Storytelling for Recreating Our Selves: ZENetic Computer

Abstract

We present a interactive storytelling system that aims to help us ”recreate” our conscious selves by calling on traditional Japanese concepts and media. ”Recreating our selves” means the process of reconciling our conscious ‘daily self’ and our ‘hidden self’. This requires deep stimulations which are difficult to achieve through conventional logic based interactions. Users create, enter and dynamically interact with a virtual world expressed as a 3D ”Sansui” ink painting, encountering fragments of stories and ambiguous provocations. The user physically interacts with the system through various media including a Sumie (ink painting), a rake in a Zen rock garden, touching screen images, drawing or clapping hands. The interaction system includes a dynamical chaos engine which is used to couple activity of the user to the generation of high dimensional context and evolution of the storytelling.