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Noam Knoller :: Cinema :: Interaction :: Emotion

Last updated in 2010

To keep up to date with my academic publications, you can visit my pages on ResearchGate or Academia.edu

Talks and Publications

Turbulence - A User Study of a Hypernarrative Interactive Movie

Knoller, N. and Ben Arie, U.

Forthcoming (2009) in: I.A. Iurgel, N. Zagalo, and P. Petta (Eds.): ICIDS 2009, LNCS 5915, pp. 44-49. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
Abstract

The goal of this study was to gain insight into the user experience of a recent hypernarrative interactive movie. Turbulence is a feature-length interactive narrative video emphasising low frequency interaction, simultaneous optional plotlines and seemingly counter-agency moves. Eight participants took part in a phenomenological study of their experience, from which several directions for further study emerge.

Download the paper and check out the supporting materials from this mini site

Interfaces as Aesthetic-Theoretical Objects

Knoller, N.

Talk and video essay

Presented at "The object Speaks Back", an Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis mini-conference, Amsterdam, May 10th, 2007
Abstract

Conventions of interaction, certainly in common applications and machines, but all too often also in the artistic context, usually reveal a preoccupation with "choice", often as a synecdoche for "democracy". Coupled with a popular fascination with "the death of the author", interactive works often purport to yield authorial power over to the spectator. However, interfaces remain invested with authorial power, through which they structure human action, and all the more so when they attempt to be invisible or intuitive. Drawing on Hubert Damisch and Jacques Ranciere, I will try to reposition human computer interfaces as (potential) aesthetic-theoretical objects. As a test case I will use my own art project, Interface Portrait, in which non-intuitive interaction with a human face is intended to elicit reflection on the (interacting) spectator's patterns of action and behaviour, through an encounter with a simulated character and its peculiar (simulated) agency.

Read (and view) on... html | doc (with video transcript)

InterFace Portraits: Communicative-Expressive Interaction with a Character's Mind

Knoller, N.

Published in: SRMC ' 04 - Proceedings of the first workshop on Story Representation, Mechanism and Context (October 15, 2004, New York, NY, USA), ACM Press, New York, NY, USA, 2004
Abstract

In this paper, I introduce the notion of communicative-expressive interaction with a character's mind, within an interactive fiction video. It is an interaction m odel that allows a participant continuous interaction with a story as a way of increasing the participant's agency and im mersion and consequently both the sense of engagement and the meaning of the interactive experience in its relation to the story. I describe a work-in-progress system called the InterFace Portrait Storyteller, in which participants use familiar gestures performed on a touch screen to explore the character's mind, which is constructed as a diegetic space. I also describe two interactive video installations, "One Measure of Happiness" and "Have I Lost My Plot?" within which the system interacts with either narrative or non-narrative approaches to the representation of diegetic space.

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TOWARDS AN AESTHETICS OF INTERACTIVE FICTION CINEMA - Authoring Diegetic, Character-Based, Communicative-Expressive Interaction

Knoller, N. (2004)

MA Thesis at the Utrecht School of the Arts, Faculty of Media, Arts and Technology, 2004.
Abstract

The main research question addressed in this thesis is that of the aesthetics of Interactive fiction cinema as an interactive art form, with a specific emphasis on interaction models.

This thesis examines interactive fiction cinema as a specific medium, explores and classifies its various forms, suggests aesthetic principles which can be of aid when creating and evaluating interactive fiction cinema works in an artistic context (with a specific emphasis on the aesthetics of interaction authoring as the artist’s practice of creating such works), and concludes with a discussion of one of the Interface Portraits Storyteller System as a test case.

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One Measure of Happiness - A dynamically updated interactive video narrative using gestures

Dekel, A., Knoller, N., Ben Arie, U., Lotan, M., and Tal, M.

Published in M. Rauterberg et al. (Eds.) Human-Computer Interaction INTERACT ' 03, IOS Press & IFIP, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2003.
Abstract

One Measure of Happiness is a dynamically generated interactive video that enables viewers to interact with a virtual actress via gesture analysis. In this project we are striving to create an experience of intimate interaction with a virtual character. It is our hope that the interaction model that was developed for the project, coupled with the model of the virtual actress and the project's presentation engine, will create a strong enough suspension of disbelief so as to elicit a sensation of real and intimate interaction with the actress.

Download full paper in pdf

Noam Knoller :: Van Reigersbergenstraat 224, Amsterdam 1052WS
email: knoller at gmail dot com :: (m)+31.6.42801925