New Storytelling

      In Pamela Jennings’s article “Narrative Structures for New Media: Towards a New Definition,” Pamela says “artists have repeatedly challenged the notion of the traditional book in this century, and this challenge has accelerated with the growing accessibility of new interactive and information technologies.” In other words, modern technology provides different meaning to the word “books” – books do not need to be in the paper version; instead, people could find more interactive way to convey messages like a book.

      For me, I will create an interactive history book with the help of virtual reality (VR) technology, by which readers could experience the clothes, food, customs, music, art, etc. at that time. There will be a system that consists of several significant historical events. For readers, they can select the event they want to read, then utilize the VR technology to bring them back to that period. In this case, they can see, hear, touch, smell, taste all the things at that period. This interactive history book not only allows people to learn history but allows them to live in history, to experience what ancestors had experienced.

Here, I will take the Tang Dynasty as an example. The system will have three meaningful historical periods for readers to experience. The first one will be Li Yuan (李渊), the first emperor of the Tang Dynasty. During this time, people could see how Li Yuan established his power by force. Readers could “read” how ancient armies fought through the interactive historical book. The second period will be Li Shimin (李世民), which is the most prosperous time of the Tang. At that time, many foreign people came to visit Tang and brought their culture here. Readers could experience both traditional China’s songs and dances, and foreign ones. Therefore, readers could see how ancient China’s culture was integrated with foreign cultures. The third period will be Li Longji (李隆基), which is the turning point of the Tang Dynasty. People could communicate with Du Fu, a famous Tang poet, also see the turmoil of the war. 

As an interactive history book, my design allows readers to see the scene, listen to traditional Chinese accent, hear ancient songs and music, and try ancient clothes. I think this is a new form of storytelling to tell ancient Chinese history. This book involves all readers’ feelings, which is more vivid.