Agency

Discussion Question:

How can we use agency in a politically driven net.art piece? How do we use agency in order to grab the audience and make them not only pay attention to the message but feel as if they were an integral part of creating that message?

Normally any kind of computer game would instantly be considered away for me to doze off in sheer boredom. It is exactly this kind of reaction that Janet Murray warns gamers about. It is simply not enough to have interaction . . . clicking on link after link, viewing the same variation of information is boring, no matter how you dress it up. It is not enough to have a really good story (people game so they can take part in the story telling, otherwise they would read a book.) The combining of these two elements to form an experience where the participant becomes a designer of his own fate. When the environment reacts to the decisions that you make no matter the medium a person becomes engaged. It is easy to see how Agency becomes important in designing the next wave of gaming, but it also has a place in other applications of multimedia. How can we use agency in a politically driven net.art piece? How do we use agency in order to grab the audience and make them not only pay attention to the message but feel as if they were an integral part of creating that message. How can you let a visitor leave a mark permanently, for all the world to see but also remain the designer the author the artist the creator of the site? How do you give the same experience of moral dilemma that we face with the infinite amount of decisions that we make each day?