SHADOWS

Hend Esmat

FOUR

Four Shadows
Hend Youssef Esmat 19-3274 8th Semester - Bachelor Project

First Supervisor: Mikala Hyldig Dal Second Supervisor: Steffen Scholl Media Design Department Faculty of Applied Sciences and Arts German University in Cairo (GUC) 23rd of May 2013

Abstract Introduction Structure

4

7 8 9

f o t x e t n o c e h t n i k r o W n e p O e Th s e v i t a r r a N e v i t c a r e t n I r a e n i l n No
3.1 3.2 3.3

Chapter 3

? k r o W n e p O e What is th
1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 What is the Open Work...........................12 Types of openness...................................13 Types of messages...................................14 Meaning and Information in terms of the open work...............15 Degree of Openness.........................15 History of the Open Work..............................17 Reflections on the impact of the concept of the Open Work on Egyptian Art..................20

Chapter 1

Comparing the Open Work and Interactive Art......................................38 Non-linear Narratives in terms of Openness and Interactivity......................................39 Proposal of the Optimum Methodology ......................................40

t n e m p o l e v e D t p Conce
4.1 Inspirations and Reference Work......................................44 4.2 Project Idea Four Shadows......................................49 4.3 Four Shadows Step 1: A walk in the streets......................................49 A- Initial Story......................................49 B- Outcome of the Walk......................................50 C- Reflections on the Walk......................................58 4.4 Four Shadows Step 2: Installation......................................58 A- Concept Description......................................58 B- Analysis in terms of the proposed theory...............................60 C- Testing......................................61 D- Limitations and Further Development...................................66

Chapter 4

s e v i t a r r a N r a e n i Non-L
2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 What is Storytelling......................................24 Non-linear vs linear......................................25 Different Non-Linear Structures in......................................26 A- Movies......................................26 B- Books......................................29 C- Interactive Art......................................30 Properties of Non-Linear Mediums......................................34 Problems of Non-Linear Structures......................................35

Chapter 2

Conclusion Acknowledgment Bibliography

68 70 72

Abstract
This research aims to investigate the notions of the Open Work by Umberto Eco and how it can be adopted as a methodology to non-linear storytelling in order to create different perspectives of the same story by the contribution of different people. According to Eco, the Open Work is a work in motion, with no beginning or end identified, and where the meaning varies from one person to the other. The key of controlling this openness is discussed throughout the study and tested in the Four Shadows. It is an experiment that I conducted, along the lines of the Shadow project by Sophie Calle, where I walked down the street for two hours and asked four different people to document what I was doing, and try to make a narrative out my actions. Then I created an installation displaying the four different perspectives that I got from the walk, making the audience relive the experience of the story, leaving the content open for each individuals interpretation, and emphasizing the fact that theres no such thing as an absolute truth. Thus this research calls out for a new engaging form of storytelling, taking the non-linear structures in a more open level, where the author leaves room for the audience to participate in his work and construct different meanings.

Keywords: Open Work, Non-linearity, Storytelling,

Interactive Art, Different Perspectives.

Introduction
This study is very important because we live in a society where the audience tends to just watch and react to what is being given or displayed in front of them. So hopefully this research can find a way to change this attitude and help in transforming the audience from just being observers and receivers to being contributors in the formation of the artwork by giving their input, thus more meanings will be added to the work. Consequently, different interpretations will be formed making the artwork in constant development with no end or defined result, that way the artwork is released from belonging to a singular subjectivity. Furthermore, it will help in bridging the gap between the Arts and commercial entertainment, since our society tends to exclude the artists community from the rest of the fields. In the first chapter of my research, I intend to study in more details what is the Open Work according to Umberto Eco and examine different examples of open artworks in various fields throughout the history, aiming to explore the different forms of openness and how it can be controlled in different ways. In the second chapter, I will focus on the art of storytelling in specific and the different examples of open artworks in that field. I will provide different structures of nonlinearity and hyper narratives in order to figure out the best way to engage the audience. In the third chapter, I will provide my own definition of Open Work in the context of the non-linear storytelling. In the fourth part I will find a relation between all my findings and how they can be implemented and adapted to our Egyptian culture, followed by an explanation of my concept development for the project and my inspirations. Afterwards, I will provide an analysis of my project and explain the results and my observations. Articles in this research were extracted from the EBSCO library database,academic journals and magazines, as well as Google Scholar database and JSTOR. Books were also used in my research, along with experiments and observations. Some projects and videos were found on Vimeo and analyzed individually. The content of this research is mainly focused on the Oulipo movement, which was founded during the 1960s by a group of French writers. The word OuLiPo means, Ouvroir de Litterature potentielle, in other words, Workshop of Potential Literature. This movement aimed at experimenting with new structures and patterns of literature and using them in a way that engages the audience and creating multiple meanings. It was further on adapted to different fields other than literature, such as Architecture, OuArchPo, and Graphic Design, OuGraPo. (James Pyman, 2006) Throughout this research, I intend to discover how this movement has evolved in the context of nonlinear storytelling and my main references are the following artists/authors who came out under the notions of this movement: Umberto Eco (1932),

Structure
Italo Calvino (1923-1985), Raymond Queneau (1903-1976), and recently Matt Madden (1968) and Sophie Calle (1953).

Everyday we are exposed to a lot of stories depicting certain events or topics. However most of the times, these stories are represented in a closed linear form, leaving no room for the audience to participate or examine various perspectives. So I started to question the structure of storytelling and how it can change in order to be more open for different interpretations. This brings up the 1960s theory of Umberto Eco about the Open work and his ideas of engaging the audience and creating multiple meanings. This research aims to investigate the notions of the Open work by Umberto Eco and how it can be adopted as a methodology to non-linear storytelling, in order to create different perspectives of the same story by the contribution of different people. It is commonly perceived that storytelling involves only fiction events; however, this research tackles the art of storytelling in a much richer context, where storytelling is defined as the way of organizing information. It is seen as if it was formed of different dots, and it is the way in which the person chooses to connect these dots that forms the final picture. (Prof. Brian Sturm, 2007). The term non-linear storytelling means that there are no beginnings or ends identified. So it can also be defined as interactive storytelling, because it relies on the interaction of the audience thus the story changes every time it is being told. As for the term Open work, it is defined as any type of art that has no fixed meaning, it is work in motion that is open for different interpretations. Throughout my research I will try to modify the definition of Open work by finding the best way to link it with non-linear storytelling in order to both create multiple meanings and make the audience interact with my work. Later on, I will test my proposed theory in a project where I experiment with a new approach of storytelling. The idea is to create a story out of my daily actions and engage the audience in a new experience where they get to construct the different fragments of the story and generate their own perspective about it.

Chapter 1
What is the Open Work

12

Chapter 1: What is the Open Work?

A very good study was conducted by So-young Park (2006) for her masters of Applied Science where she re-defined the Open Work by Umberto Eco (1962) in terms of Interactive Art. Since Umberto Ecos version was based on the 1960s Avant-Garde movement, the purpose of her study was to adapt these old notions in the context of Interactive Art, which is a relatively new field and is developing a lot with the progress of technology. The study was divided as follows, it started with an explanation of Umberto Ecos definition of Open Work, then it studied the Degree of openness according to Italo Calvinos book Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1998), afterwards it examined the history of open work throughout the years, then the author provided an explanation of the structure of Interactive Art and how the ideas of open work can be adapted and modified in order to be used as a methodology in it. This study is strongly related to my thesis, so I will summarize briefly these parts in the next section and also provide additional information and analysis that will better support my thesis; so I can develop on what So-young Park has reached and conclude my own definition of how to apply the ideas of open work in the context of non-linear storytelling.

1.1 What is the Open Work?

In his book Opera Aperta(1962), Eco differentiates the open work from the traditional art. He explained that any traditional art can certainly be open because people perceive things differently thus the artwork will have multiple meanings. However, the structure of that traditional artwork is put in a complete way, in other words in a closed form, where the audience is obligated to form the meaning initially intended by the artist, so according to Eco this form cannot be considered open since people dont have the complete freedom to form their own interpretations, they just follow within the footsteps of the artist who has already prepared everything and is leading the audience to his own interpretation at the end, which makes the artwork have only a single meaning. That is why Eco put some conditions in order for an artwork to be open; he explained that the artist should leave a room of openness in the structure of his work and let the audience be the ones who complete it, thus the open work will be free from the intention of the artist, leaving the audience to participate in the artwork by constructing their own interpretations and thus the artwork will have multiple layers of meanings. This also makes the artwork an unfinished work, or a work in motion, always changing its shape and meaning according to the place and time because it depends on each persons contribution and own perception. Moreover, it challenges the nature of the relationship between the audience and the artist during Ecos time, where the audience was always in the position of the receiver. As a conclusion, Eco attempts to provide an explanation of modern artworks in his book, where the author leaves a part of his artwork open for the audience to complete. Thus the two main criteria that Eco suggests for an open work is multiple meanings and audience participation.

1.2 Types of Openness

It is important to point out that there are two kinds of openness. There is Structural Openness and there is Contemplative Openness. The latter focuses on the interaction of the audience mentally, it aims for the audience to construct different meanings without any physical interaction, while the former focuses on the physical interaction of the audience and the necessity of including them in shaping the physical structure of the artwork. For instance, Stephane Mallarmes Le Livre (1967) where he made a book combining his different findings is considered as an example of Structural Openness because the pages were not numbered, so the audiences were required to participate physically by arranging the pages according to their own perception. While in the case of James Joyces Finnegans Wake(1939) comic prose, the audience constructed the multiple meanings through the text that was written in an open form, which made the audience make different interpretations, making this kind of work an example of Contemplative Openness as it mainly relies on mental interaction more than the physical one. So in the case of Mallarme it was the form itself that was open while in the case of Joyce it was the semantic content that was open. I did the above iillustrations to express my understanding of the difference between Traditional Art and Open Work. According to Eco, there was no difference between the two types of openness since they both lead to the participation of the audience (whether mentally or physically) and the creation of the multiple meanings. So that was more or less his goal. However the author of the study, So-young Park disagreed with Eco on that, and I personally agree with her, because the experience changes when the audience is participating physically or just mentally, thus the meanings that are constructed are definitely affected by that. Perhaps the lack of technology during Ecos era was the reason behind his belief that physical interaction would not affect the meaning, but it is obvious for us as designers to see its importance since we witnessed different examples of Interactive Art, where it is mainly focused on the

14

Chapter 1: What is the Open Work?

physical interaction of the audience, who go through a completely different experience.

1.3 Types of Messages

Every artist seeks to communicate to the audience throughout his/her work. And when he/she decides to leave his/her work open for different interpretations, he/she must use ambiguity but in a controlled way, which will be explained in the following part. Eco defined two types of messages, a univocal message and a plurivocal message. Taking an example for the former is Aesops fables, which is a book depicting a series of short stories about animals. The children perceive these stories in a certain meaning, which is the direct or obvious one while the adults can perceive a

enough surprise to engage them. Also, Eco argued that randomness is an important factor in open work and allowed the formation of unexpected results. So unlike Wiener, Eco differentiates between information and meaning.

1.5 Degree of Openness

As a conclusion of the above explanations, it is the role of the artist to control the degree of openness through several factors in order to determine to what extent the audience will be participating and control the range of the different meanings that will be created. Even though it was mentioned above that randomness and multiple interpretations are part of the open work structure, it is important to understand that the artist somehow controls and organizes this randomness and that the multiple interpretations are not infinite, their limit is determined as well. In order to find out the ideal way to control the openness of the work and create a meaningful artwork that engages the audience, So-young Park measured this degree of openness according to the values proposed by Italo Calvino in his book Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1988). These values are: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility and multiplicity. Each of these factors is inversely related to its opposite value respectively, heaviness, lingering, vagueness, verbality and uniformity. So in order to control the degree of openness of the work, the artist should balance between these different values and also balance between each two opposing values. Although this book was written for literature purposes, it can still be applied to art and design. By Lightness, one can understand that the work should be light, clear and simple yet its content should be very meaningful. So the content or the story by itself is what makes the work heavy, but it is the way the artist chooses how to present it that takes away from its weight and makes it lighter.

I did the above iillustrations to express my understanding of the types of openness while SoYoung Park did the bottom ones.

So it is up to the artist to choose the best way to communicate with his audience and choose the most suitable degree of ambiguity and take the convenient approaches that best suit his work and concept in order to engage the audience and make them construct multiple meanings.

1.4 Meaning and Information in terms of the Open Work

When it comes to defining the word meaning, Eco related it with the information and communication theory. In the latter, the artists express their ideas in a form of symbols and codes that the recipient decodes in order to understand the meaning. However, the recipient must be familiar with these codes in order to be able to decode them, that is why it is important for the artists to take care when speaking to the audience through a new medium which they are not yet familiar with. But they can also ensure the engagement of the audience who will be curious to understand the different meanings of what they see. While in the information theory, Norbert Wiener states that redundancy increases the amount of information perceived and that the organization of a system (less randomness) leads to a clearer message. However, Eco disagrees with this theory in the case of open work and finds the repetition a bad thing for the message delivery because taking the example of the Christmas cards, people stopped paying attention as they read what was written on them several times before, so there are no new expectations, thus not

meaning as they start to relate these animals to actual human situations. And each time they read the story they discover a new meaning, and these meanings differ from one reader to another. So in this case, the author of the fables used ambiguity in an indirect way, so for the audience, the stories seem normal and nothing in its structure is surprising for them, however once they get to discover the hidden meanings, they realize the ambiguity used by the author. Unlike a plurivocal message work, where the artist intends to show ambiguity in his work and make it very obvious for the audiences in order to catch their attention. An example for that is the Abbas Kiarostami one minute-film during which the visuals werent corresponding with sound in order to leave the audience in a state of curiosity and ambiguity so they can start to imagine and interpret why and what was happening by linking the sound with the visuals.

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Chapter 1: What is the Open Work?

By Quickness, one can relate what Calvino meant to the ability of the storyteller to control the rhythm of the story, choosing where to speed up and when to slow down, as well as repeating certain rhythms or patterns. So choosing the right timing is very important in order to engage and connect with the audience. As for the Exactitude value, Calvino explains that the artist must be exact about how much vagueness he wants to convey in his artwork to the audience. This was previously elaborated in the ambiguity of the artist part. The artist must be exact in every single element he chooses to depict and display because through this, he controls how the audience shall perceive his work. Concerning the Visibility value, the artist has to make a balance between the conceptual process and the visual process, which either starts by imagining the situation followed by an actual and physical application for that visualization or vice versa. wAs for the Multiplicity value, Calvino explains that the artist should put a precise frame for the undefined number of multiple meanings otherwise he would fall in the vagueness mistake and his open artwork would collapse. In other words, the artist should define a temporary end to his work, so when the audiences reach this end, they would feel that the artwork is complete. The multiplicity factor comes from the fact of the possible continuity of the work with other potential results. What one can conclude from Calvinos notions is that the beauty of the open work lies in what is being hidden rather from what is being shown. The artist should be exact and precise about what to show to the audience, giving them some hints to discover what is not shown in his piece, which makes the experience more engaging and exciting for the audience. It is also important to use a familiar language or means of communication with the audience in order to ensure that they would understand what they see. So if the artist decides to choose a completely new medium, he has to rely somehow on the old mediums, which the audience are used to and are capable of understanding otherwise, they would

feel alienated by what they see and wouldnt understand a thing. This idea is further elaborated by So-young Park, An artist cannot generate new ideas, even for herself, without understanding of what has been done before. We understand the new only by comparison with the old. A new idea starts from old ideas, either in opposition to them or by modifying them (Understanding Open Work in Interactive Art, p.18). I personally believe that this point is very important to be put into the consideration of all the artists and designers here in Egypt because due to the gap that exists in our culture between art and all the other fields in the society, people tend to have a hard time understanding what we do as designers and most of the times they fail to relate our work with any real situation. So artists and designers should take approaches that the people are more familiar with and change it bit by bit in order to make the transition for the people, it is not possible to get influenced by foreign cultures and techniques and apply them directly in our society, they must be modified in a certain way so people can relate to what we are trying to convey. And this is what I intend to apply further on when I start to implement my concept. Finally, Park explained that the degree of openness lies at the end between the world of the artist and the world of the audience. These worlds overlap in the real world and go separately in each ones own imagination. So it is the role of the artist to provide certain keys that would allow the audience to enter their world of imagination and make their own interpretations. I did the following illustration according to my understanding of the previous explanation of the degree of openness.

1.6 History of the Open Work

The following section will explain the history of the open work and how it evolved during different movements from the 1950s and 1960s such as Avant-Garde, Situationist International, Happenings, Fluxus, The living Theatre, Dadaism, Chance Operation and many more. They mainly came out as a rejection to the perception of art being abstract or concentrating on superficial or beautiful objects. What I noticed was that most of the countries were suffering from fascist and totalitarian systems during that time, so people were not allowed to express their opinions freely, thus it was impacted on their art as well, making the artists obliged to make shallow artworks or portray straightforward ideas because the audience was not used to participate or think about different meanings. As a consequence, art became associated with materialism and belonged to the bourgeoisie. But with the rebellion acts, artists started to call out for a more meaningful form of art, integrating it with real life and transforming the audience from being just spectators into participators. This will help us as artists to learn from the previous attempts in the past and be able to adapt our understanding of the open work in a more suitable context according to the culture we live in in order to be able to engage the audience and be more effective. The Avant-garde movement was one of the first movements to rise in order to call out for a more participatory, interactive and communicative form of art. One of the main ideas that the avantgarde artists have is that art is for everyone, which basically created a controversy about what actually can or cannot be considered a piece of art, since it invited everyone to participate in the art process. It also challenged the idea of the galleries and the museums, where the artwork is placed surrounded with some barrier where it is written, Do not touch. (Jerome Stolnitz, 1979). It was characterized as well with being political and experimental. These last attributes were mainly expressed through Dadaism and Surrealism.

Dadaism was an anti-art movement, which was opposing to the standard rules of how art was being represented and was expressed by destroying what society considered as art. The most famous example of Dada is the picture of Mona-Lisa with a mustache, through which Marcel Duchamp tried to destroy the beauty of the picture through mockery in order to portray his refusal of considering art as beautiful paintings, because it was made for the eye and not the mind (Paul Trachtman, 2006). Although this movement was accused of being aggressive and chaotic because it was based on deconstruction, I believe that the act of deconstructing is an interesting approach to be applied in open art, because by deconstructing an already existing artwork, one can reconstruct the different fragments to produce a completely new artwork in endless ways, thus this approach can be used in a way that supports the open work ideas and help in creating interesting outcomes by introducing new perspectives of the same work. Chance Operation is one of the movements that resulted out of these ideas as well, and John Cage was one of the famous artists who practiced it in his artwork. The idea relied on using chance in the art process in order to have multiple possibilities, however this chance is not completely random, it is manipulated by the artist in a calculated manner in order to make a precise relationship between probability and unpredictability by setting some rules, which consequently define the degree of openness. Imaginary Landscape 4 (1951) is an example for the chance operation. It is a score, which was written by Cage but in a different way than the traditional ones. It included 12 radios, 24 performers and one director, which was John Cage. He only gave

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Chapter 1: What is the Open Work?

instructions for certain attributes such as the volume and the time where the performers should change the note, but he left the sound produced completely dependent on chance, relying on the place and time of each radio show, which made the score be performed each time differently.

three different threads, all one-meter long, and dropped them on three different canvases from a one-meter height. He relied on the chance of the gravity, so each thread formed different curves when it fell down, even though they had the same length and were dropped off from the same height. Afterwards, Duchamp cut each canvas along the lines and curves of the thread, and he ended up having three different shapes for the same measure. Duchamp explained later on in an interview that this project encouraged him to liberate from the standard rules that controlled art and pushed him to be more experimental. (Katherine Kuh, The Artists Voice: Talks with Seventeen Artists, New York 1962, p.81).

agreed upon worldwide, by making the same unit of length have different forms. Moreover, he made a link between science and art, which is a constant debate among people who tend to separate those two fields. So what we can learn from Duchamps 3 stoppages is that one should not constrain himself/herself to any given rule, because there are always different interpretations to the same thing. This notion is what I will be basing my project on in the further steps. Comparing the Imaginary Landscape of John Cage with 3 stoppages of Marcel Duchamp, one can notice that although they both used the chance operation, their artworks were open in different ways. For instance Cage was very strict in setting the rules for his piece and left the chance for the place and time while Duchamp intended to leave the whole process based on the chance of the gravity and how the string will fall off. Happenings was another movement that came out which concentrated on the audience participation. It was relying on the chance operation, however this time instead of being dependent on the rules given by the artist; it relied on the chance of the different possible performances of the audience. The role of the artist only consisted in giving the spectators some steps or material that would inspire them to start performing. This spontaneous performance was considered the artwork itself, which made the audience become the actual performers of the artwork instead of the artist and initiated the nonlinear narratives.

his inspiration from Cages chance practices in producing a very distinctive play, which was one of its kinds. Each performance was only played once and it differed from one time to the other because it depended on the spontaneity of the people. Also the fact that Kaprow used real life actions in his instructions showed how art is connected with real life because it made the audience wonder in some moments trying to figure out which was real and which was acting. And since there was no rehearsing, his message was portrayed in a stronger way. (Kirstie Beaven, 2012) The Fluxus movement also relied on the participation of the audience and focused on the aspect of merging art with reality. It also aimed at mocking the mainstream art, which encouraged the rise of the Mail Art movement. It created a social network between different artists all over the world who connected with each other through post cards, each one continuing on the work of the previous artist. Thus it reflected the power of mass media, which started to emerge during that era and the power of social networks. The message of the movement was presented in an unusual and untraditional way, which is post cards, one of the oldest means of communication. One of the examples of the mail art movement is the Brain Cell project by Ryosuke Cohen, which started in June 1985. Several artists from around the world collected different materials from drawings, sketches and collages and sent them to Cohen who assembled them together and sent them back to all the people who participated so they can see the different outcomes. I find this approach very interesting because it creates a cultural exchange among different artists around the world, which is a very good exposure.

Another example is Earle Brown, who was a student of Cage. The above picture is one of Earle Browns most famous works, the December 1952 score. The graphical representation indicates three dimensions that are being utilized (vertical, horizontal and time). It also defined several parameters to be considered, for instance the thickness of the line indicates the intensity or loudness of the music, their length indicates the duration. Thus all four dimensions interact together according to their conceptual position on the perpendicular plane, vertically or horizontally, to the plane of the score. That way, several interpretations existed as each composer had the freedom to attribute whichever parameters he/she felt were most suitable together and as a consequence, the pitch, duration and volume can be combined together and arranged in endless forms according to each composers own perception. Another example is Marcel Duchamps 3 standard stoppages (1913), which relied on chance operation as well, but in a different way that Cage and Brown adopted. The purpose of this project was to mock the standardization of the unit measures used worldwide. So Duchamp used

What was interesting for me in this project is the fact that Duchamp challenged a mathematical theory, which is usually something that very few people dare to argue about since it is scientifically proven. He challenged the theory of the metric system, which is something that was

Alan kaprow was the founder of this movement through his play 18 Happenings in six parts (1959). It was a play where he gave the audience three papers on which he wrote some instructions on what to do. They involved everyday life actions such as cooking, painting a picture, shouting a political slogan and so on. When the bell rang, the audience was asked to start their performance in the given time then they were allowed to applaud only at the end of the play (Richard Dorment, 2010). Kaprow used

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Chapter 1: What is the Open Work?

1.7 Reflections on the impact of the concept of the Open Work on Egyptian Art
In brief, open work evolved through the different movements and took different approaches, such as being experimental and political in the Avant-garde, relying on the chance operation to achieve several possibilities, including the audience in the Happenings, merging art with reality in the Fluxus and creating a collaborative network in Mail Art. These were examples of how these movements influenced the western countries. As for their impact on Egypt, it will be explained briefly in the upcoming part. Unfortunately there are not a lot of documentations for the history of the artworks in Egypt so I will include the information that I managed to find along with my own analysis and interpretation. During the rise of the Avant-garde movement, the Egyptian culture was definitely affected by its notions, since it was suffering from fascist ruling systems as well and the middle class also started to speak out. So like the west, people started to reject the norms of literature and art, however it was more concentrated on the literature and how the usage of the words must be more open and reflective. (Elisabeth Kendall, 2003) Through my observation of the study of movements in Europe, I couldnt help but notice how the political and social aspects of the society influence the art field as well. And I believe that this is the same case here in Egypt. During Mubaraks era, due to the corrupt and dictatorial system, the art was abandoned since it is one of the very powerful means of communication. There was no official practice for different artworks and even the art field itself was not given much appreciation. So that is why I suspect that we have no proper documentation due to the lack of attention the art field has been facing during the last decades. However, despite all these circumstances, there were some persistent artists who tried to reject the norms of the society through their artwork. But they were referred to as independent artists, which is equivalent to the avant-garde artists. One of the few places that

supported these independent artists is the Town house Gallery, which was founded in 1998 by William Wells and Yasser Gerab. It provided space for the artists to display their work and encouraged them to continue however, Wells mentioned in an interview with Seth Thompson in 2008 that they faced a lot of difficulties before the revolution because the Egyptian culture refused any type of art that raised social or political issues. So the artists were also constrained with the mediums they used, for instance Wells mentioned that photography and videos were not used quite often at the beginning. However, through time, artists started to speak up and be encouraged to portray different topics and started to experiment with new mediums, such as media installations. (Seth Thompson, 2008) Another problem that the Egyptians face is the fact that foreigners have ruled Egypt for so long that they are in constant search for their identity. So this issue is reflected in their artwork as well. After the revolution of January 2011, the artistic expression started to rise and consequently, a lot of independent artists started to practice their art in a more open way. Being oppressed these past years gave them the courage to stand against these barriers in order to communicate their messages to the society. Al Meedan Fan, which means the square is art, is one of the movements that appeared after the revolution. This movement aims at making art accessible for everyone by turning public spaces into open exhibitions once a month, where people can express themselves and display their artwork, from photographs, films, videos and so on. (Published on Ahram Online, 2011) That way, this movement managed to break the tradition of having the artwork exhibited in a four-wall space, thus by using the streets and open spaces in our city, people can see how art can be integrated in everything around us. Express Mail Egypt (Mona Diab and Heba El Kest, 2011) is another project conducted by two young media designers, which can be classified under the development of the Mail Art movement. Their aim was to revive the old means of communication of sending letters, and remind the people how it was something more personal

and expressive than the digital means that we have today. They also wanted to use it in creating a social experiment. They were inspired by the different social and political changes that the country was -and still is- going through, so they asked the people to send letters in which they share any experience that influenced their lives and made a certain change to it. They intended to make an exhibition afterwards with the different contributions of the participants so that everyone can get inspired by the different stories that were sent. I believe that this a very good approach because this project broke the boundaries of the fact that the mail art movement consisted of a network of artists only. Express Mail Egypt on the other hand managed to include different people with different professions and opened the space for more collaboration, thus even more diverse outcomes.

One can observe how the art field in Egypt is starting to grow in a richer context, calling out for a more participatory form of art. Having discussed in the above chapter different forms of openness in various fields, such as sound design, installations, theatre and mail art, the following chapter focuses on the art of storytelling in specific and the different forms of openness that can be applied to it. Looking through the history of films in Egypt, most of them are displayed in a linear structure, which leads towards an expected ending. Youssef Chahine was one of the most famous artists who tried to break out from that path but only in terms of contemplative openness. So that it is what I intend to focus on in the rest of my research and where I hope to propose my contribution in order to better engage the audience and create multiple meanings. So in the next chapter, I will start by providing general information about storytelling and non-linearity, then I will provide different examples for hyper-narrative cases and finally, I will relate the last two chapters by explaining how to use non-linear storytelling in creating an open work.

Chapter 2
Non-Linear Narratives

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Chapter 2: Non-Linear Narratives

2.1 What is Storytelling?

Storytelling is one of the oldest art forms created by the human beings. It is usually associated with the picture of people gathering around a campfire telling fiction stories and fables. However, the art of storytelling goes far beyond fiction; the term story refers to the sequence of events that is being told. These events can be real or imaginary, for instance when a person retells his daily actions, this is considered a story, in addition to the news, books and any kind of retelling to past or present events that we encounter in our daily lives. The purpose of any story varies from entertaining, learning, passing on different values and increasing knowledge about different cultures, stories leave the viewers with the satisfaction of having expanded their knowledge or experience base. (Maureen Furniss, Animation Bible, p.38) As for the term telling, it refers to the way this story is being told, which is basically the narrative style. There are different forms of narratives; the most common one is the linear narrative where the story is told in a chronological way with a beginning, middle and end. There are other forms such as multi-linear narrative where several different stories are told in a parallel way. Theres also the non-linear narrative, where the story takes different paths every time it is being told, it previews the events in a non-organized structure and in some cases, it depends on the involvement of the audience to continue its path, thus it creates multiple perspectives and is more open to different endings. Other types of narratives also exist such as episodic, where the story is divided on different episodes, compilation, where different topics from different cultures are linked in one film, and cyclical, where the story ends in the same way it began. (Maureen Furniss, Animation Bible, p.4041) In other words, storytelling is the art of retelling a certain event in order to convey a certain message or meaning to the audience. This research focuses on the non-linear narrative, and

investigates how it can be used to increase the engagement of the audience and involve them in the storytelling process in order to create multiple meanings. The following section will discuss further the different examples of non-linearity and how it can be more improved in order to better engage the audience.

2.2 Non-linear vs Linear

What distinguishes the non-linear narratives from the linear ones is the fact that they are character or theme driven more than being goal driven. And that is what makes the viewer become engaged because he is able to find a link between the different events thus he can make a connection. Once this link is broken, the non-linearity tends to collapse and the audience could end up losing interest in the whole story. So controlling this link is very essential from the side of the direct-or/editor, because this is the element that defines the degree of openness in non-linearity; once it is too open, or in this case, without any theme orcharacter defined, it tends to fall apart and lose the attention of the audience.

One can also observe the reasons behind the creation of non-linearity and its frequent usage nowadays, since todays society is exposed to various distractions and the technology is in constant progress, so people became used to multi-tasking in order to keep up with the different fields. Unlike the old days where the pace of the society was much slower and people had much less exposure. So by comparing these norms to the linear and non-linear structures in storytelling, one can examine how the linearity became an old-form in our current days and how non-linearity tries to somehow portray what we constantly face in our daily lives. Furthermore, non-linearity can be considered as one of the results of the Avant-garde movement since it called for more participation by the audience, and by jumping back and forth between different events, the audiences feel in power because of their ability to construct the meaning of the story and see things that seem beyond of the characters knowledge in the movie (i.e. flash-backs and flash-forwards), so they feel that they possess more information than they should, thus become more in control of the sequence movie. This technique also reflects on how the human memory works, it doesnt recall all the events in a chronological order, it usually remembers different fragments in an unorganized sequence and jumps from one event to another, and that is what non-linearity tries to display through the story in order to give the audience a similar experience when they are thinking or imagining.

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2.3 Different Non-Linear Structures in: A- Movies

A research conducted by Leigh Joslin in 2011 discusses the different uses of non-linearity in the structure of films and its consequences. The structure of any film can be seen as how the scenes are arranged so by changing their order, different meanings and moods can be produced, affecting the perception of the audience and their experience with the characters and the movie. There are different techniques used in order to create a non-linear narrative, each type has distinctive characteristics that can be used in order to convey a certain message and emphasize on the purpose of the movie plot. The following part will discuss them in more details in addition to some illustrations that I created in order to better visualize the various structures. The first technique is the flash-backs, where some scenes are injected during the sequence of the movie revealing past events and give the audience some background information about a certain character, or sometimes they are used to confuse the viewers and make them more engaged by trying to see the complete picture. Moreover, flash-forwards have also been used, revealing events that will happen in the future. The series Lost (2004) is one of the examples that applied both flash-backs and flash-forwards, revealing to the audience each time certain information that gives them a clue towards figuring out the mystery of the island they were stuck in and how each character is related to the others.

Another technique for non-linearity is the hallucinations, making the sequence of events navigating between imagination and reality. One of the examples that applied this technique is the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) where the main character decides to go through a procedure of erasing his memory in order to get rid of his painful past. However, in the middle of the process he decides that he doesnt want to continue and that he wants to go back to his normal life. So the movie depicts the agony and contradiction between the characters real and imaginary life.

Twist Endings is another way to create a non-linear narrative. It is applied by showing the sequence of events in a normal way, however, certain parts are omitted in each scene and they are all revealed at the end making the viewers re-assess the whole events they have just seen and create a whole new meaning. An example that adopted this technique is The sixth sense(1999) where the audience viewed the character as a normal human being and then they discovered at the end that he had already died at the first scene of the movie, but they couldnt tell because it was only shown at the end.

The techniques mentioned previously display the most common ways used in order to display a movie in a non-linear way. However the techniques are not restricted in the ones mentioned above, other directors managed to take different approaches towards non-linearity. The movie Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino (1994) is one of the good non-linear film examples. It depicts three different storylines that interconnect during the movie, and each storyline focuses on a certain plot with certain characters that somehow are related to each other at the end. Each sequence started with a title card indicating the narrative sequence.

The usage of title cards was also applied in 500 days of summer (2009) where the movie kept shifting between two different durations of the protagonists life, before and after his break-up. So the movie was like a collective memory of his life during and after the relationship. The bookend technique is used to portray non-linearity as well by shifting the storyline between different ages or times. Titanic (1997) is an example for this technique because it starts with a boat searching for old remains from the old titanic crash, then the woman starts to tell the story of that crash so the audience goes back in time with her then the movie ends with them back in the real time again.

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Chapter 2: Non-Linear Narratives

Memento(2000) is another good example where the non-linearity is created by a shift in the chronological order of the events. The plot was divided into two streams, one starting from the beginning and the other from the end, until they both collide in the middle, which is the end of the movie, where the audience finally link all the clues together and figure out the intentions of the protagonist. The structure of the movie was very complicated however the director managed to make it possible for the audience to follow the sequence of events by differentiating the two streams with color correction, so the stream representing the old sequences was in black and white while the other one was in color.

Run Lola Run(1998), is one of the most distinguished non-linear examples as it resembles the narration structure of video games. The plot was repeated three-times, each time with a new outcome. The protagonist had the same goal during the whole movie, which is to get a specific amount of money in a limited time frame in order to save her loved one, and each time she died, she started from the beginning in order to make different decisions and achieve her goal. The concept of free will is emphasized in this narrative where the protagonist gets to go through the same situation three different times, and choose different paths.

B- Books
Non-linearity has also been adapted to books and literature, taking the hypertext approach. The most famous example is the series books of Choose your Own Adventure created by Edward Packard in the 1980s. The stories were written in a way leaving each reader to choose their own ending. After each main plot, there was a part where the reader had to choose whether the character wanted to do action A or B, and according to his choice, he jumps to the page where he can unravel the main plot. The more the choices there were, the more possibilities exist to the same story and of course as a result, the reader goes through a much more engaging experience where he is eager to explore the different perspectives of the story. This genre took its roots from the Game Theory and has definitely affected the development of integrating narratives with playing.

Vantage Point (2008) was another example that combined different non-linear techniques at once, flashbacks and multiple storylines. The movie starts with the main plot where an important political figure is shot. Then the movie keeps repeating from the beginning, however, each time from the perspective of a different character. So the viewer discovers something new every time the story repeats itself, until at the end, he can make a link between the different characters.

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Chapter 2: Non-Linear Narratives

C- Interactive Art
Hypertext became very popular during the 1980s due to the progress of technology. Moreover, the first integration between hypertext and media was created later on, resulting in the form of the World Wide Web in 1989, which made the hypertext grow even more, and the art of storytelling started to develop on a wider platform. The digital environment and the programming abilities created various new approaches to apply non-linear narratives as well as including the audiences physical participation, starting from a click on the mouse up to the movement of the whole body. In the next part, I will provide examples for interactive storytelling across different formats, such as websites, iPad/mobile applications, movie theatres, and broadcast networks in order to cover the variety of techniques of each one in creating the nonlinear structure and examine their impact on the audiences perception and participation. While the above sections (movies and books) discussed how non-linearity could be implemented in the context of theme and character oriented. This section will discuss another approach proposed by Adrian Jones (2003) in her thesis, which is an Object-Oriented Interactive Cinema (OOIC). This approach proposes a model where the medium is sub-divided into smaller parts -or in this context into units or objects- in order to be re-assembled afterwards by the users, thus creating a multi-linear interactive experience. The author explains that the Object-Oriented theories have proven to be most efficient when dealing with complex systems, however they have only been used in software developments. So Jones research aims to provide a model where the Object-Oriented Theory is applied to the Interactive Cinema notions in order to create a new form of multi-linear digital storytelling. So this theory drives the artist to deal with film clips as objects, which will compose the database of the model and will be displayed in a non-linear way in order to create a more open experience, so that the narrative is only formed once the user interacts with these objects and constructs the meaning at the end.

In order to ensure the efficiency of the interactivity process of the user and that the narrative produced at the end has a meaning, certain rules and algorithms must be applied controlling the different paths and liaisons that can be created between the multimedia objects. Each Film Object has a defined set of probabilities controlling the different ways it is going to be displayed and what can be played after it. So it is the authors decision to control the set of probabilities, and needless to say that the more he wants the narrative to be open for more possibilities, the more complex it takes to program these algorithms and produce a meaningful narrative. In order to test her theories, Jones created an installation called re-Waking Life, where she took the existing animated movie called Waking life directed by Richard Linklater and broke it down to 36 segments, which are classified afterwards in the OOIC model as 36 Film Objects, forming the database that the user will interact with in the installation. The film was about lucid dreaming and philosophy so the space was created in a way to complement this theme; there was a bed with a blanket on top, stuffed animals on a shelf and a screen. The blanket was the main interface that the users used to create their own narratives, it was divided into 14 squares, each one had a certain label such as dream, destiny, life, experience, change.. The user had to choose two of the stuffed animals present on the shelf, and place them on two random squares on the blanket in order to create a meaningful word pairing. And according to the kind of the stuffed animal chosen and their place on the blanket, film objects were projected accordingly on the screen. For instance if the user placed a stuffed animal on the word Lucid and the other one on the word Dream, the model extracts from its database a movie clip talking about lucid dreams. Since there were 14 squares, there was 47 word-pair possible. So if the user chose a word pair that couldnt be identified in the database, a certain algorithm was applied depending on probability, just to make sure that the same clip doesnt play twice after each other and that at the end, the sequence of events would create a meaningful narrative.

Another function in the installation was that two of the 14 squares were in a different color and had the words play and mix. These squares, when a stuffed animal was placed on them, created special effects on the movie projected such as black and white, emboss, speeding up the frame rate and overlaying two clips on top of each other.

These additional features served in the expansion of meanings and variety to the narrative, thus adding more to the experience of the user as well as engaging him. The interactivity of this installation was programmed on Rob Rovells Eyes software and MAX. There was a camera placed on top of the blanket which detected the place of the animals and made the link between the words and projected film clips. To conclude, Re-Waking Life was an attempt to create a multilinear narrative constructed by the users. The OOIC managed to allow the audience to have a completely new experience every time they went in the installation. The possibility of the structure of the film clips made it possible for the audience to create endless scenarios with different meanings.

Another example of interactive narratives is the New Media for a New Millennium, NM2, which is a new production tool developed by European experts enabling the creation of nonlinear media production and its transmission over broadband networks. The reason behind this approach is the fact that much information is being communicated to the people in form of stories or narratives. And the forms of telling these stories change according to the medium and the progress of the digital media. So this project is suggesting a new form of storytelling where it can communicate to an individual and, to a mass of people as well, through audiovisual images and where the end-users are able to manipulate these images, in order to produce personalized forms that suit each individuals benefits and interests. There are several editing tools that exist, such as Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere, allowing the professionals to edit their raw footage and put it into a linear sequence and then present it to the audience. However what NM2 aims for, is providing a tool that enables the creation of nonlinear narratives instead of the linear ones, and this can be achieved by designing a user-friendly interface where the users can interact easily with the archives existing in the database and construct themselves the sequence of the narrative. What differentiates this approach is the fact that it is aiming to communicate to the people through broadcast networks, which means that they can reach a much larger group of people. This tool has been tested on several different genres, including drama, news and documentaries. Accidental Lovers is a black comedy show aired on Finland TV and where the audience was able to participate by sending SMSes in order to unfold the drama the way they want. The system was based on keyword recognition, so each word triggered a certain film clip to play. My News and Sports My way is another example, which I found really interesting. It allowed the end-users to choose the types of news they wanted to hear/see, recombine them in their own way in order to create the story that interest them most. Each user can make his own profile and define the topics that hes interested in and is eager to hear the news about. The toolkit allows the clips to play randomly after each other according to the keywords chosen by the user, and the latter has the ability to skip some parts and choose the more button, if he liked the topic and wanted to hear more about it from different perspectives or the related button in order to put

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the narrative in a greater context and examine the different parts that shaped this topic. The interaction is done through the remote control.

narratives.

What I personally like in this idea is the fact that it breaks the formal way in which the news are being presented and allows the user to shape their own news experience. This idea could be very effective if it was implemented in Egypt, especially nowadays where news channels became the number one hit for people due to the current political and social situation that our country is going through. It is needless to say how most of these channels fail to show the whole picture of a certain topic and each one is always biased to a certain opinion, showing only arguments that support what they say. So I believe this tool would be really interesting to implement in order to give the people the ability to hear different reports and discussions from the same event. Another feature that I find interesting in the NM2 project is the fact that it seeks to provide a toolkit to create nonlinear narratives, which distinguishes it from the other approaches that tried techniques that were restricted in their implementation. So this toolkit has a much bigger potential to develop and to be used in different genres and fields, thus it promises a more sustainable development for non-linear

Out My Window, by Katerina Cizek (2010), is a documentary displayed in an interactive website. It depicts the story of 13 different apartments from 13 different high-rise buildings from all over the world, including Beirut, Amsterdam, Montreal and many more. The homepage of the website displays a collage of 13 different windows and when the user clicks on one of them, he gets to navigate through a 360-degree view of the apartment and gets to explore the different objects and furniture inside. And some of these objects can be clicked on and they tell the story of the people who live inside.

Mr Payback (1995) by Bob Gale was the first interactive movie to be produced in a cinema theatre. There was a joystick with three buttons beside each seat in the theatre. The movie contained 18 different trajectories and at certain points, the audience was asked to use their joystick and choose the path they want to unravel for the narration. However, it was reported that the experience was not that successful or engaging to the audience because it ended up as a competition between the viewers and who would be the fastest to click on the button, thus the narrative lost its meaning. (Teresa Esser, 1995). Point of View: An experiment in Linear Hyper Video (2000) by Guy Vardi was another example of experimental interactive movies where the audience had the option to choose to see the movie from the perspective of several characters. I find this an interesting approach because there are no fixed protagonist and the audience get to experience the same action in different ways.

Another form of interactive storytelling is the Journals of Mama Mae and Leelee iPad application created by Alicia Keys. It is an application created for children where they can interact in a 3D environment, read books, play their own music and write in journals. It helps them in getting exposed to different cultures and helps them create their own world.

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Chapter 2: Non-Linear Narratives

2.4 Properties of Non-linear Mediums

One must be aware that the meaning of the narrative is changeable according to the medium, for instance the experience when reading the same story as a text from a book is completely different than when watching it as a movie. Also the environment itself affects the narratives meaning, so watching it on television would differ from watching it in the cinema. So studying the properties of the medium and the environment is very important so that the artist can discover which mediums suit best with which type of narrative. Janet Murray discussed in her book Hamlet on the Holodeck (1997) the parameters for a digital environment in the context of multi-linear narrative works, which will be discussed in further details in the following section. Murray explains that the merge of interactivity in narrative expanded the definition of the latter. Instead of portraying the sequence of events in the classic way, which is called the Aristotelian narrative, where the story starts with setting up the characters and environment followed by a complication then a resolution, the structure of the narratives developed in a more complex way, in other words, multi-linear. The first approach for the interactive narrative is the Branching Narrative, where the story stops at certain points and leaves the audience to make a decision on what to happen next, by choosing among the provided options. It relies on the audiences cognitive participation. The second approach is Exploratory Narrative, where the audience gets to explore a virtual world and construct different meanings through what they discover. The third and last approach is the Generative Narrative, where the audience can add their input in the interactive system and affect the storys structure. In Beyond Myth and Metaphor (2001), Marie-Laure Ryan breaks down the types of interactivity in a narrative in the following classification.

External/Exploratory Interaction: The user is situated in a position outside of the narrative, with the ability to move around the virtual space and ex-plore what is happening from an outsider perspective or a god-like perspective where he examines and controls what happens from above. However, his choices do not affect the plot of the narrative . Internal/Exploratory Interaction: The user is participating in the narrative as a character inside the story, but he also restricted to follow along the lines of the structure of the narrative and cannot affect the plot. External/Transformative Interaction: user is outside of the story but has some control over the plot and takes decisions over the narrative trajectory. Internal/Transformative Interaction: user is inside of the story but has some control over the plot and takes decisions over the narrative trajectory.

2.5 Problems of Non-linear Structures

are computer-mediated and allow the audience to choose at predetermined points the trajectory of the narrative and the possibility of shifting to a whole new narrative. The book then discusses the different factors that could lead to the failure of hyper narratives to engage the audience. The first point is when portraying several trajectories at the same time, it is most likely that the audience gets lost or distracted, so the author highlighted on the importance of creating meaningful threads that the audience could understand and that the shifting of trajectories must be well determined in the timing of the sequence. Also, in the case where the options can lead to different outcomes, it is suggested to return to the initial start or repeat some patterns each time before showing the different outcomes to ensure the attention of the audience. He referred to the movie Run Lola Run as being a good example for this case. Another factor that reduces the engagement of the audience is when they are required to interact physically but their contribution is very minor or is not emphasized in the narratives plot, thus the audience becomes disengaged. Some examples require a click on the mouse or the push of a button, so the interaction feels like a game more or less and the audience is not connected to the content.

The last section showed how the merging between narrative and interactive media could result in interesting formats creating a more engaging experience for the audience. However, Nitzan Ben-Shaul discussed in his book Hyper-narrative Interactive Cinema: Problems and Solutions(2008) that this merging could sometimes disengage the audience because they lose track when there are too much events happening at the same time and he claims that multi-narrative forms such as the split-screens or showing non-corresponding audio-visuals distract the audience and affect their engagement in a negative way and the narrative loses its meaning. So in his book, Nitzan analyzes several case studies of interactive films and proposes solutions that should enhance the audiences engagement, rather than reducing it. The author starts first by defining the term of hyper narrative interactive cinema by referring to any kind of work that include both audio-visuals or text that

Chapter 3
The Open Work in the Context of Non-Linear Interactive Narrative

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Chapter 3: The Open Work in the context of Non-linear Interactive Narratives

The first chapter covered the idea of the Open Work, as proposed by Umberto Eco and examined different examples of its applications, while in the second chapter; the non-linear storytelling was discussed in more details with its different structures. I also provided examples of how Interactive Art has influenced both fields at the end of each chapter. In the following chapter, I will make a link between both topics and suggest the optimum methodology, according to my own opinion, which can be used in making non-linear storytelling an open work, putting into consideration the impact of the Interactive Art. To start off, there are three main keywords -Open Work, Non-linear Narrative and Interactive Art- that I will define in the following section, according to my own opinion, and explain what they have in common, then I will provide my proposition on how to create the best way to link them in order to come up with a non-linear narrative that engages the audience and creates multiple meanings.

3.1 Comparing the Open Work and Interactive Art

Throughout my research, I observed that Interactive Art ideas intertwine with Open Work, because, as explained by So-young Park (2006), it managed to create an interdependent medium between human and machine, which makes the artwork open in its structure, thus it requires the physical participation of the audience in order to make the artwork complete. This idea complements the initial notions of Ecos Open Work which calls out for multiple meanings and audience participation. So what they have in common is that they are both Open but in different ways. What I noticed is that Eco was more concentrated on creating the multiple meanings aspect, regardless of the type of audience participation, while Interactive Art focuses on the physical participation aspect, regardless of the meanings created. So in her study, Park provided some parameters for every artist to follow in order to ensure that the artwork includes both aspects, which is including the audience physically and at the same time,

constructive meanings must be developed in order to ensure the engagement of the audience. I agree with Park in what she suggested, however, I define Interactive Art in a different way than her. According to my own opinion, Interactive Art does not necessarily have to be computermediated. It is a work that depends, on at-least two things/participants, and each one makes an action that triggers the other to react to it and viceversa. So, these two participants can be in a form of, human-machine interaction, or human-human, or human-object, or human-environment. Each type of interaction has its own advantages and unique experiences, however it is the role of the artist/designer to ensure that he is using the right one for the intended purpose. Because from what I observed lately, all types of interactions in the storytelling field aim to experiment more with the technology and the relationship between human and computers. I am not against experimenting with the new digital environment; however, I do not like the fact that people lose the other aspects of interaction and consequently, the meaning of the narrative is affected. So what I will try to experiment in my practical part is how to make the audience interact physically, without the need of the computerized systems, and at the same time, create an unfinished story that is constantly developing and its meaning is changeable according the place and time and depending on each individuals participation.

3.2 Non-Linear Narratives in terms of Openness and Interactivity

One can classify the Non-linear Narratives under the umbrella of both Open Work and Interactive Art. The fact that the nonlinear structure is characterized by no identification for a determined beginning or an end makes it similar with the concept of open work, which has no fixed meaning, thus they both aim at engaging the audience in creating different layers of meanings. So in the case where the non-linear narratives are portrayed in movies and books, just like the examples that we mentioned in the last chapter, the audience is participating on a mental level, which reflects the approach of Eco who concentrated more on the Contemplative Openness. But in the case where the audiences are asked to choose how the story should continue and their contribution affects the trajectory of the narrative, their participation is influenced by the Interactive Art aspect and leans more to the Structural Openness. I will discuss in the upcoming part my proposition on how to control the openness and interactivity of the Non-linear Narratives. Concerning the Openness of the narrative, I am going to clarify it through the concept of Embedded and Emergent narratives, explained by Eric Zimmerman in his article Against Hypertext (2000). An embedded narrative structure means that the content is already present and the audience has the option to choose between the options already provided. In this case the openness is very limited because the user cannot add anything new, thus the nonlinearity of the narrative does not apply completely. However in the emergent narrative, the end-user has more freedom to reconstruct the narrative and create different options. There is a space where he can generate new input. This allows for more unexpected results, unlike the embedded narratives where the choices of the users are already expected because they only have a set of choices provided by the artist to choose from. For example, the movies where the audience is asked to choose a certain path for the character to go,

like the Mr. Payback interactive film, the different options already exist and are pre-determined by the director, so the audiences contribution is somehow limited to the choices that the director has already defined. However, taking the example of John Cages scores, the audience gets to put their own input by interpreting the fragments that Cage has already defined. So what I aim to do is apply the same strategy of Cage, but in the nonlinear narrative context instead of sound, where the audience can get to develop on the different stories that are provided and generate new trajectories. As for the Interactivity of the narrative, I am going to refer to the concept of immediacy and hypermediacy, discussed by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin. (1999). The former means that the medium is almost transparent to the audience, they are immersed smoothly in the content of the narrative and are unaware of the presence of the medium, while hypermediacy interrupts the illusionist world that the audience gets into and make them pay more attention to the medium itself. This is an elaboration for what Nitzan Ben-Shaul was referring to when he mentioned that sometimes interactivity makes the audience become less engaged. When the interaction of the audience is not related with the content or the purpose of the narrative itself, or when they are required to participate with a small action, like for instance a click of a button, and this action does not add anything to the meaning of the narrative, the audience can get easily disengaged and some can even wonder what is the need of that interaction at all. So it is very important to make the audiences live inside the story itself, that they become unable to separate both worlds in order to ensure their engagement and the construction of meaningful narratives.

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Chapter 3: The Open Work in the context of Non-linear Interactive Narratives

3.3 Optimum methodology

For more clarification, I will analyze both aspects -Openness and Interactivity- on the example of One measure of Happiness (2003), which is an interactive video narrative where the users interact with a virtual character displayed on a touch screen. The aim is to create an intimate dialogue between the audience and the virtual character, so the character reveals her story according to the gestures of the users. For instance, if the user treats her badly by poking her face for example, she becomes defensive and will tell her story in a negative way, but if the user shows her sympathy and caresses her face, she opens up to him and reveals her secrets. I find this project a successful attempt in engaging the audience and in creating a smooth transition between the real world and the virtual world, because the participation of the audience affects the narration itself, the kind of touch that the user makes on the screen influences the protagonists story who reacts accordingly. This kind of interaction integrates the user as a character in the story and emerges him in the world of the story. Thus I can classify that project under the immediacy approach. However, from the Openness perspective, I will classify this type under embedded narratives, where the options of the story are already predetermined.

To sum up, my theory about the optimum way to apply the notions of Open Work in the context of non-linear storytelling is through an emergent narrative with the immediacy type of interaction. The artist/author provides an open platform where the audience gets to explore a certain storyline, represented in text, audio, visuals, or any other form. And adding to that, the audience can get to choose from the existing database or emerge their own material as well, in order to create their own interpretation. This type of interaction should be variable according to each situation, however, it should be always complementing the purpose of the narrative and adding to its meaning.

Chapter 4
Concept Development

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Chapter 4: Concept Development

In this chapter, I intend to test my proposed theory, explained in the previous part, about how to apply the notions of Open Work as a methodology in non-linear storytelling. My idea is to create a multi-dimensional story, where the storyline is displayed to the audience in a nonlinear way, and include the participation of the audience in order to create different perspectives. I will start by explaining the main examples of my inspiration, and then discuss my proposed plan for the project.

4.1 Inspirations and Reference Work

Raymond Queneau was one of the writers who appeared during the avant-garde movement and called for a more open literary work, along side to Italo Calvino, whose ideas were explained in the first section of the paper. Queneau took a different approach, which inspired artists after him. His most famous work is his book called Exercises in Style (1947) where he told a plain story in 99 different ways, including free verse, sonnet, telegram and many more forms. His aim was to tell the same story in every possible literary style, tense and genre. Following his approach, Matt Madden was inspired by Queneau and created a book titled 99 ways to tell a story: Exercises in style where he told the same story through different styles of comics and storytelling techniques. Matt also used a very basic storyline, which starts by him sitting on the desk working, and then heading to the kitchen to open the refrigerator. On his way his partner asks him about the time then once he arrives at the kitchen and opens the refrigerator, he forgets what he was looking for. Matt explained in an interview how it was very challenging to come up with a boring template, so he was inspired by his own life and the fact that he forgets a lot. It is very interesting to see how a very basic or boring storyline, like Madden described it, can be retold in 99 different ways. Among them include retelling the story in flashbacks, point of view shots, from an outsiders/ binoculars perspective, sound effects perspective, objects perspective. Also Matt used different forms to portray the story such as telling it a super hero way, in form of ads, in a binary code and other

interesting forms mak- ing the viewers question how such a form can be used in telling a story. Madden adds in another interview with the writing that it is how one chooses to tell a story that differs from one person to the other and creates the different perspective. He gave an example by comparing a scene that was shot twice; one where the camera was once put on the floor and filming what was happening from a low-angle view and the other one was filmed from the top. The first gave the feeling of helplessness while the other gave the feeling of power. So he emphasized how different factors affect the perspective of the story. I was really inspired by Matts book and I decided to experiment in a similar approach but with a few modifications, which are mainly including the people in the creation of the different perspectives, so that the 99 different ways would actually be coming from 99 different people, and not just one person. Thus more meaning will be added and less subjectivity would be included in the story.

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The second artist whose works are used as an inspiration for my project is Sophie Calle, who is one of the most influential artists in photography and contemporary art. Born in Paris in 1953, Calle is known for her unique approach in her artwork, where she combines different mediums, such as text, photographs and films displaying intimate subjects about the human behavior and the individuals privacy. She explained in an interview that photography was more about the performance around the work than just the exhibition; she meant to explain that it is the process of producing these photos that holds all the meaning. She often appears as a character in most of her work and has the tendency to turn random actions that happened in her daily life as performances in a fiction narrative. Thus her work hides the boundaries between art and life, reality and fiction and private and public. Moreover she was characterized by following strangers. I will discuss two examples of her work that mostly relate to my topic, which are the shadow (1981) and take care of yourself(2007) In The shadow (1981), Calle asked her mother to hire a detective to follow her for one day and document what she was doing. The detective spent a whole day walking after Calle, who intended to make him chase her around several locations. She went to places that had an emotional connection with her, for instance she went to a park where she used to play when she was a child, and kept going from one place to another, taking notes for herself about each walks meaning. Meanwhile, the detective took notes as well but from an outsiders point of view. Afterwards, when she received the photos with their description from the detective, she put them in an exhibition and beside each photo; there was the description from the detectives perspective followed by Calles own perspective about what she was doing. Through this piece, Calle highlights on the notions of how each individuals life is personal and no stranger can penetrate it. Also it was interesting to see how she managed to make the observer become the observed

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Take Care of Yourself (2007) is another intriguing work created by Calle where she included social participation. She asked 107 different women to interpret a break-up letter that she received from an old lover and asked each woman to interpret that letter according to her own profession. For instance the lawyer interpreted the letter by defending the man who wrote it, the singer wrote a song about it, the dancer made an interpretation through a dance, and so on. Calle collected the different interpretations in different mediums including photographs, text and videos, which she all displayed next to each other in an exhibition, leaving the audience to examine the different outcomes.

4.2 Project Idea Four Shadows

Thinking along the lines of Sophie Calles The shadow, I decided to use her stalking approach but in a different context. I decided to take a walk in the streets of Korba in Heliopolis, and asked four different people to follow me. Their main task was to document what I was doing and create a story about my actions, from their own point of view. Then I used their four different perspectives to create an installation, where the material was open, and the people could examine the different stories in their own way, and in the order they chose. They were also invited to create their own perspective and imagine the story behind these materials, so that the different stories that they create in the installation would be used in a following experiment where other people would generate new meanings that would be used as well later on and so on. The goal of my project is to provide a new approach for telling stories that would engage the people and include their contribution in the formation of different perspectives of the story. I also wanted to make this process in constant development, changing from one step to the other. I experimented with my idea and the development of the story on two steps, which will be discussed in details in the following section.

and acting them. So instead of creating a storyline out of my imagination and writing it on a paper, like most of the writers and film makers do, I decided to use my every day actions as a trigger to create a story so that people could relate more to real life and provide a new experience of storytelling. So I decided to take a walk down the streets in Korba, Heliopolis for two hours and asked four different people to follow me. They had no idea about what I was doing or planning to do, they only knew that they had to create a story out of my actions. I gave them the freedom to choose whatever medium they wanted and I told them that at the end, I would collect what they did. So I kept walking for two hours, trying to experiment and interact with different people around me and trying to explore different forms of subjectivity. For instance, there was a part where I tried to make different people on the streets guide my steps. So I stopped and asked a random guy where I can have a delicious drink, so he gave me directions to the nearest shop that sold fruit juices. Then on my way, I asked another person the same question and he ended up giving me directions to another place that he liked. My aim was to experiment with the subjectivity and how the same question can have different answers. I also wanted to experiment how it would feel like taking my actions according to what others say. In another part, I kept asking random people in the streets about their own definition of difference. Some people did not answer and said that they didnt know, others were more open and shared their own thoughts with me. During the whole walk, I tried to do some actions that I usually encounter in my daily life, such as buying stuff from the supermarket, taking a cab, spending a lot of time waiting for the tram in the sun, taking pictures of beautiful sceneries, and many more. I was curious to integrate a lot of actions that I do everyday and examine how they will turn out to be after going through different interpretations from other people.

4.3 Four Shadows Step One: A walk in the streets A Initial Story
At the beginning, I kept thinking about creating an exciting story, depicting unusual actions and twisted climaxes, in order to appeal the audience and intrigue them to create different perspectives about it. But then, I realized that it would be more interesting to take a different approach, where the storyline can be left to chance and dependent on real life-actions that one encounters on his daily basis, instead of preparing

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B Outcome of the Walk

After the two-hours walk, I sat with each one of my followers and took the stories they made out of my actions. The outcome was four different perspectives, made in four different approaches that I classified in the following way:

Sound Excerpts from Seifs Recordings, with english translation

Perspective 1: The Narrator (By Seif Shindy)

Concerning the medium chosen, Seif took still pictures with a professional camera and recorded his own thoughts with a microphone. I classified his perspective under the narrators because he seemed in control of the story he was telling, and knew everything about the character and the environment around her. He took pictures from a close angle and added a description of each action that he saw, for example, Hend is buying a bottle of water from the kiosk, The kiosk contains a variety of imported and local products, Hend is now crossing the street to take the tram. What differentiated his perspective from the others is the fact that he added his own thoughts and comments about other people in the street that I passed by. For instance, he took photos of other people and commented about their actions, he also photographed the street tags, and the environment around me while I was walking. When I asked him about his story, he told me that he saw it as a narration journey, where he got to explore the world of the character and go through different actions that she encountered.

Hend is looking for water, She went to a humble lady who had a small shop where she sold imported and exported products. The lady got into a fight with Seif and threatened him to break the camera because he took pictures of her stuff and she saw this as a an act of violation of her privacy. Seif then added his thoughts on her behavior and wondered What could possibly make her afraif from the camera like this?.. We are in the streets for Gods sake

And now Hend is going to ask the guy what does the word Difference means to him, but he seems to be clueless about what to say

And now We are going to walk through a narrow street

The usual response of the people is that they dont know what to say or they just say nonsense, Seif comments in a sarcastic tone about the behavior of the people whom I interacted with

And now the guy replied saying that he doesnt know.. because he just woke up.. What a lame excuse!

The ladies told her to go ask someone else who is younger may be he can help her better because they are old.. Lame excuse number two!

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Perspective 2: The Stalker (By Lamiaa Diab)

Lamiaa used her mobiles camera to document what I was doing. She took pictures from a very far angle, where I was very small in the environment around me and I could be barely seen. She told me that she felt like a stalker when she was following me. I found her approach interesting in comparison with Seif, who felt very comfortable to invite himself in the characters own life, while she decided to stay very far and watch from an outsiders point of view. In other pictures, she tried to zoom in on my face in order to complement her idea of being a stalker, because these pictures were pixelated, so it made it hard for the eye to see it clearly. So in her opinion, this pixilation symbolized the barrier that she felt to intrude the characters personal life and figure out what she was doing.

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Perspective 3: The Detective (By Forat Sami)

Forat used her mobiles camera to document my actions as well, but from my shadows point of view. She took pictures from a very low angle, showing only my feet and my shadow on the ground. She told me that she tried to imagine what I was doing by decoding what the shadows represented to her. She also made the shadows give her clues on where I was going and whom I was talking to.

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Perspective 4: The Author (By Abla Mohamed)

Abla used sticky notes and a pen as a medium to document my walk. When I asked her to explain to me her own experience, she told me that she imagined herself as a writer who was sitting one morning at a caf lacking inspiration for her next book, and then she found a girl passing by with her backpack who caught her attention. So she decided to follow her and discover what she was up to, may be she could use her actions as an inspiration for her next story. So Abla wrote down my actions on sticky notes, her handwriting made it look very personal and authentic. What I found interesting about Ablas perspective is that she was the only one who imagined herself as another character, whom she created on her own, unlike the others who during the whole walk acted as themselves. And this was reflected on her story about my walk, because she tried to make a link between everything that I did and all the places I passed by, giving the story a start, middle and an end, just like a regulars author script.

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C Reflections on the Walk

Analyzing the process of the first step, I believe that it was a successful attempt to tackle the art of storytelling in a different approach. The interesting part about it is the factor of the unpredictability, neither the audience knew what to expect next as an action, nor the character, or myself in that case, expected the different outcomes that were made. Another advantage of that approach is the factor of live play and integrating the audience in the real action, because in most of the cases, there is always a barrier between the audience and the story. For instance in films, people are watching the story, which was performed in a previous time, through a screen, so they feel like they are positioned in different worlds or places. Also in books, the person reads the story through text written on the pages, so the real actions only happen in the readers mind. On the other hand, the Four Shadows experiment managed to make the audience see the story at the same real time the actions were happening by the character. So it broke the barrier of time elapse and of the space separation as well. The theatre is a close approach to this experiment, because the audience gets to see the actors play live in real time as well, however, Four Shadows approach breaks the constraint of the stage and engages the audience in a more open act. Moreover, just like the Happenings movement discussed in chapter 1, the act is more authentic because it changes every time it is being performed, thus the audience gets to experience a whole new story every time. Furthermore, the experiment managed to create an engaging relationship between the audience and the character/performer by making the latter do some actions and leave the audience the joy to construct the story with the medium they preferred. So even though the four followers existed at the same place and witnessed the same actions, each one had a totally different experience than the other.

4.4 Four Shadows Step Two: Installation

As a conclusion of the first step, A Walk Through the Streets, I got four different perspectives about the story of my walk as an outcome. One story displayed as a handwritten text of an author on sticky notes, another one as a form of pictures accompanied by narration sound, the third one in a form of extreme long shot pictures as a stalker and the fourth one in a form of shadow pictures. So in this step, I am going to create an installation using this material in order to continue on the creation of even more perspectives about the story. Having discussed before the notions of the Open Work, being unfinished is one its characteristics. So this factor is implemented in my project by the idea that each step produces material for the step afterwards. So, the experiment was done in the streets and the material that I got as an outcome, is the content of the installation in my second step, and the material that I am going to get out of that installation is going to be used in a further step and so on. Each step provides a whole new process and experience according to its content. So the following part will explain in further details my concept for the installation.

TOP VIEW

A- Concept Description
The aim of this installation is to portray the different fragments of the initial story of my walk and expose it to a whole new audience. The challenge was how to make them go through a similar experience of the original act itself. So the idea of the installation was based upon the four different perspectives of the Author, Detective, Stalker and Narrator. The following are sketches for my concept visualization.

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My idea was to put each perspective in a corner of the room, where the environment complements the content accordingly. So for instance, the images of the stalker perspective were put in a corner where the setting resembled the dark room of the photography. There was a red light, pictures hanging by clippers on a rope, and others put in a container where there was water, as if they were being processed. I chose to portray this perspective in that specific context in order to reflect the stalker ideas and put the audience in the same mood that was initially intended by Lamiaa, the creator of that perspective. The authors perspective was put in another corner, displayed as a study room. There was an empty chair, a desk and on top of it there was a typewriter and other desk utilities such as pens, plants and lamps. The sticky notes written by Abla were put on the side table and the paper that was in the typewriter included her story written in a form of a paragraph. I tried to create a comfortable setting as much as possible so that the audience can feel like they are at their study room at their home. The narrators perspective was put in a third corner where there was a microphone and computer playing the different sound files that were previously recorded by Seif. I put the playlist on shuffle, so that the sound files and Seifs comments play randomly and add to the non-linearity of the narrative. This corner generated the whole sound in the room in order to put the audience in the mood of the street environment and the walk. The pictures were displayed on the table next to the computer to give more material for the audience to visualize the actions and the environment. In the last corner, the perspective of the detective was displayed by putting the pictures of the feet and shadows, taken by Forat, on the floor. Each two pictures were put beside each other and formed a trail as if they were footsteps. There was also a magnifying glass in order to complement the mood of the detective. The aim of each setting was to invite the audience to fully experience the four different perspectives according to each ones content. If the pictures were displayed together or hung on a plain white wall, the audience will not get to go through the same engaging experience. So the goal is to make the person become embodied in each character, and act is if he was a stalker, a

detective, an author and a narrator, all at once. And this will be accomplished thanks to the setting of the room that invites the audience to interact that way, unconsciously.

C- Testing
The following are pictures for the testing of the setup of the installation at the Graphics Room (C3.119) at the German University in Cairo.

B Analysis in terms of the proposed theory

In terms of non-linearity, this installation meets its structure since the fragments of the story are put in the four corners of the room, thus the audience can start anywhere since there are no beginning or end identified. Moreover, inside each corner, the story is also represented in a non-linear structure, leaving the sequence of events open for the audience to construct. It would also be good if the room had several entrances, but this depends on the provided space. In terms of types of openness, the installation is leaning towards a contemplative openness, where the audience gets to participate on a mental level and create different meanings. And according to my proposed theory, I was aiming for both contemplative and structural openness. Thus, I added in the middle of the room a table where there was a Polaroid camera, a recorder, a paper, a pen, a glue and scissors. At the entrance of the door, the audience will be given a note that asks them to create their own story after seeing the four different perspectives. The note explains that there are no rules, and that each person is free to add on the material that is already present, move it around, or even add their own. I also added four blank charts at each side of the room where people can add their own perspective or even continue on what others have previously made. And in order not to mess with the original four perspectives, I created several copies of each photo so that if a person chooses to misplace a photo and cut it out, the people who would come after will find the same material present at the same place. Thus by allowing this kind of participation, the story becomes open in both levels, structural and contemplative. Moreover by allowing the audience to add their own material, the narrative becomes emergent, which broadens the limits and opens up for more unexpected outcomes.

Tools and charts provided for the users to interact and form their own story

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Stalker Perspective, Dark Room of Photography Author Perspective, Study Room

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Detective Perspective, Clues and footsteps

Narrator Perspective, Sound recordings played on shuffle

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Users interacting , testing phase In order to test the feasibility of the installation and its mechanism, I created the setup in a room at the German University in Cairo and tested it on two persons. The first one to enter was a female. She started by examining all corners and walking around the room, then she used some pictures and glued them on one of the charts. She made a story about sexual harassment using two pictures of the shadows perspective, and two pictures from the narrators perspective, and then she used a piece of paper and wrote on it. The second participant was a male, he spent a lot of time examining the shadows perspective and then he went on to the other corners, carrying the magnifying glass around with him and using it in other corners. Then he wrote his own story using a pen and a paper and glued them next to the sticky notes in the authors corner. When I asked the female participant for feedback, she told me that she was intimidated at first to touch anything because she didnt want to mess things up. And then she added that this a common problem when it comes to interactive installations, people tend to get shy or sometimes pressured. I agreed with her on that point, but one can also put into consideration that may be the fact that she was the first one to enter and all the charts were blank, that is why she was intimidated at first. Also, she entered on her own, so may be if there were other people present and moving stuff around, she would be more encouraged to interact. She also added that the authors corner was the most corner that encouraged her to participate. She said that she felt cozy and the environment was created in a way that she automatically found herself sitting on the chair and starting to write on the typewriter. As for the male participant, he shared his thoughts about the construction of the meaning in his head and he tried to create a logical sequence out of the material he saw. He also added that the narration voice created a very good mood in the room and made him feel that he was in the street.

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Story formed by the female participant

Story formed by the male participant

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D- Limitations and Further Development

Before the testing phase, I was concerned that the installation would be too open and that people would not understand anything, however, I was glad to see that the participants managed to find their way around and experiment with the material. However, few tests were conducted due to time restrictions and room reservations, so further tests must be done on more people in order to ensure the efficiency of the narration created in the installation. Also, there must be something that encourages the audience to participate, so may be things can be put in a less organized way, in order to invite the people to touch stuff as they want. Moreover, the equipment must be working properly because during the testing, there was no recorder or ink in the typewriter. As for the interaction concept, there is a risk that the meanings of the narrative become weaker because there is no complete control over the input of the audience, so they could end up writing nonsense words and cutting out different material just for the sake of having fun. If this happens, then the structural openness is not the best case for this kind of installation. So only further tests can prove whether or not the interaction of the audience can be efficient. I personally believe that this kind of structural openness is worth trying, because it is very interesting to examine how people can act under open rules, and I am eager to see how this material could end up. And in case the attempt fails, further modifications can be adopted according to the audience behavior by narrowing down the openness or even shifting the concept in another context than an installation, such as an education workshop, or narrowing down the audience to a certain target group whose contribution would be effective.

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Conclusion
provide a space where the users can generate their own input to the story, and not just choose or rearrange pre-existing material, and ensure that their interaction adds to the meaning of the narrative and is related to its content because otherwise, the audience might lose interest. The Four Shadows project was my contribution and adaptation of the proposed theory on how to apply the notions of Open Work in the context of non-linear storytelling. The name came from the project of Sophie Calle called, The shadow, where she asked her mother to hire a detective to follow her for one day. However, in my context, the four shadows refer to four different persons who followed me but for a different purpose. Their task was to document what I was doing and try to form a story using my actions as a storyline. At the end of the experiment, four different perspectives were created depicting the story of my walk, documented in different ways and mediums. One was documented as a text on sticky notes, which I named the Authors perspective. The second one was documented in a form of pictures accompanied with sound, which I named the Narrators perspective. The third one was documented in a form of pictures taken from an extreme long shot, which I named the Stalkers perspective, and finally the last one was documented in the form of pictures depicting feet and shadows, which I named the Detectives perspective. These four different narratives were displayed later on in an installation where people can experience the same mood of the story and add their own perspective as well. The project succeeded in engaging the audience and creating multiple meanings. It also managed to create a new experience of storytelling, where the audience witnesses the actions happening in the real time. As for the physical interaction aspect, it is still under development and need further testing in order to be able to provide a clearer vision. Finally, I hope that this research can inspire other artists to experiment with a more open structure in storytelling, and even expand it in a wider context. I also hope that my proposed ideas would help in creating a whole new relationship between the audience and the artists/ authors, where they are both dependent on each other and interact efficiently, adding multiple dimensions to the artwork. Furthermore, one of the main drives that encouraged me to do the Four shadows project is to showcase how there is nothing defined as an absolute truth, or one interpretation. The open non-linear approach that I have experimented with helped in reflecting how the human minds perceive things differently than each other.

The idea behind this study initiated in order to question the structures of how stories are being told. After examining this topic in more depth, nonlinear structures seemed to be the most promising techniques in creating different interpretations. Thus my aim was to experiment with this structure in a new way, where the audience was included throughout the whole process of the story creation, in order to enrich the content with as much diversity as possible, and allow its reconstruction on a further step, creating multiple layers of meanings. The example of 99 ways to tell a story by Matt Madden was one of the most inspiring examples as it showcased how the same story can be interpreted differently through multiple formats. So I was hoping to reach a similar outcome but with the audiences collaboration and make the story inspired by real life-actions. A detailed analysis was conducted on the notions of the Open Work by Umberto Eco and how he defined the relationship between the author and the audience and examined several examples throughout the years. When compared to Interactive Art, Open Work tends to focus more on the construction of multiple meanings while Interactive Art focuses more on the audience participation. So this triggered the idea of combining both together, in order to create an artwork that is completed by the audience participation and possesses multiple layers of meanings. I tried to apply this idea in the context of non-linear storytelling, where the story is displayed in an open form, leaving the audience to participate in order to construct the meaning behind it. And it is in constant development according to the place and time where it is being practiced. Several examples of non-linear and interactive storytelling were analyzed in order to take the necessary measures and fully engage the audience. The main challenges were how to control the openness of the story and how to control the interaction of the users in order to ensure their engagement during the whole process. At the end, the optimum approach that was proposed on a theoretical level was to

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Acknowledgement
The idea of this research was based on how to make the audience participate in the artwork. So without the collaboration of these people, I would not have been able to apply my findings and develop my concept. So I would like to express my gratitude to Abla Mohamed, Lamiaa Diab, Merna Ali, Forat Sami and Seif Hazem for sparing time in order to follow me around the streets and provide me with the amazing material that they did. I would also like to thank several people who helped in one way or another, Heba El Kest and Ayman Abou El Kheir for being the first two participants to try out my installation, Mona Diab for giving me constructive feedback whenever I needed, Mohamed Hossam for always being there and helping me out with everything and my parents for helping me out with the installation props. As for Lamiaa Diab and Dina Fahmi, I would like to show my appreciation for their constant help throughout the whole research and for brainstorming with me until I managed to settle on a topic. Last but not least, I would like to thank my supervisor, Mikala Hyldig Dal, for supervising this project and giving me guidelines throughout the semester and Steffen Scholl for his constructive feedbacks.

Web. 22 May 2013. <http://www.beyondintractability.org/bi-essay/narratives>. COHEN, RYOSUKE. "Mail Art-Brain Cell-Fractal." N.p., Mar. 1999. Web. May 2013.

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