System Outline
Reference Examples
CODES
I use "Code" as the highest-most tier in this narrative classification system, being the "big umbrella" under which a narrative artifact is examined and culled from actual practice, or "from the world."
CANVAS
ARTIFACT CODE
Canvas narratives are primarily visual but may include text or touch-based features that engage users verbally. This is perhaps the largest narrative artifact code, including illustration, painting, drawing, collage, and many advertising forms. Canvas artifacts are physical or based on physical systems (they could be photos or digital files that "tell an identical story." They can be reproduced through visual recording and largely use shape, color, and implied movement to communicate narrative situations and content.
CODEX
ARTIFACT CODE
A codex is a bound collection or assortment of individual frames, pages, or canvases. "Codex" literally translates to "block of wood" and can be expanded to include any narrative artifact that is comprised of bound frames, such as periodicals, books, magazines, and.
ARCHITECTURE
ARTIFACT CODE
Architectural spaces provide contexts for narrative situations to take place, but they are also narrative systems themselves. Architecture may include sculptural, gestural, and action-representative elements.
SCULPTURE
ARTIFACT CODE
Sculptures are physical artifacts that are meant to be experienced within specific spaces and architectures. Sculptures may be abstract or they may represent people, places, or events concretely, seeking to reflect (and/or embellish reality. Sculptures are often accompanied by plaques, metanarratives that describe an event or context behind the sculptural artifact.
PERFORMANCE
ARTIFACT CODE
Performance is difficult to define as it includes some of the most common narrative forms, including theater, dance, and music. Performance is any physically enacted speech or communication that is live or immediate, or that is a record of live events, such as a film.
GAME
ARTIFACT CODE
Games embody play and performance attributes, including social functions that replicate activities from the real-world. They allow for user interaction, and are often considered to be the most interactive among narrative forms, albeit within limits. Games may be animated (as in the case of video games), physical, or conceptual, and may or may not include sound, although all games include tactile and/or haptic components. Games, as systems, are complex and vary widely, including both real-world and "play" applications. Warfare is conducted using game theory applications, but not all games are violent or embody a state of combativeness; rather, the word implies that the system involved, for the user, be simulated, repeatable, and able to master through skillful application of knowledge learned within the simulation environment. Some games can be played either privately or with others, while some may be experienced in simulated shared environments, such as single-player role-playing games. Every game embodies a narrative context, although some games are more abstract (like Tetris) and are more accurately described as puzzles.
ANIMATION
ARTIFACT CODE
Animation is to illustration as film is to photography. Animation is illustration over time, and often including sound and music.
VIDEO
ARTIFACT CODE
Video is the arrangement of canvases (frames) over time. Like animation, performance, games, and other multi-frame narratives, film is ideal for observing characters and situations over stretches of time--whereas a photograph may seek to have immediate and lasting meaning by utilizing already familiar objects, situations, or contexts.
DIRECT MESSAGE
ARTIFACT CODE
Direct messages are typically "private" narrative artifacts that are composed primarily or entirely of text. These include text messages, post cards, phone calls, and other "on-demand" communication types, some of which occur immediately, and others with delays.
CLASSIFICATIONS
Classification, whose verb form "to classify" is the core action conducted here, is "what we call" an artifact when we first identify it within its habitat, be it a living room, open pasture, air plane, or a pair of headphones.
PAINTING
CLASSIFICATION
Paintings are visual compositions, often rectangular, that portray characters, scenes, and situations by using colored, shaded, and hued ink or other coloring agent.
SILHOUETTE
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
Focusing on character shape, form, and context. Using minimal colors to increase visual focus.
MUSIC
CLASSIFICATION
Musical narratives are acoustic and transmit information through implied gesture, tone, melody, harmony, and scale.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
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VIDEO GAME
CLASSIFICATION
Video games are games that use monitors and screens to provide players with simulated narrative experiences. These provide users with the opportunity to play and may be social as well.
RPG
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
An RPG, or Role-Playing Game, places users in the role of player-characters (typically heroes) within the story world itself. This form illustrates what Gee describes as "story-playing."
figurine
CLASSIFICATION
Figurines, or "figures," are characters who have been frozen in time and space and rendered bite-sized. They can be played with, placed on shelves, and so forth. These are frequently transnarrative artifacts, referencing story worlds that are commonly recognizable, and vary widely in shape, size, and interaction capability.
TRANSNARRATIVE FIGURINE
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
Pikachu comes from the popular Pokemon card game, which was later turned into a TV series, vdeo game series, and movie franchise.
GIF
CLASSIFICATION
GIFs are animation forms that repeat indefinitely in a set loop of frames. Not every GIF is a meme, although memes often take this form.
MEME
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
Memes are infinitely replicable, typically digital narrative forms that are distinguished by their immediacy, simplicity, and short time required in order to interact or experience.
Illustration
CLASSIFICATION
Illustrations are "drawn" representations of people, places, things, concepts, and so on. While this is not its most common definition, I use it because, if an image does not contain any semblance of shape, character, or setting, but is rather abstract, then is cannot be considered illustration--whose purpose is to "illustrate" characters, situations, and so forth.
COMIC SKETCH
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
A comic strip is a single narrative unit that may or may not come from a larger body of sketches that together embody a "comic book".
DANCE
CLASSIFICATION
Physical performance form that relies on movement, shape, tableau, music, sound, and color. Dance and theatre are nearly identical expressions down to their audiences and interfaces; dance typically does not involve written or spoken language, and tends to employ .
Integrated Performance
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
Integrated performances are performances that cross-pollinate digital, technical, and performance forms within a single narrative experience.
Direct MESSAGE
CLASSIFICATION
Direct messages include post cards, letters, text messages, and chat group messages. They are central components of cell phone communication as well as social media networks and others that leverage social relationships, including the games industry.
Text message
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
Text messages are vessels for action and reaction. Their contents are of immediate significance, and perhaps as quickly of none at all, replaced in a continual stream. Text messages happen within "narrative channels," I would call them--environments that operate like river channels, which bring both prosperity and danger for life of all kinds, and in all kinds of natural and manufactured environments.
THEATER
CLASSIFICATION
Theater is the combination of physical space (stage), performer, and audience. Theatre includes many of the characteristics of poetry and prose, and uses many of the same literary devices., but is distinguished by its immediacy and temporality. By immediacy, we also mean something that cannot be replicated in its exactness. A film, for example, can be replayed, and will always be the same film as the last one you watched - but different performances, different evenings, can result in distinct experiences.
Playback
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
Playback theater is a type of performance in which improvisational scenes are depicted based on stories that are told by audience members, but then presented by performers. In this sense, Playback might also be considered a sub-product of the "psychodrama" practice.
Podcast
CLASSIFICATION
A podcast is a type of streamed vocal and aural narrative. It can sometimes be experienced live and interacted with, like through on-air call-ins. podcasts are largely educational, political social, and scientific, with an ecosystem designed for mobile interactions and applications.
Comedy podcast
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
Comedy podcasts often deal with real-world issues in healthy and meaningful ways, although this depends on tastes and is therefore an inconsistent measure unless tastes can be verified.
AUDIO BOOK
CLASSIFICATION
Audiobooks are narrative manifestations of books and other codices. They are description-heavy, like the prose texts they replicate, and often include or disclude particular verbage from the original text that is considered ether ideal or unideal for the audio format. Such include long lists and visuals that cannot fully be understood via audio alone.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
GENRES
Genres are "tags" that we add to narrative content to more easily identify those experiences that we most want or need to have. They typically refer to story structures and tropes that are "iconic of" a particular period or style, but I use the term exclusively to refer to the narrative's progressive structure of a system's own action, conflict, and resolution.
METANARRATIVE
GENRE TAG
Metanarratives are narratives "about" other narratives, in the same way that metadata is "data about other data."
COMEDY
GENRE TAG
Comedies are dramas with happy endings. They also regularly include comedic gesturing, which as Galileo said is the measure of a story's dramatic weight and value. In other words, if it isn't funny, it isn't likely to have any dramatic significance, either, although the opposite cannot be said.
DRAMA
GENRE TAG
Dramas are stories that involve particularly high levels of internal or external (character or situational) conflict. A story with both a good and bad ending may be considered either a dramatic comedy or a comedic drama.
Thriller
GENRE TAG
I use the Thriller genre to include both Horror and Thriller themes. It uses guttural, immediate, and often violent content to "jar" audiences into engagement and to frame characters within an unsafe and unreliable environment. Along with Action, the Thriller genre specializes in triggering users' adrenaline to increase engagement at the physiological level.
MYSTERY
GENRE TAG
Mysteries are stories that create suspense and engagement by providing clues to dramatically relevant puzzles that characters and audiences are tasked with completing.
Fantasy
GENRE TAG
Fantasy is not science fiction, although science fiction is often fantastical or paired with "parts" of fantasy genre. Fantasy "breaks the rules" of the natural world as we know it.
ACTION
GENRE TAG
Whereas Thrillers induces user engagement through contextual fear and uncertainty, Action genre appears to induce the same chemical engagement through different means. While more research is required to confirm the differences between neurochemical byproducts of genre attention, I expect that action also increases adrenaline levels, but by causing users to place themselves in the role of the actor, protagonist, or hero character.
SCI-FI
GENRE TAG
Science-fiction is a genre of story that relies on real-world scientific reasoning applied to hypothetical situations.
EROS
GENRE TAG
Eros, erotic stories, are those whose characters' dramatic arcs are primarily determined by sexual and erotic characteristics.
USER TAGS
User tags help us to differentiate between users of different narrative systems, who are defined by the actions they perform and the sensory experiences that are contingent in the observed narratives.
Viewer
AUDIENCE TAG
The user interacts with this narrative system primarily by viewing it.
Listener
AUDIENCE TAG
Listeners consume narrative information aurally and verbally.
reader
AUDIENCE TAG
Readers interact with narrative information and systems visually and verbally.
PLAYER
AUDIENCE TAG
Players take on the role of characters within a story world in order to interact directly with its characters and contexts. Play is all about getting information from one's environment and then learning to apply it in practically in simulated or near-simulated situations.
PERFORMER
AUDIENCE TAG
Performers are users of a system who also participate in its formalized design and expression as narratively integrated characters or personas.
USER
AUDIENCE TAG
Users are defined by their ability to interact with narrative systems deeply and utilizing a range of experiential modes and senses, including visual, tactile, haptic, etc.
CO-AUTHOR
AUDIENCE TAG
Some users are considered co-authors of narrative content. Light artist Olafur Eliasson, like many other artists whose works are displayed or presented within architectural and shared spaces(theater and dance artists specifically), considers his audiences to be co-authors of his content. People do all sorts of things in shared spaces, after all, and this can be a powerful look into the lives, expressions, and manifestations of social phenomena.
REF #001 / Silhouette Painting
Kara Walker
Artist
Book Collection
Interface
Ink on Canvas
Materials
CANVAS
ARTIFACT CODE
Canvas narratives are primarily visual but may include text or touch-based features that engage users verbally. This is perhaps the largest narrative artifact code, including illustration, painting, drawing, collage, and many advertising forms. Canvas artifacts are physical or based on physical systems (they could be photos or digital files that "tell an identical story." They can be reproduced through visual recording and largely use shape, color, and implied movement to communicate narrative situations and content.
PAINTING
CLASSIFICATION
Paintings are visual compositions, often rectangular, that portray characters, scenes, and situations by using colored, shaded, and hued ink or other coloring agent.
SILHOUETTE
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
Focusing on character shape, form, and context. Using minimal colors to increase visual focus.
1993
Year
Rectangular Page
Shape / Frame
Public or Private
Social
From her collection "Dust Jackets for the Niggerati". Walker restricts her work to black-and-white silhouettes that showcase a dynamic fury and criticism of cultural practices. The book jacket itself is a collection of image frames, interwoven with personal writing and news and other found text cuttings. Individual artifacts can be experienced in public (as a group), but because of the text-bound collection format, these pieces are visible only to individuals unless accessed through digital media.
narrative stages
[1] A girl once died while being known to no one. She didn't even leave a name behind.
[2] But upon discovery, her life's work was an inspiration to many.
[3] So even though she was ignored in life, the actions of her life gained new meaning after her death.
PROSPERITY >>>
TIME >>>
Immersion TAGS
See
Hear
Be heard
Taste
Smell
Touch
Be modified
Be seen
Be touched
Be tasted
Be smelled
Modify
Play with
Be played with
REF #002 / Twitch Stream
PERFORMANCE
ARTIFACT CODE
Performance is difficult to define as it includes some of the most common narrative forms, including theater, dance, and music. Performance is any physically enacted speech or communication that is live or immediate, or that is a record of live events, such as a film.
video Stream
CLASSIFICATION
Video streams are common on social netowrks, video sites, and even on live television networks. Video streams are any video that show live action, animation, or behaviors, and are typically voiced by channel or program hosts, who take on the role of narrators and narrative curators.
tWITCH STREAM
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
A relatively new sub-classification, the Twitch Stream is a live video stream in which users from any location observe video game players and interact with them and the game environment directly through chats, tips, and community feedback. This ecosystem is incredible in its ability to draw diverse users through intimate and friendly socialization. Many Twitch streams focus on mental health and wellness. Many, however, have become entrenched in legal conflict.
Team Ninja, Koei
Artist
Computer Monitor
Interface
Light & Sound
Materials
2019
Year
Rectangular
Shape / Frame
Public
Social
In this example, channel host "badgameplay4goodpeople," a player with Cerebral Palsy who started his channel as a sort of physical therapy, discusses the origin of the hero character in the game "Nioh." Like make hapanese jeroes, he can see spirits in the world around him (while others, generally, can't) and can communicate with them on a limited basis.
narrative stages
[3] At the last second before the video cuts out, the player is surprised by an in-game event.
[2] Player explains rough historical context for the player character (avatar).
[1] User "gedafterdark" asks the player to describe the game's historical placement and context.
PROSPERITY >>>
TIME >>>
Immersion TAGS
See
Hear
Be heard
Taste
Smell
Touch
Be modified
Be seen
Be touched
Be tasted
Be smelled
Modify
Play with
Be played with
REF #003 / Gregorian Chant
PERFORMANCE
ARTIFACT CODE
Performance is difficult to define as it includes some of the most common narrative forms, including theater, dance, and music. Performance is any physically enacted speech or communication that is live or immediate, or that is a record of live events, such as a film.
MUSIC
CLASSIFICATION
Musical narratives are acoustic and transmit information through musical notes, tones, melodies, beats, harmonies, and scales (to name a few). Music is most commonly a "secondary component" of other narrative forms. Musicality is a central component of speech, and can be integral to communicating information in ways that inspire action, reaction, or understanding. While music is often secondary in contemporary systems such as films and video games--and is often used to "enhance" and "bring on" certain experiences, like sleep and arousal. Bells, buzzers, and sirens all communicate using components of musical language.
cHANT
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
A type of religious or spiritual music characterized by terse repetition of a few notes. In this case, the chant uses four notes in a minor scale and progressing downwards. This chant was created by catholic months and used exclusively for funeral mass.
Gregorian Monks
Artist
Computer Monitor
Interface
Sound waves
Materials
13th Century
Year
Rectangular
Shape / Frame
Public or Private
Social
"The Day of Wrath" is a Gregorian chant from the 13th century used almost exclusively for funeral mass. It was later mimicked in Mozart's "Requiem" and quickly replicated throughout and across musical genres. In some Southeast Asian cultures, this chant is considered cheerful, which implies at the very least that the emotional attunement of particular melodies is learned, rather than innate. Dies Irae was used when Mufasa was killed, when Gandalf first sees Sauron's ring, and many more contemporary films.
narrative stages
[3] In the final two stanzas, the chant calls upon God for salvation, love, and rest.
[2] Until the final two stanzas, the piece lists the numerous ways the guilty will suffer.
[1] The chant begins: "Day of wrath and doom impending..."
PROSPERITY >>>
TIME >>>
Immersion TAGS
See
Hear
Be heard
Taste
Smell
Touch
Be modified
Be seen
Be touched
Be tasted
Be smelled
Modify
Play with
Be played with
REF #004 / Dance with Data
PERFORMANCE
ARTIFACT CODE
Performance is difficult to define as it includes some of the most common narrative forms, including theater, dance, and music. Performance is any physically enacted speech or communication that is live or immediate, or that is a record of live events, such as a film.
Maziar Ghaderi
Artist
Book Collection
Interface
Ink on Canvas
Materials
1993
Year
Rectangular Page
Shape / Frame
Public or Private
Social
From her collection "Dust Jackets for the Niggerati". Walker restricts her work to black-and-white silhouettes that showcase a dynamic fury and criticism of cultural practices. The book jacket itself is a collection of image frames, interwoven with personal writing and news and other found text cuttings. Individual artifacts can be experienced in public (as a group), but because of the text-bound collection format, these pieces are visible only to individuals unless accessed through digital media.
DANCE
CLASSIFICATION
Physical performance form that relies on movement, shape, tableau, music, sound, and color. Dance and theatre are nearly identical expressions down to their audiences and interfaces; dance typically does not involve written or spoken language, and tends to employ .
Integrated Performance
SUB-CLASSIFICATION
Integrated performances are performances that cross-pollinate digital, technical, and performance forms within a single narrative experience.
narrative stages
[1] A girl once died while being known to no one. She didn't even leave a name behind.
[2] But upon discovery, her life's work was an inspiration to many.
[3] So even though she was ignored in life, the actions of her life gained new meaning after her death.
PROSPERITY >>>
TIME >>>
Immersion TAGS
See
Hear
Be heard
Taste
Smell
Touch
Be modified
Be seen
Be touched
Be tasted
Be smelled
Modify
Play with
Be played with
REF #005 / Poem As Read Aloud
Read by Robert Frost
Read by Alan Bates
Robert Frost
Artist
Book Collection
Interface
Text / Light / Sound
Materials
1916
Year
Rectangle (Portrait)
Shape / Frame
Public or Private
Social
"The Road Not Taken" is one of the more debated poems of the last century. Observing the poem as a reader is quite different than experiencing it as a listener. On the left, we can hear Frost's own voice, but we cannot see his physical context. A second sample read by Alan Bates in a smooth, Shakespearean performance. Notably, this precedes a cut to a company logo indicating that it is a televised commercial.
narrative stages
We imagine many outcomes, but through courage, or overcoming judgment, act and grow.
A figurative and literal ending in which one benefits from taking the road less traveled by.
PROSPERITY >>>
TIME >>>
We arrive upon two roads, unsure of which to travel.
Immersion TAGS
See
Hear
Be heard
Taste
Smell
Touch
Be modified
Be seen
Be touched
Be tasted
Be smelled
Modify
Play with
Be played with
REF #008 / 2D Adventure Game
GAME
ARTIFACT CODE
Games embody play and performance attributes, including social functions that replicate activities from the real-world. They allow for user interaction, and are often considered to be the most interactive among narrative forms, albeit within limits. Games may be animated (as in the case of video games), physical, or conceptual, and may or may not include sound, although all games include tactile and/or haptic components. Games, as systems, are complex and vary widely, including both real-world and "play" applications. Warfare is conducted using game theory applications, but not all games are violent or embody a state of combativeness; rather, the word implies that the system involved, for the user, be simulated, repeatable, and able to master through skillful application of knowledge learned within the simulation environment. Some games can be played either privately or with others, while some may be experienced in simulated shared environments, such as single-player role-playing games. Every game embodies a narrative context, although some games are more abstract (like Tetris) and are more accurately described as "a series of actions, which together embody
Jared Moldenhauer
Artist
Screen / Monitor
Interface
Light & Sound
Materials
2014
Year
Rectangular Page
Shape / Frame
Public or Private
Social
Cuphead is a side-scrolling video game made to emulate the look and feel of early American cartoons (especially those made by Disney).
narrative stages
[1] A girl once died while being known to no one. She didn't even leave a name behind.
[2] But upon discovery, her life's work was an inspiration to many.
[3] So even though she was ignored in life, the actions of her life gained new meaning after her death.
PROSPERITY >>>
TIME >>>
Immersion TAGS
See
Hear
Be heard
Taste
Smell
Touch
Be modified
Be seen
Be touched
Be tasted
Be smelled
Modify
Play with
Be played with
MINI-GALLERY
This section provides visual examples to highlight potential applications of classification schemes discussed throughout this thesis as a whole. While I sought to include many more references here, the time required to add each record is currently prohibitive. Ideally, this page would include additional citations and resources for each narrative artifact listed below.
Graduate Thesis Project Daniel T. Kessler
NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study Updated 12.12.19
Graduate Thesis Project Daniel T. Kessler
NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study Updated 12.12.19
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Agency
Avatar
Conflict
Character
Frame Theory
Intelligent Systems
Future Narratives
Narrative Discourse
Storyplaying
Virtual World
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