I've been trying to write a definition of "stories for mixed realities" but I've got lost.
So far, I've had a go at the "mixed reality" bit: "mixed reality is the sense, whether we like it or not, that other people are always present, caused by the physically, socially and psychologically pervasive nature of connectedness through broadband, wifi, "social media"*, mobile phones and so on.*"
I don't think that works, and it's just a badly remembered version of things I've read elsewhere.
It doesn't really say what I want to say, which is "the mixed reality is in our heads."
This bit though: "mixed reality is the sense that other people are always present" is maybe why I've got so keen on unrealism in stories for mixed realities - ghosts, monsters, folk stories, enchanted things and invisible worlds.
After all, wireless networks are invisible entities that haunt places, and ghosts are invisible entities that haunt places.
And anyone who has had their heart broken in our age of flickr, twitter, facebook, IM buddy lists and mobile phones will know how powerfully ghosts from the past can haunt the present. It's turning us all into Miss Havishams! (It bloody is me anyway, I'm sitting here in my wedding dress typing this!)
And what about stories?
Again, I'm miles off the right track:
"Mixed realities are when we experience more than one story at once.
Imagine two teenagers on a first date going to see a film.
The first story they experience is the story of teenagers going on a first date to see a film, and all the possibilities and dangers that holds for them.
The second story is the story of the film.
They experience this second story at the same time as the first, until the credits roll and the lights go up."
There is some truth (or truism) in there somewhere, but then I started talking about cinemas, TV, radio, and paperback novels, and which was the best mixed reality technology.
"Cinemas are venues for mixed realities, but their stories are stuck within the walls of the building. "
But the mixed reality is not about the technologies so much as our heads.
In fact headspace would be a handy word to use if it wasn't so naff: "mixed reality is the space in our heads".
The only other bit of what I wrote that seemed worthwhile was that paperback novels are bloody brilliant at creating mixed realities.
So, I'm in the woods and can't see a path out.
Oh well. Time to stop for a bite of this delicious gingerbread house.
*"social media" is in quote marks because it's one of those phrases like "new media" which isn't going to last, and I'm using it here as a shorthand.
*"so on" will come to include things like RFID tagged objects - "the internet of things" - but not yet.
Comments