networked narrative environments / as imaginary spaces of being
Andrea Zapp: Introduction 1/4
The idea of networks and links as spaces or environments is somewhat of an enigma, still to be forged and integrated into thought,
rather than an accepted notion. (Margaret Morse, 1995.)1
Nearly a decade after Morse wrote those words, we experience digital networking and the Internet not only as leading platforms for
artistic ideas, but as extending far beyond their political and social neighbourhoods, infiltrating nearly every sector of our everyday
lifes. Due to this constant merging of real and virtual spaces and existences, the 'networked narrative environment' must be defined as
a modus operandi that reflects not only creative but also social processes, while playing with a deliberate and experimental combination
of artistic devices, disciplines, and languages.
This publication examines models of public installations and theatrical spaces that are linked to the Internet with the aim to integrate
the viewer into the artwork. The network provides the technical backdrop that enables a remote and open-ended dialogue between these
spaces. The resulting narrative demonstrates interactivity as a user-controlled construct. The environment presents itself as a physical
installation architecture that creates a stage for real and virtual role-play, with site specifics underpinning metaphors and
supplying 'plots'. Human presence is addressed as increasingly subject to a flow of online contributions, material and data.
How does this reposition our collective understanding of the physical and the virtual, the real and the imaginary? How can the
logistics of a networked participatory platform query the idealistic potential of an allegedly 'virtual existence'? This type of
open system or artwork can be understood as an 'interval', as it tests media art and its reception on a transitory stage: between
the natural and digital space and between their communities, being a symbolic passage or point of transfer between provinces
of 'pure potentiality'.2
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