Theatrical Concepts in Human/Computer Activity

            Brenda Laurel states “technologies offer new opportunities for creative, interactive experiences, and in particular, for new forms of drama.  But these new opportunities will come to pass only if control of the technology is taken away from the technologist and given to those who understand human beings, human interaction, communication, pleasure, and pain” (Laurel).  Laurel also touches on the ‘Six Elements and the Casual Relations Among Them” in this article.  These six elements are elements of quantitative structure, and are action, character, thought, language, pattern, and enactment.  The model of these six elements “creates a disciplined way of thinking about the design of a play in both constructing and debugging activities” (Laurel).  The elements of qualitative structure are in hierarchical order.  “Each element is the formal cause of all those below it, and each element is the material cause of all those above it.  As you move up the list of elements from the bottom, you can see how much each level is a successive refinement – a shaping – of the materials offered by the previous level” (Laurel).

            In Human-Computer Activity, action is “the whole action, as it is collaboratively shaped by system and user.  The action may vary in each interactive session” (Laurel).  Character is bundles of predispositions and traits, inferred from agents’ of both human and computer origin patterns of choice.  Thought is an inferred internal process of both human and computer origin leading to the choice of cognition, emotion, and reason.  Language is “the selection and arrangement of signs, including verbal, visual, auditory, and other nonverbal phenomena when used semiotically” (Laurel).  Pattern is “the pleasurable perception of pattern in sensory phenomena” (Laurel).  Finally, enactment is “the sensory dimensions of the action being represented: visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile, and potentially all others” (Laurel).

            The Gears of War video game is an example of a digital game that uses the six qualitative elements of structure that Laurel defines.  It shows how there is a disciplined way of thinking about the design in both constructing and debugging activities.  It uses the six qualitative elements of structure because the characters in the game represent the action, running around on the war front and shooting oncoming opponents.  “An action is made up of incidents that are casually and structurally related to one another” (Laurel).  It includes character in that there are several different characters portrayed throughout the scenes of the video game and includes many personalities and identities to choose from interacted in the video game.  Thought is represented in this video game as well because there is an inferred internal process that had to occur in order to create the video game, which involved cognition, emotion of the characters, and reason.  Language is certainly present in the game as there are many different forms of language seen throughout the video game.  The different characters and viewers use verbal, visual, and auditory signs in order to play this game.  The form of this video game is manifest in the pattern created by the arrangement of incidents within the whole action.  Finally, enactment is present in this video game as it is everything that is seen, and includes sensory dimensions of the action being represented.  The surroundings and locations that the viewer is placed in when playing this video game are created to look 3-dimensional and realistic.  Not only do the visual aspects that go into this video game make it seem as realistic as it does, but also the auditory effects are what add significant value to the video game to make it seem as realistic as it does.  The six qualitative elements of structure are seen in many places in our world today, such as in almost every digital game that exists or in other digital stories as well.