- There are clear goals
- immediate feedback to one's action
- a balance between challenges and skills
- action & awareness merge - at one with what is going on
- distractions are excluded from consciousness
- no worry of failure
- self-consciousness disappears (self growth after the experience)
- sense of time is distorted
- activity becomes autotelic
Csikszentmihalyi (1990) states that:
The combination of all these elements causes a sense of deep enjoyment that is so rewarding people feel that expending a great deal of energy is worthwhile simply to be able to feel it (Csikszentmihalyi 1990, p.49).Over the years this theory has been applied to the design of a range of diverse activities, from designing playground equipment to computer games. The first part of my exegesis is dedicated to the discussion of Documentary Flow, I've not been able to find any previous literature where Flow has been applied to the design or discussion of traditional media. I'm looking to identify and discuss what it is in traditional documentary that gives us, the audience, an experience of Flow. Then I can then examine and compare the emerging form of digital, interactive documentary and identify how Flow might be achieved. From observations and experiences with interactive documentary I have noted that the original spirit or heart or essence, that has been documentary over the past 80 years, is missing or at very best faint. Documentary is more, or should be, than a space (website) that contains an archive of audiovisual material. I have watched many traditional format docos where I wasn't initially interested in the subject but through their magic (heart, spirit, essence) they reel you in a make the experience Flow. Interactive doco struggles to do this.
I'm likening this spirit or heart to Flow - the optimal experience of documentary. A first draft of what is described here is complete and my focus now is to build a cross-platform documentary (what that actually means is still loose) that exemplifies Documentary Flow in both traditional and interactive versions of the genre. Then, I'll go back to the exegesis and discuss my doco in detail in relation to Flow.
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For some reason, this form won't accept my URL. I keep getting an illegal character message. grrrr. - M.
ReplyDeleteHi Carolyn,
I really like the flow idea a lot. It resonates with me on many levels - and it raises interesting ideas about what happens when flow breaks down.
I'm thinking about it in the context of film/TV vs. interactive digital media here, with obviously parallels to the UB: Did the UB community require suspension of disbelief to perpetuate flow? When cracks appeared in the 'party line', and people had to act/think/acknowledge feelings that generated fear of failure, self consciousness and other "anti-flow" sentiments, did the community's flow breakdown before becoming an ebb (and then an exodus)?
My understanding of the flow theory is very superficial, but it immediately starts me thinking about your observation that some of the aspects of 'flow' are contradicted by the nature of interactive media.
It seems to me that the goals of any media are assumed to follow basic accepted norms: Storylines are linear, with arrows of time pointing forward (unless expressly reveal to be otherwise); empathies are created between viewers and characters or situations; set ups are paid off, etc, etc. We know when we watch movies or broadcast TV that we're in safe hands, because we know the formulas will be adhered to.
But interactive media has no such restraints. It’s predicated on breaking flow to gain traction with an audience. But if interactive media is a disruptive technology, is it any different to those utopian societies that sought a better way to live and failed?
Does interactive media need to to develop and promote it's own supervening formulas for engaging with content, in order to promote a viewer's flow? ...Something like the UB's doctrinal philosophy that allowed it to offer an 'alternative' lifestyle from which communal flow ensued - providing resistance is eliminated?
I guess what I'm really thinking about is how doctrinal things must be to achieve flow, and how rigid those boundaries need to be: Could UB exist with people acting as free agents? As long as interactive media requires choice, is flow impossible?
In the case of interactive media, maybe a sub optimal flow could be achieved, where viewer choices result in lots of little flows? Or maybe choice will eventually become obsolete, because the software will have databased enough personal preferences to make those choices for you- like the dowdy old UB woman, who with her lieutenant Steven made choices for the communards ?
Interesting ideas here...
Cheers,
-M