Week Three

Writing Annotations

Annotation One

Cite the text here in Chicago Turabian formatting:

Andersen, Christopher Graham Ivan. “The Ark Project: an investigation into interactive environmental narrative” Master’s Thesis, Auckland University of Technology, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10292/4402

Summarize: 70 words

Your annotation needs to include a summary of the key ideas of interest to you in the text you have read. Consider the following when writing your summary:

What topic/s are being discussed?
Can you identify the author's key contexts? (historical, political, social…)
What are the key ideas/arguments being stated in the text?

In this thesis, narrative is a key topic that is being discussed through the creation of their project. Andersen is focusing on the use of narrative in an environmental, interactive and explorable way. The social context is primarily what they author is looking at as they discuss in a contextual review about the growth of interactive 3D media and its potential within the gaming industry.

Assessment: 100 words

Assess or evaluate the importance of this text by considering the following questions:

Is the information in this text reliable?
What position does the author take in the text? How might you determine if this text is biased or objective?
Did you find it an interesting text, if you did, identify why it was of interest.
If you did not agree with it - why not? (You are not required to agree with the author, a text might be useful to your Contextual Review because it presents an extreme position you can argue against or because of the controversial nature of the text.)

The information in this text I believe is of mixed reliability as they only hand a handful of references for their thesis, but they do however have more ideas and processes that went towards their project that would be useful to me as I am also looking at similar ideas. In a lot of ways, I did find this text interesting, primarily as it has strong connections to the ideas of my project but also through the processes they took as I will be facing similar methods of creation. It also had a detailed breakdown of their process in attempting to create an interactive narrative within their game which is something I will be attempting as well, so I believe I will be coming back to this text to understand the methods that were taken to apply them to my own game.

5 Keywords: Identify at least 5 Keywords within the text

Environmental narrative, narrative exploration, interactive narrative, narrative, interactive 3D

Reflection: 120 words

Written in the first person this reflective statement should identify your understanding of the text and its relevance to your research.

This thesis is one that I find has quite a lot of similarities to my ideas but presented in a different way which I find very useful as it gives me different perspectives to look at. This texts also helps me to identify what the processes and methods are that I will also be using throughout the creative process of my project and research. As I will be exploring both 3D and interactive narrative, which this thesis explores deeply, I can see where they succeeded and utilize that to further my ideas and research.

Annotation Two

Cite the text here in Chicago Turabian formatting:

Hanna, Patrick. “Your Mind Matters”. Master’s Thesis, Auckland University of Technology, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10292/11693

5 Keywords: Identify at least 5 Keywords within the text

Mindfulness experience, immersive environment design, immersive experiences, iterative experimentation, user experience

Summarize: 70 words

Your annotation needs to include a summary of the key ideas of interest to you in the text you have read. Consider the following when writing your summary:

What topic/s are being discussed?
Can you identify the author's key contexts? (historical, political, social…)
What are the key ideas/arguments being stated in the text?

Within this thesis, the connection between humans and immersive digital environments are the key ideas, focusing on how they can create a mindful and immersive experience. The social and ecological contexts are what Hanna discusses within this thesis, mainly the idea around the ‘contemporary life’ and using New Zealand’s environment as their base location within VR for mindfulness meditation. The key idea in this thesis is how there is potential to bring media and meditation together to create mindful and immersive experiences.

Assessment: 100 words

Assess or evaluate the importance of this text by considering the following questions:

Is the information in this text reliable?
What position does the author take in the text? How might you determine if this text is biased or objective?
Did you find it an interesting text, if you did, identify why it was of interest.
If you did not agree with it - why not? (You are not required to agree with the author, a text might be useful to your Contextual Review because it presents an extreme position you can argue against or because of the controversial nature of the text.)

As this text is a thesis, a lot of information has originated from their own process taken towards their project which may not be reliable but does provide a firsthand account on the methodology used. They do have an extensive list of references which gives the author more reliability within this text. The idea of bringing two different mediums together, one being VR and the other meditation, to create an immersive environment was of interest to me as it is an idea that I like to attempt with different styles of games.

Reflection: 120 words

Written in the first person this reflective statement should identify your understanding of the text and its relevance to your research.

This text was about bringing the mindfulness of meditation into a more technological world to create an immersive and therapeutic way for contemplation and well-being. As my project does not have strong ties to the social aspects of life such as well-being and mindfulness which is what the author focuses on, I will be looking more at this text in terms of how bringing together expressive ideas can be merged within a technological world and using the games environment as its key to immersion.

Annotation Three

Cite the text here in Chicago Turabian formatting:

Griffero, Tonino. “Pathicity: Experiencing the World in an Atmospheric Way”. 2019.

https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2019-0031

5 Keywords: Identify at least 5 Keywords within the text

Atmosphere, sensory experience, quasi-things, tactile, atmospheric perception

Summarize: 70 words

Your annotation needs to include a summary of the key ideas of interest to you in the text you have read. Consider the following when writing your summary:

What topic/s are being discussed?
Can you identify the author's key contexts? (historical, political, social…)
What are the key ideas/arguments being stated in the text?

In this paper, Griffero has a focus on atmosphere and how it interacts with expressive qualities. Griffero’s key context in this paper follows the social contexts and looks at how people’s experiences react within atmospheric perceptions. A key idea being stated in this text is that when people are exposed to something and it is realised, they find themselves perceiving it differently.

Assessment: 100 words

Assess or evaluate the importance of this text by considering the following questions:

Is the information in this text reliable?
What position does the author take in the text? How might you determine if this text is biased or objective?
Did you find it an interesting text, if you did, identify why it was of interest.
If you did not agree with it - why not? (You are not required to agree with the author, a text might be useful to your Contextual Review because it presents an extreme position you can argue against or because of the controversial nature of the text.)

Reflection: 120 words

Written in the first person this reflective statement should identify your understanding of the text and its relevance to your research.