms but also in the way in which the project moved. Several of the experts used the analogy that it was at "pixel" level detail. This resulted in a feeling of having to observe the project in a unique manner, looking at the unusual subtleties -- looking "very closely" at how it moved and how it visually changed. "Deviant is a work, which requires a close, very close look. There are minutest details to which you should pay attention to. Or, at least there are lots of small details you may pay attention to, but what is their significance is not really clear." (Koskimaa )

	I propose that within my practice, the non-photographic rendering style helped to create an immersion into the artwork and in particular the protagonist, as Simanowski pointed out: "The visuals are very impressive. The figures are sketched with only a few lines, which nevertheless give a good impression of the character behind the face. The girl and partly the other characters in the play always move slightly. Thus the girl's eyelid closes and opens and sometimes the pupil moves on mouseover to adjust the gaze to the user who is at the end of the mouse. These effects are very impressive."

	The simplicity in the drawing (sited in the contour and line) created the opportunity for a universal identification [5] with the character of Christian Shaw. This association can be mapped onto a generalised concept of pre-pubescent children - s/he could be someone we all know, s/he could even have been us. The duality of this comic sensibility and the at pixel level detailing created a sense of preciousness and authorial commitment to the project -- as revealed by a close inspection -- all the detailing was done, digitally stitched if you will -- by hand. This handcrafting adds a dichotic element to the visual vocabulary -- of being both digital and I propose somatic, i.e., corporeal.

4.	Approach to narrative
	Deviant manages to suture a total disjuncture between narrative immediacy and the fractures caused by no back buttons and multiple perspectives by utilising conflict resolution [6] and an enmeshed narrative skeleton .

	By employing the former, I utilised the participant's predications that the artwork will reveal at its conclusion the key to the mystery. This drove the participants onwards with a sense of some safely - i.e. being inside a mystery is a standard they recognise. This small feeling of safety (although misplaced) allowed some of them to mentally explore the environment.

	By employing a narrative skeleton -- an essentially linear supportive base -- I can create a type of narrative coherency that still allows for multiplicity of sequence and ambiguity. I call the narrative skeleton enmeshed, as the structures and opportunities that surround this skeleton disturb or challenge the linear drive. Much of the participant's conflict came from this sense of confusion; as outside the narrative skeleton the narrative in the practice lost it's authority. Narrative flow became a narrative emulsion, a low-charged visual lyricism rather than a traditional narrative. This, combined with the sonorous elements, created an atmosphere of dissonance , which again misleadingly suggested that there is a hidden source to the disturbance. This motivated most of the participants to continue.

	Further conflict also came to play as the participants became aware of the possibility of conditionally linked, i.e., limited or hidden areas within the artwork, especially when they moved forward and couldn't move back, in the narrative skeleton . This feeling of loss promoted an urge to retrace their steps and traverse the narrative again.

5.	Memory -- Attention and Re-reading
	Within Deviant (more so than The Bloody Chamber ), the act of re-reading was conceptually important to the source narrative. Any re-readings would reveal perhaps different interpretations for the participant, but the artwork and events would be the same, reinforcing the notion that the events are "trapped in history". This repetition and continued exposure to all of the paths and imagery helped to accumulate emotionally towards a state of being fully aware, which was the nearest experience in Deviant to a traditional sense of closure.

	To reiterate, the participant's interactions within the narrative sections of the project did not offer new outcomes. They only revealed one telling. I asked the participant to imagine new narrative meaning and possibilities for themselves (as demonstrated by the expert participant group) and to reconsider their standing within the project. Deviant used ambiguous and false positions of complicity. This was a repositioning of the participant role where s/he is antithetically both an empowered explorer but de-powered in terms of altering the physical outcomes of the project.

	Deviant was designed to push both the role of the participant and the interpretative level of the visual space. Thus, as mentioned elsewhere , the physical fullscreen nature of the project was devised. This large fullscreen format demands a high level of memory and attention [7]. Within the act of re-reading it was shown that the participants' sense of exploring and getting access to new parts of the project elicited a feeling of deeper understanding. Interestingly this "seeing more" is a misapprehension on the part of the participant, as in each tableau there existed an open access (no guard or conditional links) to all the areas. The only loss came when they move chronologically up the narrative skeleton. This leads me to believe that the visual communication in its fullscreen nature, subtlety and detail creates an inherent multiplicity and need for re-reading -- by virtue of its overloading of the participants' memory and attention. This is another argument [8] for utilising pictorial languages in responsive environments -- as re-reading is a generally held as a signifier of rich experiences and interestingly is an attributed feature of canonical literature.

3.1 Conclusion: the argument
To summarize, Deviant is an interactive system created to help instigate the participants' enquiry into the historical representation of Christian Shaw. Within the fabric of the project, I challenged:
-	The standardised interaction of HCI languages.
-	Some of the specific conventions of cybertext / hypertext fiction readings (back buttons / easy re-readings).
-	The expected goal orientated "making a difference" tasks.
-	And offered an uncommon participant role in a new narrative experience. I propose that this system utilises a conflict resolution tension combined with what I term digressive narrativity.

Together, Deviant and The Bloody Chamber showed how to create new types of pictorial participatory experiences that encouraged intimacy framed by the sense of disturbance. I retold ergodically narrative stories that emotionally involved the participant. This visual as opposed to verbal articulation creates another type of communication -- that of the fragital . As described elsewhere , this is an uncommon pairing of the digital experience, involving for example the individualized remote onscreen touch, and the sense of a material and sensitive tangibility which is located in the drawing, movement, composition and the responsive actions of the visual practice.

This fragital together with disturbance acted as new immersive aesthetic. This I propose is the new knowledge revealed by the research as presented in this thesis.

3.2 Vistas for the future
What are the possible future applications for interstitial responsive multiple state systems?
A question of context
The expert reviews of my practice indicated a problematic context [9] for responsive environments that are not seen to be goal orientated [10] games (note an interstitial ideology needs some sense of context in which to sit between). This I propose suggests two things. First, the lack of a compiled culture of responsive visual literature or prominently visual hypertexts which sit outside of the cybertext or digital games domains [11] is a possible cause (Contemporary Artwork Review ). As it stands, Internet based pictorial responsive environments span the full gamut of disciplines and due to this diffuseness are semi-visible to participants and theorists alike. I propose that work could be done to loosely collate these practices [12]; doing this would help unify and reveal the different models and treatments of narrative being used contemporaneously.
Second, the ascendancy and vibrancy of games studies is perhaps pervading the perception of all responsive practice. I propose that this, if true, would be a worrying instance of convergence. Convergence flies in the face of the inherent hybridity and emergent nature of Internet artworks. I suggest either a broadening of the meaning of "game" [13], or a more coherent culture of non-gaming responsive practices.

Deconstruction is a hard act to follow
As stated elsewhere , my practice argues for an anti-mass or put another way -- "cool" [McLuhan 1994] communication [14]. I argue for artworks that communicate emotionally individuals. Individualistic practices, I propose, can speak about specific locales and personal histories. My practice as submitted in this thesis reveals and unpicks standard reading and participant conventions; it is a counter and multi-vocal presence in amongst the voluminous mass of transparent communication forms [14]. Deviant is an example of a visual deconstructive text.
It was not my aim to use the expert participants as a quantitative survey or data pool by which to "grade" the practice, but their outcomes did reveal, rather surprisingly, that even expert [15] participants still have difficulties with artworks that function on a conceptual level of deconstruction (e.g. many of them desired a conclusion). This perhaps suggests that the specifics of participant-centric phenomena still require further investigation. As a research practise it is less common to document the participant's responses [16] than to critique the artworks.
This thesis contributes insights primarily into how such practices are developed from the artist's perspective and then secondly offers insights into how the artwork was received. I believe that knowing more about the participant's experiences can further inform the development of these types of practices by building on its strengths.

Developing further:
1.	Spatial connections
	I propose that further development could be done in investigating the pictorial layering technique. Such depth hierarchies promote different kinds of relationships between the spatially laid out narrative objects. This type of communication potentially has links with the developing strains of comic theory i.e. with parallels in modular / global coherence and multidirectional reading patterns [3].

2.	The fragital: digital but somatic
	The fragital aesthetic can be further developed. This aesthetic as located within Deviant is a hybrid of detailed line art, handcrafting and popular imagery with the post-modern approach to closure. As discussed previously this created a sense of tangibility experienced in the drawing, movement, composition and the responsive actions of the visual practice.

3.	Ethical complicity
	Deviant creates fraudulent but effective participant positions of complicity and feelings of responsibility over the protagonist Christian Shaw. This (as Frasca has been calling for [17]) brings fourth opportunities to develop socially, ethically and politically useful experiences as critical comments. I propose the complicit am-I-at-fault? role can be developed further. This could be an interesting and diametric move when compared to the "hero" roles offered by the majority of the mainstream game releases.


Recap
The project Deviant has shown how to balance traditionally oxymoronic ideals -- creating an intrinsically interstitial experience with the emotionally immersive and someway narratively resolved experience for the participant. This was achieved by the development of the fragital aesthetic.

Expansion

	1.	"All discourse of interactive artefacts, when first encountered, tends to the entropic . While the viewer may bring expectations of the form, its content and sequence which they have derived from their previous experiences of similar pieces, from reviews and critiques from what they have been told by friends or colleagues, their own experience is of something new, novel, surprising." [Peacock 2000; p.24]






	2.	I create my practice using a mouse (to draw, build, animate) observing it on the screen and present it to the wider audience over the Internet. I intentionally create ambiguities and mix anachronistic referents to allow indeterminacy to come to play in both the understanding of the imagery and in the structural access to the narrative. I cannot fully control what the participant will interpret the world and events as.
		The participant chooses to engage with my work through the Internet, observing the screen and using a mouse (or a tracking pad). Similar to my loosening of authorial control -- the participant will sense that there are significant amounts of self-led explorations and interpretations required within the project. This I propose reflects a more equal communication -- or sharing of ideas.
		-----------------------> Loosening (not full abandonment) of authorial control Participant more observably and self determinately explores/interprets <-----






	3.	The spatiality of layering and the multiple framed "pop-in" windows as well as being non-filmic are also linked to certain practices associated with reading comics. They have parallels in how comic readers receive the imagery, which is at both modular (specific panels) and global levels (the whole page). In comics, the mental act of decoding the graphic language often utilises multidirectional reading patterns. An important link, worth future investigation, can be seen between the comic's panel edge/border/ threshold and how framed windows, or in Deviant case, the different overlapping layers can be understood as individual but global compositions.

		Screengrab of a layering combination from tableau 1.






	4.	Forbidden, secret spaces exact a kind of excitement, as would any taboo situation. Secret places tempt the participant into them. Forests are the most common of the secret places (think fairytales). The forest is both the place of danger and abandonment but also of refuge and enchantment. The forest contains demarcated areas and non-paths. Forests, dense foliages and faunas refer to natural organic processes.






	5.	Universal Identification [McCloud 1993; p.114] In summary of McCloud, the more detail a picture provides, the more "realistic" we perceive it to be. However, the more detail a picture includes, the less universal an image is. The simpler an image, the more people it can be said to describe. Thus, for McCloud a cartoon achieves universality through abstraction of detail, letting the viewer focus on a few key elements. McCloud goes on to theorize that when interacting with another person, you see their exterior self in full detail. You also retain a "sketchy" awareness of your own self during that interaction -- what your eyes, mouth, and hands are doing. Thus a detailed, realistic photo represents the "other"; a simplified image (i.e. a cartoon) invites identification with the self.
		Associated with the idea of universal identification is Marshal McLuhan's proposition that mediums can be divided into hot and cool categories [McLuhan 1994 p160]. A hot medium is high definition, low on interactivity, specialised, and usually limited to one sense. Examples of hot media he gives are radio, film, and books. Cool media -- such as television or comics, are on the other hand low in definition, interactive, generalized, and engage more senses.
		A cool medium requires that the participant must fill in the blanks, or put another way, use considerable sense construction to complete the message. I propose that in responsive environments, this universal identification (although a cool trait in itself) may soothe the coolness or the shock of the artwork's inherent difficulty.






	6.	"Among the architectures described … the only one that places interactivity in the service of narrative desire is the mystery-story structures (fig.10), because the reader's actions discover, rather than create, the object of this desire, and because the story to be investigated is itself unilinear, determinate, and external to the interactive machinery." [Ryan 2001 p259]






	7.	Within Deviant, the use of visual perception and memory is key, the volume of pictorially important links to be found within the tableaux are highlighted either by being warm in hue or the fact that they are new objects. Similarly, the non-important objects are repeatedly shown in the same position after each significant narrative intersection passes. This it was hoped would in effect neutralise these objects as they become familiar and memorized. The fullscreen scale nature of the presented interface is used to create some visual resting spaces (locales that are empty or minimal) so as not to completely overload the participant's visual perception, all the while retaining the intensity of the detailing.






	8.	"Of the three types of immersion [temporal, spatial, emotional], the spatial variety evidently has the most to gain from the built-in spatiality of pictures. It seems safe to predict that the interactive texts of the future will make much more extensive use of visual resources than the literary hypertexts of the present, and it would therefore be unfair to pass judgements of immersivity on purely verbal attempts to convey an experience of space". [Ryan 2001; p.236] Ryan goes on to propose that practitioners: "…give up on the idea of an autonomous "literary" genre and take greater advantage of the multimedia capability of the electronic environments. This approach would lead to a merger of hypertext with the burgeoning genre of CDROM interactive art, and could also take the form of a hybridization with computer games". [Ryan 2001; p.265]






	9.	As I mention elsewhere in the thesis, Internet practices are naturally /appropriately and notoriously unclassifiable [Paul 2003], but that is not to say critics or theorists cannot cite multiple contexts as a malleable type of classification. This would be a sufficient and a significant departure from traditional singular contexts.






	10.	Agon [Caillois 1958]. Games based on competition; such as sports (soccer, tennis), board games (chess, Go) or TV quiz games (Jeopardy).






	11.	The two domains (cybertext and games studies) are placed together as there exists a more than causal link between the two: Espen Aarseth. Aarseth is a central force in creating and spear heading the discipline of games studies -- he is Associate Professor / Principal Researcher of Copenhagen's Center for Computer Games Research (opened in 2003). However in his previous academic pursuits, he was acknowledged as the founder of cybertext studies [see Aarseth 1997], whereby his specialisations were located in text-based and ergodic literature.
		I propose the quality and visibility of Aarseth's work in games studies has brought a gaming mindset to the fore in the contemporary reading of responsive practice. This pervasive perspective is combined with the impact of a new generation of participants and theorists. This new generation has -- in ever increasing volumes -- had first hand experience of digital gaming and not perhaps Internet practices that are aligned to the fine arts.






	12.	Such as Ubu.com achieved for experimental poetry and Bornmag.com achieved for the synthesis of illustrative image and literature.






	13.	The game vs. play vs. play as-an-instrument. As the artist behind Deviant when I say I did not perceive or create the project as a game, it is because of my non expert definition of what a game is. My definition is much the same as Eric Zimmerman's:

"A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome"[a].

Defining the required constituents of a game -- is like many other terms in this field of study --much debated. Game designer and researcher Greg Costikyan who believes in open-ended outcomes defines a game as:

"A form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal" [b].

Whilst games studies researcher Jesper Juul posits:

"A game is a rule-based formal system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable" [c].

	Normative definitions of a game share an emphasis on both the rules and the outcomes of the process.
	Playing within a rule-based system implies that interacting with the system can reveal the rules of behaviour. Within Deviant the rules are anti-rules or significantly gratuitous [d] [Laurel 1991] rules, which are set-up to confute conventional interaction tropes --Deviant's global rule is to defy expected rules.
	The outcomes of the game -- as well as the rules -- are also important. Achieving (winning) or not achieving (losing) the pre-set goal (s) are the most common outcomes. More rare is the game that emphasises the procedural act of pursuing and not attaining a goal. Goals are conventionally mapped onto conclusions, as detailed elsewhere , Deviant does not give a full elucidation as a conclusion or as a prize (to use a game analogy) for completing a reading. Instead it works to encourage re-readings and participant-centric reflections (there are no physical outcomes).
	In this respect Deviant is in conflict with the two most commonly held aspects of what defines a game, "rules and goals". To take this idea further "Deviant is a game true or false?", I have analysed the project in respect to Juul's criteria for defining games [Juul 2003]. He established six qualities. What follows below are details of how Deviant sits within each category:

		1.	Rules: Games are rule-based. Deviant drives not towards an un-ambiguity of rules, but is significantly ambiguous (at least until many re-readings have passed).
		2.	Variable, quantifiable outcome: Games have variable, quantifiable outcomes. Deviant's rules do not provide different possible outcomes, the physical outcome is always the same.
		3.	Value assigned to possible outcomes: That the different potential outcomes of the game are assigned different values, some being positive, some being negative. Deviant does not put a value on any particular outcomes -- none of the outcomes are "better" than others (only the participant's desire to re-read is a preferred outcome). In fact Deviant is set up to create unpredictable and multiple readings.
		4.	Player effort: That the player invests effort in order to influence the outcome. (I.e. games are challenging.) However, Deviant does require a significant level of invested energy in the participant's interactions.
		5.	Player attached to outcome: That the players are attached to the outcomes of the game in the sense that a player will be the winner and "happy" if a positive outcome happens, and loser and "unhappy" if a negative outcome happens. Deviant does desire a level of psychological attachment from the participant to the protagonist -- Christian Shaw, i.e. to feel bad if she is being hurt.
		6.	Negotiable consequences: The same game [set of rules] can be played with or without real-life consequences. Deviant, set ups negotiable consequences as "the operations and moves needed to play the game are predominantly harmless."

	Thus by Juul's criteria Deviant is not a game.
	However, I do accept that Deviant does offer significant amounts of free-play, and could thus be analogous with a toy, especially in the digressive spaces and in the playful rollovers. Deviant also uses a sense of conflict (but has no traditional goal) to drive the participant [Zimmerman], these mixed qualities are in keeping with the hybrid nature of Deviant.

	a.	Zimmerman, E., (2003) The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds Conference, New York Law School November 13-15.
	b.	Costikyan, Greg, (1994) I Have No Words & I Must Design
	c.	Juul, J., (2003) The Game, the Player, the World: Looking for a Heart of Gameness, Published in Marinka Copier & Joost Raessens (eds.): Level Up: Digital Games Research Conference Proceedings. Utrecht: Universiteit Utrecht.
	d.	Gratuitous interactions: "have no causal relationships to the whole action…shed no light on what things have happened or why they happened as they did". [Laurel 1991; p.73-74]







	14.	Communication is "transparent" to the participants when nothing is intended to distract from the sender's communicative goal. It is suggested that this model has an ability to manipulate the receiver, in that mass communication becomes a primary process of reality construction and maintenance. In such a situation, positions of inequality, dominance and subservience can be produced and reproduced in society whilst at the same time made to appear "natural". This acceptance and reproduction of the transmitted reading happens passively -- without the participant being consciously aware of the exchange.






	15.	As a group (see below) apart from their individual specialisations, they are familiar with the general discourses in digital textuality, in which post-structuralism, de-construction and post-modernity are the key theoretical paradigms. The participants and the method . 1. Prof Mark Amerika 2. George Fifield 3. Gonzalo Frasca 4. Dr Raine Koskimaa 5. Cynthia Lawson 6. Nick Montfort 7. Dr Anja Rau 8. Dr Roberto Simanowski 9. Stephanie Strickland 10. Dr Jill Walker 11. Noah Wardrip-Fruin.






	16.	The strongest strains of Internet-based sociological and anthropologic study are within the areas of virtual identities [Turkle 1997], gender studies [Cassell & Jenkins 1998], or the pedagogic use of videogames.
		What I propose is for the collation of the experiences as felt by the participants. From my own experience, most Internet artists receive varying types of email feedback (some cursory, some highly insightful, some enquiring). An appeal could be put out for such artists to submit this feedback to sit alongside the artworks in question; this would provide a rich anthropological insight into the participant's relationship with the artwork. This type of data could be placed alongside and used in comparison to scholarly critiques and readings.






	17.	Certainly since (if not before) his thesis Videogames of the Oppressed -- Videogames as a means for critical thinking and debate [Frasca 2001], Gonzalo Frasca has been advocating the development of videogames as critical tools for thinking. Given Frasca's commitment and standing in the field of ludology / games studies he can be regarded as a significant voice in this emergent field.
		To engage in both the discourse and practice of critical games Frasca (ludology.org (2000- pres)) has set up:
		A research weblog with fellow researcher Ian Bogost (Georgia Institute of Technology) called Water Cooler Games: "Water Cooler Games is a site about video games with an agenda. It is about games that go beyond entertainment. Water Cooler Games explores the emerging field of games want to do more than simply being fun: they want to make a point, share knowledge, change opinions. This includes new genres such as advergaming, newsgaming, political games, simulations and edutainment. If you think that video games have a strong potential for communication, persuasion and education, come and join our discussion by the Water Cooler." [From: watercoolergames.org/about.shtml ]

		Is a partner / producer in the following companies: Newsgaming.com, which develops the emergent practice of videogames based on news events. "Traditionally, videogames have focused on fantasy rather than reality, but we believe that they can be a great tool for better understanding our world. Since newsgaming is so new, it has to find a voice of its own. Therefore, most of our games will be in part experimental."[From: newsgaming.com/faq.htm ]

		Powerfulrobot.com, which develops more commercial (opposed to newgamings more experimental games): "Powerful Robot is a games company aimed at companies that need to go beyond entertainment…If your company has something important to say, say it with a game." [From: powerfulrobot.com ]

		And persuasivegames.com, (as the name suggests) this company specialises in the development of games that persuade the participants into action as a form of marketing. "Our games influence players to take action through gameplay. Games communicate differently than other media; they not only deliver messages, but also simulate experiences. While often thought to be just a leisure activity, games can also become rhetorical tools." [From: persuasivegames.com/AboutUs.html ]






	O.	The term "Entropy…refers to experiences of sequences which are unpredictable, where options are open and remain open, possibly appearing to be discontinuous or disconnected, in which surprise, the new and the novel are commonplace. Convention is challenged or established locally or newly; things are, or seem, chaotic, even to the point of being, or appearing, gratuitous." [Peacock 2000; p.23]