Consent and Agency in Narrative Development
Consent and Agency in Narrative Development
Sunday 3:15 pm–3:45 pm (US Eastern)
(Room: URBN-349)
In the summer of 2020, early into the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the Creative Partners of Flux Theatre Ensemble made a suggestion to address a need for sharing space while socially distanced: what if we create a phone line people could call to either give something or take something? From that simple prompt came Our Options Have Changed (OOHC), an interactive audio experience released in 2022. With a sprawling web of content containing mindfulness exercises, subversive challenges, office voicemails, hidden puzzles, and introspective monologues, OOHC slowly reveals a dystopian storyworld via a telephone menu. The breadth of experiences available was a direct outcome of our process for development: we provided the structure for any Creative Partner to add whatever they wanted to the experience, trusting in our ability to synthesize the material. We describe the result as a pando-narrative, named for the organism that appears as a grove of distinct trees but is actually connected via a single root system. We will share the organizational structure mapping the interactive experience, the internal narrative that emerged, and subsequent manifestations of the OOHC heterocosm in other forms.
[narrative design, interactive theater, cross platform, tools]
