A fascinating if somewhat short discussion of this question of the spectator
versus the 'interactor' in narrative reception/construction is Slavoj Zizek's
'Virtualization of the Master' in Lusitania vol. 8.
From his Lacanian perspective, Zizek makes a provocative argument about the
desire of many spectators to find out what 'really' happened in the story (even
when the story is well known), identifying it with a desire to maintain a stable
relation to the way the world unfolds 'out there'. Repetition of a narrative
outcome confirms (in the imaginary) the continued control of the 'Master' (=
Logos, 'Law of the Father', the symbolic realm of Sense) over the 'real'.
The techno-positivist imperative to become active agents in determining the
outcome of stories via one's increasing technological instrumentality runs up
against this desire, undermining he says the function of the 'Master' 'with
consequences which are far more unpredictable and uncanny the it may appear'.
I think Zizek is onto something here: the banal celebration in discourses of
technoloical progress of an ever-increasing liberation thanks to the
ever-increasing move toward designed interactivity is liable to question on a
number of fronts. How it affects the modern western subject's sense of the
'world' and its unfolding may not be a purely positive experience because being
put in the position of 'mastery' has a shadowy, unpredictable dimension.
patrick
Dr Patrick Crogan
Acting Head of Screen Studies
Australian Film, Television & Radio School
www.aftrs.edu.au
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