When considering how technology can be used to support the construction of narratives, it is important to note that human interaction is still necessary. Marie-Laure Ryan, in the chapter “Toward an Interactive Narratology” from her book Avatars of Story, lists four “properties of digital systems… that I regard as the most relevant for narrative and textuality” (98). These four properties concern the ability to adjust behavior based on user input, the ability to change what is displayed, the ability to utilize multiple media channels, and the ability to connect to other computers and users. Ryan goes on to write that “interactivity… does not facilitate storytelling, because narrative meaning presupposes the linearity and unidirectionality of time, logic, and causality…” (99). Ryan proposes a new type of narrative combining the design of a storyteller with input from individual users. Ryan’s structure would aim to reward the user with a “coherent narrative” that is a product of their own input, not entirely pre-scripted by the designer (Ryan 100).
Clearly, the web-based works We Feel Fine and The Whale Hunt take advantage of the four properties listed by Ryan to create a rich experience for the user, or visitor to the sites. It is debatable, however, to what extent these two web sites reward the user with a coherent narrative. Both sites seem to emphasize interactivity over meaning, as the user certainly has choices, and may be inundated by words and images, yet is left to grasp at the thinnest connections to pull together a hint of a narrative.
Containing 3,214 photos, The Whale Hunt is based upon a huge but static database of images, captions, and descriptions. The user may set several different variables, including focusing on a particular character, subject, or time period. Even with user interactivity, it seems to me that the basic story of The Whale Hunt remains the same, and any subplots are the result of filtering the main story.
We Feel Fine, on the other hand, is based on material that is regularly updated from across the Internet, and which may change significantly over time. The user must interact with the database by specifying search parameters in order to extract any data. The results, therefore, are likely to be unique for each individual visitor. The chances of extracting a coherent narrative from We Feel Fine, however, seem slim. It may be possible to derive the raw elements of a story, such as the skeleton of a dialogue, which the user could then develop into a narrative.
Constructing a coherent narrative seems to require structure, plus human intelligence to select and link elements in a manner we can understand as a story. The web sites The Whale Hunt and We Feel Fine, while providing the raw materials for a good story, are not intended to complete the job; for that, we still need humans.
This summary of Ryan’s argument crystallizes something that I hadn’t been able to put my finger on, which is Ryan’s insistence upon “coherency.” Elsewhere Ryan also talks a great deal about narrative coherency, which she places a high value on. I wonder, is she privileging coherency too much? In the same way Foucault and Barthes argue that the concept of the individual author forecloses our understanding of texts and history, I wonder if the concept of “coherency” too is limiting, and even damaging? Somebody like Manovich might say indeed it is…
The professor makes an interesting point. I would argue that coherence is required for a narrative to be understood by humans. Interactive databases sometimes result in little more than a random series of elements. Manovich, in fact, seems to question the relationship between such random results and the structure required for a narrative. In “The Database Logic,” Manovich cites Mieke Bal’s criteria for narrative in asking, “Why should an arbitrary sequence of database records, constructed by the user, result in ‘a series of connected events caused or experienced by actors’?” (228)
In my view, if a narrative is not coherent on some level, then it cannot function as literature; we might, however, regard it as art.