Cre­at­ing Toy Cities: The Ex­pe­ri­ence De­sign of Trans­me­dia Ob­jects

Symposium:

• ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art

• The Madness of Methods: Emerging Arts Research Practices

• Cre­at­ing Toy Cities: The Ex­pe­ri­ence De­sign of Trans­me­dia Ob­jects

• Lauren Fenton

Venue(s):

• Sabanci Center, Istanbul, Turkey

• Panel: The Madness of Methods: Emerging Arts Research Practices

  Media con­ver­gence in the form of trans­me­dia sto­ry­telling fran­chises that dis­trib­ute con­tent across mul­ti­ple plat­forms is a grow­ing field of in­quiry in media stud­ies. A per­spec­tive of in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary de­sign en­ables us to also in­ves­ti­gate the emerg­ing con­ver­gence of user ex­pe­ri­ence across dif­fer­ent media. This paper traces a com­mon logic of ex­pe­ri­ence de­sign that in­forms the hy­brid trans­me­dia ob­jects that are theme parks, dig­i­tal games, pub­lic art pieces, and mu­se­ums. This is the logic of the toy city, the com­mu­nity of at­trac­tions that op­er­ates at the junc­ture of the ma­te­r­ial and the dig­i­tal, the spec­tac­u­lar and the in­ter­ac­tive, to cre­ate a sig­na­ture ex­pe­ri­ence for the user that de­fies medium spe­cific modes of feel­ing, know­ing, and cre­at­ing. Case stud­ies high­light the ways in which these media phe­nom­ena op­er­ate on three lev­els, as af­fec­tive ob­jects, as tech­no­log­i­cal de­vices, and as imag­i­na­tive worlds.

Category:

• Panel