Multimedia Phase-Spaces

Abstract

Dynamic phase-spaces are suggested as a way of designing and implementing interactive multimedia systems. A dynamic phase-space is a space of properties overlayed with dynamics. The space is “decorated” with multimedia resources such as pictures, music, sound-effects, speech, and movies. This architecture may help resolve the basic problem of interactive systems, namely that both user and author need to influence the system. If the user is passive, the system is not interactive, but if the author has no power, no interesting narratives can be told. But how can two or more people influence the same system at the same time? The solution presented in the paper is that the system objects are controlled by a global dynamics and neither party is allowed to influence the objects directly; they may only influence objects indirectly by perturbing the global dynamics. In this way, contradictory inputs from user and author have a well-defined solution. The paper describes an experimental museum installation that implements these ideas. In addition, a set of interactive rhetorical patterns are defined and exemplified. The main theoretical inspiration of the system is Thom‘s catastrophe theory, although it is not used in a literal sense.