Hi.

I invite you to sit down in one of these lounge chairs – and to imagine that I am sitting opposite you, sharing my thoughts and feelings about this project.

It would be so nice if we could physically meet here and now, leaning back into the chairs and letting our thoughts wander.

Hopefully, these metaphorical chairs will help us pretend.

You might have wandered through these rooms already, reading about my experiments and my reflections – or you might have come here first. If the latter is true, you will find the work and inspiration leading up to my current thoughts in the other rooms if you wish to study them in more detail, and a complete list of references is on the desk in the office.

The thoughts in this study reflect my thinking now, after a long journey of experimentation and reflection. I am actually surprised at the outcome of this personal journey of artistic research. I find that I use spatial terms to describe this outcome – where I am, where I have arrived, how I have ‘levelled up’. Although this research project has resulted in four concrete concept sketches, these somehow feel more like by-products to me.  They are the practical, artistic explorations of my ideas, and I do intend to continue the development of “Otherself”. However, I personally find the most important outcome to be how much the process has changed me. I feel strengthened and more experienced. I think differently. I even struggle to remember how I thought when I started. Maybe this is why I feel as if I am in a different ‘place’, and that my previous ‘place’ is now lost to me.

The foregoing also means that I think differently about artistic research and what it entails. As mentioned in my text in the office on methodology, Borgdorff describes artistic research as a questioning and a focus on process:

“Artistic research seeks not so much to make explicit the knowledge that art is said to produce, but rather to provide a specific articulation of the pre-reflective, non-conceptual content of the art. It thereby invites unfinished thinking. Hence, it is not formal knowledge that is the subject matter of artistic research, but thinking in, through, and with art.” (Borgdorff 2012, 143)

With the ideas expressed in that quote as a starting point, it makes sense to me that my most important outcome ends up being new experience, reflection and further unfinished thoughts. I have found many new questions – appearing like new rooms of thought that I wish to enter and explore.  Michael A. R. Biggs describes newfound experience as an important outcome of practice-based research. He describes this relationship between experience and new questions when he writes that

“Artistic enquiry is not just artistic enquiry about the nature of the physical world but is also artistic enquiry about the artistic world… questions about experience arise through the process or as a consequence of experience...” (Biggs 2004, 8)

Experience as knowledge

Describing and sharing complex outcomes is a fundamental part of artistic research, which raises the question of how to share experience. According to Biggs, practice-based research produces both experience arising through practice and cognitive insights arising from reflection on practice. Experience presents itself as experiential feeling and experiential content, with cognitive reflection on these feelings leading to experiential content. As content, these processed feelings can then be expressed and shared:

“Explicit content is expressed linguistically. Tacit content has an experiential component that cannot be efficiently expressed linguistically. Ineffable content cannot be expressed linguistically.” (Biggs 2004,6)

The ‘knowing how’ of tacit knowledge can thus not be fully described in words. The best description of ‘the way I work’ that I can offer is probably to be found in the elements in this exposition that show or explain my thought processes. The text in the office on methodology, the kitchen journal describing the evolution of my creative work, and the four concept descriptions in the kitchen are intended to give an impression of my work processes.

I am sharing the explicit content that describes the outcome of my work in this text and the other material here, in the living room, where I aim to express my experiential feelings, reflections and new questioning.

The fifth concept: this exposition

The final challenge is to attempt to express the ineffable outcome, which is represented by the artistic outcome of this project. As the four concept descriptions have not been developed into fully-formed VR experiences, I have to rely on the imagination of the visitors to this exposition to co-create the outlined VR experiences based on the suggested user journeys and descriptions I provide – much as I invited you earlier to sit in the chair opposite me so that we can chat.

However, I have one more way to express my findings to you, which leads me to describe the framing I have chosen for my exposition. I consider these rooms for thoughts that I present on the Research Catalogue to be my fifth artistic concept – and the most complete one. This time, the challenge is not exploring my research question in VR, but instead the challenge is presenting my artistic research in a form that demonstrates what I now think and feel about communicating through interactive experiences. My aim is to give you a personal user journey through the material in this doctoral work that might evoke emotion and reflection – communicating some of the ineffable qualities of my work.

Outcomes that shape this exposition

My most important finding from this exploration is that form and content have seamlessly merged for me. I started this project with two questions – one about the objectification of children and the other about the use of emotionally charged interactive storytelling. I now see that these are two aspects of the same topic – namely, the workings of human choice and decision-making. We humans choose how to interpret an interactive choice in a VR experience, and we choose whether to objectify children. We utilize the same decision-making processes for both. Hatred might colour the way we look at a child, while artistic choices might colour the way we choose our user journey – even instinctively triggering unconscious biases – in an interactive experience.

The consequence of this insight is that all my reflections on the topic of othering and symbolic violence are also relevant for interactive storytelling, and vice versa. It leaves me with a new personal truth. We need to work consciously to ensure a level of freedom and agency in our interactive experiences in order to build trust and make other people interact openly and consciously.

Transparency

In order to not push participants into objectifying, dualistic positions, it becomes important to ensure that my interactive experiences – which are works that reflect me as the creator – present the participants with an agency that levels out the power imbalance that might otherwise exist. I should avoid methods, genres or formats that indicate any supremacy or authority or contain hidden manipulation, and make sure that I give agency and control of the material to my participant.

I wish to create a meeting with the participant – to show respect in order to create a more even dialogue between us. I feel as if I am becoming more like a facilitating host than a creator.

Presenting myself

As I think differently about the authority I have and should have over the interactive experiences – wishing to hand ownership of the experience over to the participant and their processing of the material – it also follows that I should be transparent about my 'rationality' – that is, my wishes and beliefs. An interactive experience will be coloured by its creator’s emotions, experiences and background. Some of this will be instinctive and happen unconsciously. I can help the participant evaluate this aspect of the experience by including a description of my background and perspective. I also believe that offering this transparency will help build trust and more willingness to interact with the material.

For this exposition, I present my background and position in several  texts.

See the texts “My interactive journey” and “My methodology” in the office, and the text “Interactive experiences” in the library.

Storyshaping instead of storytelling

I work to pull the participant more closely into the material I offer, presenting it as a motivating and challenging labyrinth or obstacle course for a participant, not as a message that I am handing to a visitor. This work has given me a growing scepticism towards linear formats.

Linear storytelling offers very limited agency to the person listening, watching or in other ways receiving the material. Its one-way nature creates an asynchronous power balance between the creator and the receiver, mainly offering the receiver the option to accept or discard what is told. Processing of the material occurs in the receiving person’s thoughts, but the linear material offers no possibility for responses, meaningful choices or dialogue.

I find linear storytelling ‘passive-ising’ – motivating the participant to be receiving and not actively engaging – and think it likely that this way of conveying information will become less and less trustworthy as humans become more and more used to being able to co-create and discuss interactively.

Creators have previously had few or no options to linear formats for mass distribution, but this landscape has changed. We now have global, digital networks that facilitate cost-effective distribution of interactive material and two-way communication, which means that using linear telling should now be considered an active choice, and that the creator has made a conscious decision to place the participant in the role of a passive-ised receiver. A more inclusive approach will be more likely to build trust and a willingness to reflect- and thus create more room for both doubt and more nuanced views that create openings for change.

Read my text presenting thoughts on further research, “Silenced, not numb?: Openings for new explorations” in the living room.

Jane McGonigal touches on this topic in her book “Reality is Broken”, in which she mentions that teenagers of today solve complex challenges in computer games, while at the same time they are told they are inexperienced and have no skills in the physical work market. She advises that we should learn from games how to motivate and challenge young people (McGonigal 2012).  

Read my initial thoughts about how ‘telling’ seems to result in numbness in the text “NUMB” in the office.

I am attempting to offer more agency to the visitors of this exposition by presenting my material in a less linear format, not dictating the sequence in which the material is read or processed. Dividing the exposition up into more independent pieces invites the creation of a unique user journey through the material, in which the order and depth of interaction are actively chosen. The concepts or context can be studied in depth, but I think that visitors will be able to have a meaningful visit without studying all the material. Offering these navigational choices also demonstrates that I am giving the visitors initiative and choice, in contrast to the traditional linear thesis format which encourages the reader to follow the sequentially offered.

In order to further reduce the linear feeling of the material, I have chosen to utilize the metaphor of rooms. Using two-dimensional drawings to visualize the idea of three-dimensional spaces, I can present the material in a way that is intended to invite interaction. By outlining the rooms as belonging to a private home, I wish to create associations with a safe space and a facilitating host. This format is an attempt to signal openness and respect for the visitor.

Through these acts of framing, I propose to replace storytelling with a concept I present here, storyshaping, which is the process of shaping interactive experiences that offer participants agency for active processing and motivates co-creation.

The storyshaper invites exploration by offering the participant agency and control (Kirginas og Gouscos 2018), including the option to exit the experience easily, choosing not to choose, ensuring the presence of alternatives that let the participant interact according to their wishes or moral beliefs. This process builds trust (Tagliaferri 2023). The storyshaper also crafts meaningful interactions that motivate the participant to reflect.

Michael Schwab discusses the presentation of artistic research and argues for the format of the exposition and the design and development of the Research Catalogue web publishing platform. The Research catalogue is a structure that enables combination of media content of many kinds “because it promises a more creative and formally precise negotiation of academic, reflective and critical work” (Schwab 2012, 340). Schwab offers alternative terms for such multimedia constellations or modes of writing for artistic publication, including: exposure, staging, performance, translation, reflection, unfolding, exhibiting and curating (Schwab 2012, 352).

What I find to be missing in his proposition is to further take into consideration the perspective of the visiting participant, and the journey they make through the material. Hence, I suggest expanding the list by including the storyshaping aspects of invitation, activation and motivation, and I hope this exposition of my artistic doctoral outcome will serve as an example of storyshaping to disseminate artistic research.

Motivation

Despite my attempts to make this exposition interactive, the majority of it still consists of linear, written text. I cannot avoid using linear language to communicate my explicit content (Biggs 2004). However, the offered transparency and agency is intended to give the visitor more authority over the material.

I feel that I am also creating cognitive 'space to think' by inviting reflection. However, offering choice also means that I have a greater responsibility for motivating visitors. After all, my aim is to present material that will be processed. This will not be achieved if the visitor isn’t motivated to explore and interact.

This exposition utilizes playful and minimalistic drawings. The drawings are  a way of showing my presence and personality, and are to demonstrate my intention to invite participation. Neither the exposition nor I as its creator expect visitors to consume all or to accept everything that is included as new truths.

Illustrating with my own drawings also enables me to exclude anything that I feel distracts from my messages. I include illustrations only where I feel that they communicate something relevant, echoing the insights from my first concepts, where I experienced the urge to remove details in order to focus the attention of participants on the core topic. The drawings in this exposition are either metaphors to motivate and enable interaction or illustrate my thoughts.

Interactive texts normally rely heavily on hypertexts as clickable words or sentences placed in the linear text itself. This is a method that I am uncomfortable with. I find this way of linking authoritative – often leading to confusion and disruption of the thought processes. I personally feel as if I am sent blindly to a different place and that I will have to re-orient myself to the new surroundings and context.

In order to give the visitor more control and avoid this potential disruption, I am avoiding using traditional hypertext links. The links in the exposition are all in the form of clickable drawings with hovering text that explains where they lead. Most of them belong to the 'house' metaphor, where symbols like doors or objects are meant to make navigation intuitive. The only other exception are links that show the topical relationship among different texts in the exposition. These are illustrated with small drawings of the pages they lead to and marked with a star and the text ‘one-way jump’. The idea is to shape the link as a kind of ‘peeping hole’ presenting where it leads, so that the visitor has more control and can make a more informed choice.

Trust and personal truth

Giving the visitor agency and control over the material is an attempt at creating trust and motivating more open processing and cognitive reflection. The result is a more personal and emotional space where the visitor can reflect with me in a process of co-creation.

As I discuss in the text “Unwriting objectification” in the library, ‘objective truths’ or even ‘subjective truths’ are based on the dominance of defining powers. These truths, as well as ‘rational thinking’, are not emotion-less facts, but based on beliefs and wishes. This is also true of my personal truths. I have no objective research findings that I can ‘transfer’ to a visitor. All I can hope for is that my personal truths might inspire a visitor to reflect on their own truths – potentially changing their perspective if they are inspired to reflect by interacting with the material I present.

I have grown up in a Western epistemological culture with the belief that objective truth and knowledge exist and that these two things are devoid of emotions. I no longer believe that statement. Emotions like fear, hope, love and hate also lie at the core of our rationality.

Creating a mutual room for change

I dearly wish to inspire change – to communicate in a way that moves and inspires more consideration for others. Through this artistic project, I have come to hold the personal truth that inspiring change can only happen if we invite others to co-create new meaning in the spaces between us, exchanging the idea of communicating one message for exploring a space of potential meanings.

In the text “Unwriting objectification”, I discuss the ideas that two other people have had about these ideas. Denise Ferreira De Silva believes there can be an alternative to power-based objectification in a space that is instead imagined as contingency and possibility, while Theodore Adorno talks about state of differentiation without domination.

Read the text “Unwriting objectification” in the library.

I do not think this space of potential meaning can be explored by one person alone. This space exist between human beings when we exchange ideas without domination, invite open reflection, and expect only to inform the other while respecting their perspective as equal to our own.

Read my text presenting thoughts on further research, “Silenced, not numb?: Openings for new explorations” in the living room.

What do you think?

It is not up to me to say whether you are experiencing this exposition as I intended, but I hope that you feel welcome, respected and that some of this material has invited reflection.

I hope you were comfortable in your chair, processing my long reflections. And I am sorry that I am not present to hear your thoughts. But please mail me –

I am really interested to explore what kind of insights we could co‑create together.