Sonic Branding with Sub Atomic Audio

Quantum Audio describes a variety of micro structural units of audio transmission which may be collectively described as scale conveyors of symbolic data.

Charles Seeger has coined a related term, ‘museme’ to mean a “basic unit of musical expression which in the framework of one given musical system is not further divisible without destruction of meaning.”

I think there is some overlap between his ideas and my own independent musical musings, but for the time being, let’s explore the notion and implications of this thing I have dubbed 'Quantum Audio'.

Readily observable examples of Quantum Audio elements include Meme at the upper range of scale, which is itself composed of at least four key elements: Semiotic Signifiers (a specific cultural expression of Archetype), Audio Archetypes (a plastic, primordial and universal concept), Nuance (representing both the physical expression of data, and often a unique data unit itself), and Artifact (often unintentional and resulting from mechanical manipulations, but sometimes capable of a performer's control).

And it may be said that as Archetype (Organic) inspires Signifier (Designed), Nuance (Intentional Communication) can be said to produce Artifact (Collateral Communication).

Obviously we are expanding definitions a bit in order to express newly identified phenomena. Therefore, it is natural to ask if Quantum Audio particles are 'real', or if this investigation is merely an intellectual exercise? As it turns out, this is akin to asking if light is composed of particles or waves, because the answer is both, depending on one's method of observation.

Quantum Audio describes what have heretofore been considered intangible concepts. However, we may nevertheless identify and re-define certain notions as observable 'elements', and we do this by acknowledging the very real impact they leave on an audience. Indeed, the measurable result of this collective phenomena can be found in the production of identifiable and undeniable bio musicological reactions in listeners who share a common cultural context. This is to say Quantum Audio elements produce real psychophysiological changes in brain activity, the way we might expect any external or environmental influence to do.

In this paradigm, the motivic Meme will stand for the equivalent of a musical molecule. Next, the building blocks of music long identified by traditional music theorists we will serve as audible atomic structures. But our study primarily concerns itself with even smaller elements, including Archetype and Signifier, as mentioned before, which despite their diminutive scale nevertheless gently impress upon listeners (who share a common cultural context) observational emotional markers, and thus can be said to capably convey symbolic data in the form of audio, which we now designate as Quantum Audio Components or particles.

For instance, it is Quantum Audio that provokes an emotional reaction from even a single beat of music, or any short snippet of sound. Devoid of melodic information or even a rhythmic pattern, this audio 'unit' might not even be said to be music (except on a quantum scale), but our senses tell us it nevertheless remains an entirely capable platform for communication.

What is this then? A burst? An edit? An expression? I think 'Gesture' is a good word, but whatever it is, it is not the word in a sentence, but it is perhaps the syllable in the word, whether verbalized or printed, so infused with emotive or contextual potency that one brief utterance alone may require no further support or enhancement.

Oh?

Exactly.

However, it should be noted that within this system there is a world of Microsound which exist on an even smaller time frame than we are concerned with when we use the term Quantum Audio. The 'grains' of Grain Synthesis', for instance, however interesting and useful for composers, generally lie beyond the domain of this present discussion. A 50ms audio sample might certainly be itself composed from a carrier wave and other physical phenomena, but such assets are generally too small carry to meaning, which is what we are concerned with in this discussion. Suffice to say, the phrase 'sound quantum' as it is conventionally used typically describes physical units of sound, whereas Quantum Audio as it is used here is limited to describing indivisible semiotic constructs.

The application of Quantum Audio data is also what distinguishes the sound of a Rock Guitar from one that is merely amplified, independent of what kind of music is being performed. EFX units may be said to bathe source sounds with Quantum particles. Some may call this nuance; others may label it an algorithm. Either way, what is clear is that emotive quality appears rarely the result of one component, but rather more likely produced by a matrix of controlled minutiae.

Likewise, Quantum Audio data allows the carrier signal to 'push' symbolic data, either independently or in conjunction with melody. And it is these triggers that produce a resulting emotive impact on the listener, whether the musical expression is a full length work or a single beat. A capable musician or music designer can inflect/suggest a variety of 'meanings' on the same melody or audio design construction, transforming the material at hand into any number of rich and differently textured messages.

Interestingly, Quantum Audio is also that which allows listeners to identify one performer from another, creating a fundamental feature of sonic ID or audio branding design.

While not occupied with the natural world, the application of Memetic theory is a good starting point for anyone interested in Quantum Audio. The Memetic premise challenges us to deconstruct any communication until we can at last identify within it what might be called a ‘fundamental pattern’, that is, the smallest unit of cultural transmission capable of being replicated. (For more about music and memes, read: Music Memetics, 1 May 2010)

As with genes, memes follow biological laws –in fact memetic theory parallels genetic theory. But Quantum Audio components, like quantum particles, behave differently, as we have established, depending on how they are observed. Which is to say, while we might find universal agreement in the underlying Archetype, the Signifiers they inspire will likely mean different things to different groups (or nothing at all), depending on local definitions, cultural perception and demographic norms.

Unlike memes, which we can more rightly say are composed of Quantum Audio Components, Quantum Audio itself does not form 'a fundamental pattern', nor do such particles lend themselves to replication. No one hums a Quantum Audio Component, for instance. Rather, it is the assemblage of such elements into an audible matrix that create the potentially (and hopefully) exponentially, replicating musical gene/meme. They are the stuff from which patterning is made, and on the sublime and oft-seeming sub sensory level.

WHY ‘QUANTUM' AUDIO?

In physics, a quantum is the minimum unit of any physical entity involved in an interaction, and because this study conducts itself with the examination of musical microstructures, we borrow 'quantum' as a loan word.

Speaking of musical microstructures, an early inspirations for this inquiry arrived as a result of studying bowed stringed instruments as a child. Unlike a piano, or software instrument, a violinist must first spend many days, weeks, even months learning how to produce a suitable tone before they can hope to produce anything that resembles 'music' as the term is commonly understood. The result of such rigorous application is the development of an acute awareness, and the ability to control both musical and non-musical resonances, which produced in tandem as successive and overlapping sounds, and generated at what might be described a frame-rate scale, when mastered and summed, finally serve to create a single satisfying tone.

Years ago I even wrote an essay describing my fascination with the process of coaxing a usable tone from the various members of the string instrument family, and as thorough as I might have thought myself at the time, it's probable that I was still incomplete in my description of the process. (Contact: The Character of Sound)

One may argue a pianist must also learn ‘touch’, or that the operator of a digital instrument must also acquire technical skills necessary for modulation. But neither is responsible for their respective chosen instrument's tone. The sound of a violin is not the sound of the instrument itself. Don't believe me? Pick up a violin and bow and tell me if you can produce anything that resembles what we commonly think of as a the sound of a violin.

Unless you already have a a degree of competency with stringed instruments, or you think violins generally sound like screeching birds, the answer is probably not. Rather, the pleasing sound, timbre or wave form capable of being produced by a violin –as we commonly think of a violin sound– is that of a violinist engaging with a deceptively complex mechanism that he or she has mastered, and which he or she has formed a symbiotic relationship with. Contrast this with the sound of a piano -or an organ, or a harpsichord– which requires interaction with an interface, but little that might be regarded as actual symbiosis. Thus the sound of a piano –its essential timbre– is always the same regardless of who is pressing down any given key.

It is perhaps like the difference between flying a kite and using a hammer.

To be clear, we are limiting this discussion to the production of tone in the singular, not the full or even partial performance of a musical work.

Granted, the sounds generated by a synthesizer may be modulated in realtime by the electronic musician. And no doubt we can recognize an interface as a tool, the computer itself a collection of tools. That some are masters of this kit should therefore be a given. But it would be an over simplification to state that electronically generated sound is produced as a result of symbiois between man and machine.

This is not to disparage any single kind of musician. I've been a fan of the synthesizer and an electronic and computer musician for thirty years. And perhaps it is for this reason that I can easily recognize that one of the main reasons such instruments enjoy wide and current popularity is because aspiring musicians can get right down to the business of making music without first spending years training their ears and their bodies to work in tandem in order to develop the bio mechanical skill-set necessary to creating a reasonable steady state tone, much less actually make music. In short, perfection, in this instance, does not necessarily require practice.

It's important to recognize this fact, because it is only by the deft integration and application of sound that an audio designer can endow an otherwise sterile set of patches or samples with a gesture that causes his or her composition or construct to suddenly resonate with thrilling humanity, and therefore actually 'touch' people, which one assumes is always the desired result.

As a result, it's worth mentioning that a violinist's relationship with tone is never steady state. String players do not trigger a 'patch' or a sample, and so organic tone is never one static thing, but rather the summed event experience composed of many elements (some imperfectly made) and made manifest over a given time-line by a constantly changing and potentially infinite number of variables, controlled only by the fingertips, and the brain, of course –indeed the entire anatomical structure. This is to say that a violinist's tone is produced by his or her entire body literally working in concert with instrument and bow.

Another way of looking at it is to say that Tone, deconstructed, is not simply the pitched 'musical' or sonic focal point which listeners train their ears on, but includes an infinite number of peripheral, evolving musical sounds plus non musical 'Artifacts', which together produced and controlled by a performer in real-time over a given timespan, serve to enhance each subsequent pitch center with suggested emotive feeling or symbolic data.

To the trained and untrained ear both, Artifacts, in and of themselves, are rarely considered musical, but summed with tonal information, they create Expression, and as such they often prove to be the very reason we feel the way we do about a given performance.

Obsess upon a given Artifact, however, and the sounds of fingers scraping steel, the clacking of keys, the singer's quick inhalation (to name just a few examples) become annoying. But attempt to perfect a recording by eliminating such sounds altogether and we find that what we are left with is sterile by an inhuman degree.

Another fascinating –and easily observable– example of Quantum Audio at work is in the oft heard radio contests that ask listeners to identify a work based on a short clip. These bursts of sound may be as short as a single beat, or even smaller. Yet, regardless of whether one is familiar with the source track, or even if one can't identify the source of the edit, these short snippets nevertheless reveal themselves as fully capable of triggering any number of cognitive reactions, from emotion to memory to inspiration.

At any rate, it is clear that fundamental sonic elements, which we can identify as (micro) Gestures capable of conveying (meaningful) Expression –or Message– and which we collectively call Quantum Audio, is worth continued investigation, especially if one is engaged in the delivery of symbolic data for the benefit of a commercial client, such as in the production of sonic branding, or for some other utilitarian purpose.


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Photo Collage by Terry O'Gara

Mash-Up for the Masses

In an interactive feature titled, The Recombinant DNA of the Mash-Up, the New York Times offers a neat summary of the last hundred years of audio collage.

It reminded me how current technology now allows even the least musical of us to enjoy the feeling of making music, exactly because neither triggering nor even beat matching samples requires any dexterity or talent (given the right software).

Of course, there are varying degrees of electronic artistry, but many programs find popularity precisely because anyone can begin combining samples and 'making music' without any training whatsoever.

But what I find interesting, is that even with such immediate magic at our disposal, many would still prefer it if someone else chose the loops and pushed the buttons.

Sidestepping the notion of DJ as musical curator, why is that?

Maybe it's like choosing a designated driver? Most people can drive, but once you and your friends decide that you're going to spend the night mainlining one pure pop hook after another, fueled by a potent mix of rap and rhythms, it's simply more prudent to let someone else get behind the wheel –or laptop– and do the actual driving, and generally direct all the madness for the entire evening so that everyone else can safely reach peak ecstasy as they bump and crash and spin around the floor, and into each other, searching through movement and spirit for the joy that comes with surrendering oneself to a collective sonic singularity.

Quantum Audio: Post Modern Post Noise

It seems apropos that on the first day of a new year to make a resolution for the future. I would like to make such a resolution on behalf of staid Music Theory, which is I think in need of some new threads to follow. Mine is merely the opinion of a commercial music producer, but I arrive at this opinion based on the increasing necessity by which commercial works are judged not just on thematic development, but on their ability to communicate symbolic data.

Certainly, I'm not the first to suggest updating the core curriculum. Others before me have sought, developed and presented new methodologies for analyzing traditional music, e.g., the application of linguistic analysis to a given composition. Indeed, A Generative Theory of Tonal Music by Fred Lerdahl, Ray Jackendoff and Ray S. Jackendoff have had me pondering this and related topics for over twenty years. Along the way it occurred to me that while there are several approaches on the table, a common realization amongst many musicologists is that there is more to music than just the music itself.

Therefore, it seems to me, that at the same time we expand our meaning of Music Theory, we must also expand our meaning of Music. And it may also be that Composition itself is a limiting word, because so much of what we do in commercial audio is better described as Design.

Yesterday’s Music Theory parcels musical from non-musical sounds. However, today’s music designer doesn’t draw the same distinction. Likewise, today's Music Theory limits itself to the analysis of harmonic constructions, whereby a pitched note is like an atom, and a motif a complex molecule. But anyone commissioned with the design of a sonic brand understands even smaller particles exists, and they must possess some significant value because their deft placement produces increases the effectiveness of a given communication.

Traditional music analysis continues to be useful, but modern music designers will often expand their knowledge base by cobbling together a kind of personal post modern, post noise philosophy. By doing this, they form an individual understanding of how to communicate Concrete Information with Abstract Sound. The result is a skill set which allows one with some confidence to code commissions with inherent semiotic DNA in order for to maximize the efficacy of a given transmission.

By ‘inherent’, I don’t mean that a given sound is inherently imbued with any meaning at all, but that human cognition endows certain sound classes a specific meaning, but only after a collective audience has agreed to a shared definition of a given sound, collection of sounds or sonic experience.

Do you know what Happy and Sad sound like?
Do you know what Spring and Autumn sound like?
Do you know what Victory and Defeat sound like?
Do you know what Sadness and Anger sound like?
Do you know what a Chase or Love Scene should sound like?

Of course you do.

But what does Nokia sound like? Or General Electric? Or Ikea? Pick any brand. It's when we are faced with such a commission that we begin to form an art (and possibly a science) out of what may have once been executed by a natural impulse or guess work. Which is to say we form a technique, which is never present without a theory to support and direct it.

Choose a friend or family member: What do they sound like? How do you filter his or her traits and attributes in order to choose the ring tone to alert you to their incoming calls? –Yes, that too is branding! Do you do this by feeling or analysis?

Some musical professionals already do employ musical symbology, especially those who create movie scores, primarily as a means to enhance story, but still, mostly only at the motivic level. Otherwise, this art is not common, and more media composers –especially those in advertising and branding– would do well to begin exploring and implementing their discoveries.

My own ongoing study enters its thirtieth year and synthesizes relevant data from a variety of extra-musicological sources including: linguistics, semiotics, psychology, cultural theory, environmental sound and more recent findings produced by the study of memetics, which altogether have produced in me a nearly formalized bio musicological understanding of sound that I have taken to call ‘Quantum Audio’.

Of course, Quantum data suggests –as with quantum physics– an understanding that the world exists on at least two scales: Macro and Micro.

Let us agree for the purposes of this article that 'Macro' suggests the construction of traditional harmony and melody. Pitched notes are its atoms and motifs its molecular structures.

'Micro', then, as it applies to Quantum Audio, is the examination of sonic particles, both musical and non musical, whether initiated by man, machine, nature or created as an effect, or existing as a residual 'after glow'. Whatever category they fall into, they are always smaller than a motif, rarely longer than a note, but they are nonetheless significant because by tiny, almost imperceptible means, they shape our experience of a given musical or sonic work, signaling to us whether or not what we are hearing is a message or something else. In fact, their impact might be said to delineate the difference between whether or not we recognize incoming audio data as general information as informative audio.

British physicist Dennis Gabor also proposed a similar term, 'quantum of sound', to describe indivisible physical units of audio information. And while the two concepts sound identical, we will limit our use of the phrase Quantum Audio to describe only those psychoacoustic microstructures that are not so small that they cannot also act as carriers of semiotic messaging.

At any rate, if we are to become experts of 15-second 'messages', 5-second stings, three-second bumps, two-second logos and 1-second long (or less) navigational tones -and it is clear that we have to be– then it goes to reason that those who aspire to creating the most efficacious music design must begin analyzing music on a micro semiotic level, much as composers have long done at the macro level. And if we are to become experts in audio branding, then the research academics have long taken for granted will also have to become part of our skill set as commerical sonic artisans.

While it may strike some as gibberish, others will find that once one approaches the art of music design as the skill of assembling and embedding symbolic data, rather than, say, simply pasting sound to picture, or developing thematic support to enhance narrative, one actually does arrive at a different musical or otherwise sonic result –and some might even think an expontentially more potent communication– than one would have otherwise.

Sound of the Year: 2010 – The Vuvuzela

In the June 29th entry to his blog, Afrika Aphukira, Malawian writer Steve Sharra provides interesting sociological insight into Africa's football culture, and more specifically, the regional relevance now afforded Ghana, given their triumphant performance at the 2010 World Cup.

But for me –a music theorist living on the edge of America– the most thought provoking part of the piece is when Sharra indicates that the sound rising up from Royal Bafokeng Stadium might actually be more than just the usual crowd applause. A victory cheer was certainly in order: Ghana's national soccer team defeated the US contingent only three days before Sharra published his article. But perhaps this noisy, euphoric sound, he suggests, also represents a fanfare for a new African century.

Shara writes:

The more compelling story worth telling about the global tournament in South Africa this year has two sides to it. First is the story of what Ghana’s triumph symbolizes, at the center of which symbolism is Africa’s past and future. This symbolism is embodied in the vuvuzela, the cheering trumpet. Riding on the success of Ghana is also the story of how the 2010 World Cup has thus far proved wrong most of its critics, detractors, pessimists and doubting Thomases. The vuvuzela, much like Ghana’s Black Stars, has beaten odds to become more than a cheering instrument. It has now attained the status of an African metaphor for the unacknowledged ways in which Africa determines particular discourses at the global level. There are three narratives intertwined here. First, Ghana is carrying the hopes of the continent, and the larger Pan-African world. Second, this tournament has been remarkable for the bigger presence of players of African descent in many of the teams, especially those from Europe and Latin America. Third, the phenomenon that has become the vuvuzela takes on a significance that elevates the symbolization of Ghana’s performance thus far, as well as the widespread presence of African influence in the ancestry of the players on the field."

Then Shara points us to the June 24th Mail & Guardian Online’s Thought Leader blog, where Sarah Britten quotes The Financial Times' Peter Aspden as saying (of the vuvuzela):

“It is a joyous, life-affirming sound, of a nation entranced in pride and celebration, and expressing it through its own culture.”

That is, however, an observation that actually falls short of Shara's premise, because suddenly we realize that the vuvuzela is no longer merely the sound of 'its own culture'. To be precise, the vuvuzela's caterwauling wail has achieved nothing less than transcended culture and even transcended soccer to become the sound that defines our times.

Of course, it might be that the vuvuzela was simply the loudest (or most annoying) sound of 2010. I understand that comment, but I still think it the most significant sound of 2010.

Beating out pop songs, jingles and a seemingly infinite ensemble of machine made voices: What other sound was bigger, brasher, more memorable or more memetic? And what other sonic branding mnemonic has ever proved more easily capable of representing all these things: 1) a major multinational sporting event, 2) the sport itself and 3) both the country and the continent that hosted said sport's biggest game in the last four years?

And that's why I nominate The Vuvuzela as The Sound of the Year.

Not to mention that what the vuvuzela has come to represent is not simply a single moment in sports history, but also a moment in our collective global history. And this moment sings out with a distinctive, jubilant and multinational voice.

Did you ever ask yourself if music was powerful enough to unite the world? Well, it is, provided one sings one's chorale (or blows a horn) around a football pitch.

I have thought often whether a narrative history of the world could be written from the perspective of one one era-defining sonic moment to the next. And as of this very moment, I'm absolutely certain that it could.

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To read The Vuvuzelization of world football: Ghana & the real story of SA2010 and other thought provoking pieces by Mr. Sharra, click the link.

Photo Credit: Image by Caldwella, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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HOW THE SOUND OF THE YEAR IS SELECTED:

The Critical Noise Sound of the Year goes to that sound source, event, entity, happening or concept which so effectively produces wide response and reaction, whether intentional or not, such that it stirs collective emotion, inspires discussion, incites action, or otherwise lends itself to cultural analysis and resonates across the globe.

Prior Sound of the Year winners include Auto-Tune (2009), The Housing Implosion (2008) and Mother Nature's Howl (2005)

Mythology and Messaging

This essay is an excerpt from a longer article on Story/Message Theory, originally published November 14, 2010. To read the original article in full, click the link. Links to other excerpts follow at the conclusion of this entry.

MYTHOLOGY, MESSAGING AND NEW STORY CRASHING STRATEGISTS

Hieroglyphs: By neofob

University of Chicago Divinity professor Bruce Lincoln defines myth as "ideology in narrative form."

Myths are created out of 'idealized experiences in order to influence behavior and create ritualistic practices'.

It's this practice that more closely resembles what advertisers are attempt to do with brand 'Story Building', than simply wrapping a company or product up in a narrative.

But however marketers and advertising creatives conceive Story today, it is clear that fast evolving Time Shifting, multi platform processes and the splintering, 'Attention Protective' audiences they seem to produce will force all those who trade in Story to stop assuming everyone is on the same page.

Therefore it behooves the modern storyteller to first define for themselves the meaning of Story, and then deconstruct their model until they capably arrive at their own proprietary Story Algorithm for themselves or a given venture.

It may also be that consumers don't want to play a role in a brand's Story, nor are they much interested in a brand playing a role in their own Story. What they want in a product or service is something that fulfills function, that's dependable, that works, no fuss, no muss and at a price that can't be beat. What they want in a brand relationship is sometimes no relationship at all beyond a transaction.

For many consumers, in fact, the ideal relationship with a brand resembles the same kind of transaction one might have with a prostitute. Payment for services rendered and full stop.

Quite obviously then, some marketers, faced with disinterested consumer demographics in a highly competitive market may need to develop 'Story Crashing' techniques in order to develop a consumer fan base, which they might execute by developing new ways to get people to remember something and replicate a certain behavior.

If this sounds a little like propaganda, I think bears a closer resemblance to wishful thinking. But no doubt some talented parties will find a way to make some of their wishes (or their client's) come true.

EXPERIENCE SANS STORY: SOMETIMES THAT'S ENOUGH

New models of communication will continue to proliferate; but the variety of communications, by and large, will not necessarily constitute new  objective based Story forms. Neither immersion in nor participation in an experience is evidence that what one is immersed in, participating in, collaborating with or otherwise experiencing, is a in fact a Story experience.

But so what; floating in a pool is an enjoyable experience, sans Story. Likewise, being a pet in a fancy home may be a purposeless life, but what a life. Great experiences don't require a Story in order to be effective as remedies from stress, or as marketing platforms.

And similarly, a roller coaster is simply a thrilling ride. Maybe a thrilling ride is all one needs to create lasting impressions, spread some happiness and convince customers to buy a souvenir and tell their friends all about the fun they had.

As with Experience, Message alone can also fulfill a communications directive. It may very well be that in an increasingly visually intelligent, 'Paste Modern', Multi Screen/Attention Deficient future, advertising is reduced to tags and hieroglyphs, and the most effective marketing messages will be composed by systems analysts collaborating with information designers and creative semioticians.

Of course, they will call themselves Storytellers, certainly, but whether you think they are or not, –and how much value you assign to their efforts– will depend entirely on how you frame the term 'Story'.

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Articles in this series:

Story/Message Theory (Original full length article)
What is a Story?
The Parable/Fable Framework as Story Algorithm
The Story/Message Theory Construct
So It Goes: Vonnegut's Law
The Power of Effective Messaging
Create Engagement with Compelling Signification
Elevator Pitch: Speed Dating Signification
Static Symbolic Accentuating Triggers
Story is Dead
Leading with Message Signification
Non Linear Cross Platform Transmedia Storytelling
Mythology and Messaging

Non Linear Cross Platform Transmedia Storytelling

This essay is an excerpt from a longer article on Story/Message Theory, originally published November 14, 2010. To read the original article in full, click the link. Links to other excerpts follow at the conclusion of this entry.

NON LINEAR CROSS PLATFORM TRANSMEDIA INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING 

Image By wooleywonderworks

So what of digital narratology and non linear story telling?

First, what do we mean by non linear when we apply it to Story theory?
 
Is Non Linear synonymous with interactivity?

Many people indicate it as such, but Non linearity traditionally suggests absurdity, whereby one thing does not follow the other logically. However, in practical terms, there is very little if anything illogical or non linear about the human experience, much less most stories told, regardless how many platforms or plots are in play, or that we may or may not enjoy its direction or the conclusions drawn upon by measuring any activities therein, or values we assign to such things.

And try as we might, absurdity requires a linear framework in order to feel its effect. Thus, while we are all familiar with art we might describe as absurd, we are also familiar with the experience of making sense out of the nonsensical. Present two unrelated ideas or points in space to a healthy human mind and they will draw a connection. In this sense, absurdity evaporates upon detection.

American advertisers rarely attempt to present the illogical; they generally strive for clarity. So, it may be that what brand strategists and advertisers are really doing is better defined as an attempt to insert themselves into a person's own narrative, and that this is better conceived as 'Experience Shaping'. It might even be manipulation of a kind, but only if we want people to think of us first, which is true in all facets of human relationships. In the meantime, Time Shifted, Non Linear formatting and Branched Choices have simply become synonymous with Non Linear Storytelling

Whether they are or not, however, is another story.

Better I think to dispense with the notion that we are composing Non Linear stories and simply understand that hyperlinks don't fracture Story experience; they enrich it. This becomes perfectly evident when we consider games.

In speaking to an audience at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virgina, business author Dan Pink has described Storytelling as "putting facts in context and delivering them with emotional impact". This is arguably true of narrative, but I think it is an incomplete as a definitive statement regarding stories, especially stories that lend themselves to trans linear experiences. What's missing in Mr. Pink's observation is any notion of game theory.

In so far as there are goals, rules and challenges to overcome, a traditional story frames a narrative within the game of life, and its players are the characters that inhabit and interact within the fiction, –especially exemplified by the dynamic between the protagonist and antagonist and the obstacles our hero faces. However, in a trans linear story, the game is played by the audience/users, for they are the one following rules, attempting to accomplish goals and overcoming challenges.

If in addition we add the notion that someone might learn something, then we also fulfill the measure provided by Story/Message Theory.

As for non linearity, in the case of popular electronic games, any notion of non linearity is held by the story builders alone, but it's not shared by players. Players may be given a wide and complex array of choices to navigate a game by choosing one Story branch over another, but their experience is transparent, seamless and feeds back as  linear experience. In this sense, any multi choice branching video game is as non linear as a game of Tic Tac Toe or Chess.

Indeed, a game of HALO (or any video game) actually provides a linear Story Experience whose potentially unique outcome at any given moment of game play is sourced from a Choice Array. On the other hand, we might experience a multi linear film, such as PULP FICTION, as wildly non linear when if fact it simply features a non sequential narrative experience.

In the case of digital narratology, Stories are often subject to a 'Platform Cut', as we cease action on one screen and begin on another. But practically speaking, it bears little difference from a film or video edit, except that the former is also Time Shifted.

Non linearity in electronic games or marketing assets appear to describe the back-end properties inherent with the provision of a Choice Array rather than any actual non linear experience produced on screen, or across multiple screens.

Thus, CHOICE alone does not necessarily describe Non Linearity.

Image By Arenamontanus

So, it may be more practical that rather than describe Time Shifted Cross Platform communications as Non Linear Stories (though some may be), that we define them as 'Constructal' compositions (or insert your own nifty neologism here). Constructal Theory describes a natural evolutionary tendency inherent in flow systems over time.

Alternately, we can describe each Message opportunity as an anchor point (also, plot point or brand touchpoint). A set of anchor points in and of themselves does not describe a story, for the same reason Navigation does not necessarily indicate Narrative. But if one can influence an audience to connect the dots, and provide them with a purpose for doing so, then one at least has the chance of playing a significant role in each individual's own narrative. This is a model that feeds back flow systems to the audience, but is built on a backend branched choice system similar in construction to a Constellation or Conceptual Asterism.

In the Story/Message Theory model, a Conceptual Asterism is represented by Transmedia Storytelling, whereby several experiences unfold across several platforms in order to promote a film, product, service or brand.

That said, Transmedia vehicles in practice do not always deliver a Story experience. As often they represent what might be better described as supplemental non narrative theatrical exposition that employ the mainstream application of techniques that used to be more commonly called 'Experimental Art', i.e. A series of individual non narrative, immersive experiences that share a common idea or theme, and though entertaining in and of themselves, do not necessarily constitute a Story experience, although they may very well serve as enhancements to one. A score for instance, is not a Story, although it certainly enhances dramatic action and contributes to our experience of a given movie.

In any event, the very best Transmedia employs a masterful combination of multimedia design and exposition, such that one is tempted to define Transmedia professionals less as Storytellers and perhaps more as User Experience Designers whose medium is the Real World.

Wikipedia defines User Experience Design (UXD) as: "...a broad term used to explain all aspects of a person’s experience with the system including the interface, graphics, industrial design, physical interaction, and the manual. It also refers to the application of user-centered design practices to generate cohesive, predictive and desirable designs based on holistic consideration of users’ experience."

Does the label fit? I think it does. 


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Articles in this series:

Story/Message Theory (Original full length article)
What is a Story?
The Parable/Fable Framework as Story Algorithm
The Story/Message Theory Construct
So It Goes: Vonnegut's Law
The Power of Effective Messaging
Create Engagement with Compelling Signification
Elevator Pitch: Speed Dating Signification
Static Symbolic Accentuating Triggers
Story is Dead
Leading with Message Signification
Non Linear Cross Platform Transmedia Storytelling
Mythology and Messaging

Leading with Message Significaton

This essay is an excerpt from a longer article on Story/Message Theory, originally published November 14, 2010. To read the original article in full, click the link. Links to other excerpts follow at the conclusion of this entry.

LEADING WITH MESSAGE/ ENGAGEMENT THROUGH SIGNIFICATION

Consider a campaign designed to appeal to soccer fans. A Story that begins with a young klutz and which then tracks his or her progress and transformation into World Cup champion might work well as long format movie entertainment, but the same story would be rather to difficult to pull off as a fifteen second spot.

If we do as Vonnegut suggests, and start as near the end as possible, we will have to eliminate much of the journey. Now, a sixty second spot, if it is within our budget, although abbreviated, would still allow us to deliver a satisfying Story. However, if our audience is simultaneously distracted by other media, we may lose the desired demographic before we have a chance to present it with an attractive semiotic.

Therefore, it may be, that the best way to fulfill our marketing objective is to flip the traditional model, so that we lead with the image of a soccer player, or even a jersey and a pair of cleats, thereby capturing focus with signification, which we can then either reward immediately with narrative, or alternately cue details for a time/space shift to another medium where interested parties might even be eager to spend more time, and enjoy a longer telling of our Narrative.

Thus, by leading with symbolic data, we inspire interest and desire in Narrative, where upon delivery, every major connection strategy –Marketing Objective, entertainment value and Story– is fulfilled and concluded, and perhaps even extended.

Of course, by Time Shifting Narrative, we no longer have to condense or compromise Narrative. In fact, we can expand it, and even do so across multiple consumer touch points, so that we can now employ a non linear marketing strategy whereby S=M+N1+N2+N3... (Story = Message + Narratives)

Arguably, Pop Stars put this theory to the test every time a songwriter front-loads a song with a hook. But I wonder if sonic artisans applying craft to the moving image might also be able to apply the theory when designing audio treatments composed for traditionally constructed media, and with what results?

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Articles in this series:

Story/Message Theory (Original full length article)
What is a Story?
The Parable/Fable Framework as Story Algorithm
The Story/Message Theory Construct
So It Goes: Vonnegut's Law
The Power of Effective Messaging
Create Engagement with Compelling Signification
Elevator Pitch: Speed Dating Signification
Static Symbolic Accentuating Triggers
Story is Dead
Leading with Message Signification
Non Linear Cross Platform Transmedia Storytelling
Mythology and Messaging

Story is Dead

This essay is an excerpt from a longer article on Story/Message Theory, originally published November 14, 2010. To read the original article in full, click the link. Links to other excerpts follow at the conclusion of this entry.

IF STORY IS DEAD

Hopscotch: By Jan Tik

Is Story Dead?

In 2003 I published and essay titled This Is Where The Story Ends in which I suggested Story is dead. Of course, it's meant to be a blatantly provocative headline. However, the article took the viewpoint of a  post-production professional working in music and audio applications for film, video, theme parks and new media, witnessing the transformation of the traditional storytelling by
Hypertext.

And even though I had been working on computer art projects for well over a decade, digital media had yet to explode into the mainstream. Then, by the turn of the century,  it seemed as if Digital, multimedia, and even Transmedia platforms with interactive features were all suddenly and very realistically poised on the popular horizon like ships approaching a new world.
And although the mobile technology I witnessed at E3 in 2003 may not have enjoyed the features today's smartphones do, but the possibilities produced by portable devices that delivered communication and game playing experiences combined were already immediately evident. As a result, I concluded then that traditional storytelling was either fading away or evolving into something new and as of yet undefined.

I also arrived at the notion that while traversing links didn't necessarily connect each destination with a Narrative, the way a series of scenes in a Movie might. In other words, I concluded that Navigation does not necessarily give form to Narration.

The reason for that is that in order for Navigation to form Narrative (suitable to the construction of a compelling Story), it must be fueled with a singular Purpose.

Therefore neither Narrative alone nor the sense of self we imagine when we experience it, fulfill the litmus test for Story, engaging though it may be until we change the channel, switch stations, turn the page or click onward to the next titillating hyperlink.

Whether Fiction or Non Fiction, Narrative certainly provides simulation. But then, why shouldn't it? Active listening ignites brain activity. Heck, two people making love might even synchronize their hearts and minds as well as their bodies. But entertaining or engaging as a given activity and experience may be be in and of itself, none meets the threshold for Story until we support the Narrative (or Navigation) with Purpose (Theme) and cap with Message (Maxim).

Story will never die as a result of evolving mediums. Stories are fundamentally platform agnostic. Platforms change, but Story Experiences can be delivered with shadow puppets as much as they can with smartphones and pixels.

At the same time, our collective concept of Story has evolved to include any experience, and this may be prove an error. Games are called stories. Retail environments promise Story. Some say every great Brand delivers a Story. Whatever is happening, Stories are definitely moving 'Off Word'. 

Some new formats do deliver Story experiences, but do they all? Can we even frame Experience alone as Content or Narrative, let alone Story? Likewise, as a teaching and marketing tool, anything seems to pass the litmus test.

Are any of the following scenarios false. given the conventions?:

• Q: What is a Story? A: Anything. 
• Q: What is Digital Storytelling? A: Anything on a Screen. 
• Q: What is Transmedia Storytelling? A: Anything on multiple screens. 
• Q: What is Multimedia Storytelling. A: Anything across mediums.

No, none are false, but are any true?

If Story is anything we want it to be, than how can one possibly define it, teach it or measure its effectiveness?

To reiterate, the convention states that Narrative is synonymous with Story. However, that is not the measure by which we have made our model. Both are equally valid platforms for the creation and expression of artistic works, but Story/Message Theory is prescribed for Objective supported Storytelling.

I believe that future advertising professionals will have to transform themselves into masters of message delivery and signification, while educators may wish to decide if Story will encompass every data sequence or not.

This is not to suggest that words themselves will necessarily become less important, but only to say, when they are employed, their effective value will be measured by position and context, and that much input may arrive from a rather long tail.

In other words, if we are to hold onto both our traditional notions of story and marketing, then indeed, Story is Dead.

However, if we dispense with convention and flip the model, as indicated above, then we allow ourselves the freedom and opportunity to develop a more effective method for engaging audiences, being Objective based  'Message-Lead/Narrative-Follow'.

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Articles in this series:

Story/Message Theory (Original full length article)
What is a Story?
The Parable/Fable Framework as Story Algorithm
The Story/Message Theory Construct
So It Goes: Vonnegut's Law
The Power of Effective Messaging
Create Engagement with Compelling Signification
Elevator Pitch: Speed Dating Signification
Static Symbolic Accentuating Triggers
Story is Dead
Leading with Message Signification
Non Linear Cross Platform Transmedia Storytelling
Mythology and Messaging

Static Symbolic Accentuating Triggers

This essay is an excerpt from a longer article on Story/Message Theory, originally published November 14, 2010. To read the original article in full, click the link. Links to other excerpts follow at the conclusion of this entry.

STATIC IMAGE AS ACTUATING TRIGGER

Luc-Henri Fage/Borneo

As with 'Help', the static image may not always present Story, but it capably delivers a Message.

We can think of a message as an Actuating or Motivating Trigger.  Either you will or you will not respond to the Trigger, but you can't ignore it completely, not to mention that with enough impressions, it will possibly produce a latent urge to act.

In fact, by the time one is an adult, conventional signs are so ingrained in the human psyche that it is nearly impossible to act on them. Consider a stop sign; consider a red or green light; consider even the compelling effect of ancient cave art. And yet few purely illustrative pieces, however rich with character or activity capably inform all audience members the same singular Story.

Granted, some static works of art do present a substantial amount of symbolic data, so much so that we can judge them to contain all the elements required of singular Story (within the Story/Message model). However, other works simply frame a composition, present a mise-en-scene or otherwise freeze a moment. At the very most, the pictorial content may indicate some point belonging to a Narrative. Alternately, in the case of signification, the generally non-verbal content devoid of Narrative is provided as a means to communicate instruction or to influence behavior and trigger immediate action.

It follows that Time may or may not be essential to Story delivery, but a chronological Data Sequence does make Story delivery easier to digest. We are perhaps better off by suggesting that a Data Set that lacks a Time element is best defined as a Puzzle. But if do choose to work within a very limited Time framework, we can advance abandon Narrative completely and still deliver a powerful Message, make a connection, trigger behavior and certainly initiate a relationship.

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Articles in this series:

Story/Message Theory (Original full length article)
What is a Story?
The Parable/Fable Framework as Story Algorithm
The Story/Message Theory Construct
So It Goes: Vonnegut's Law
The Power of Effective Messaging
Create Engagement with Compelling Signification
Elevator Pitch: Speed Dating Signification
Static Symbolic Accentuating Triggers
Story is Dead
Leading with Message Signification
Non Linear Cross Platform Transmedia Storytelling
Mythology and Messaging

Elevator Pitch: Speed Dating Signification

This essay is an excerpt from a longer article on Story/Message Theory, originally published November 14, 2010. To read the original article in full, click the link. Links to other excerpts follow at the conclusion of this entry.

ELEVATOR PITCH: STORY OR SPEED DATING SIGNIFICATION?

5th Floor: By striatic

A 15-second commercial is exactly as long as what also commonly call a 'Fifteen Second Pitch' or 'Elevator Pitch'. As it happens, a pitch is not designed to be a story, because pitcher assumes 'pitchee' doesn't have time and perhaps lacks interest in being told a Story. It is simply a preamble to a Story, designed to pique interest. And one only need look at Hollywood, Wall Street and Silicon Valley to find evidence that well designed pitches can easily grow into million and billion dollar stories.

One might thus consider that because traditional ads in the modern world can't be relied on to motivate consumers to action (because they're too easy to ignore), it may be that a Message-Lead/Narrative-Follow will prove to be an exponentially more effective advertising model than the traditional construction (at this time).

If this sounds conventional enough, the convention has been to provide context first (Narrative), followed by Message, in hopes that a viewer will actually pay attention to the Narrative long enough to have the Message engraved into their awareness. Unfortunately, given choice, this is not the way modern audiences behave. And that's why movies themselves –full length feature narratives– are sold to audiences with a pitch, in the form of a teaser or trailer that guarantees at least one of several things:

• Fear
• Laughs
• Hope
• Tears
• Catharsis
• A moving experience

And the promise that you will have a good time.

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Articles in this series:

Story/Message Theory (Original full length article)
What is a Story?
The Parable/Fable Framework as Story Algorithm
The Story/Message Theory Construct
So It Goes: Vonnegut's Law
The Power of Effective Messaging
Create Engagement with Compelling Signification
Elevator Pitch: Speed Dating Signification
Static Symbolic Accentuating Triggers
Story is Dead
Leading with Message Signification
Non Linear Cross Platform Transmedia Storytelling
Mythology and Messaging