I'd like to thank Ian for providing such a thoughtful comment on my screed, and I'm extremely sorry that I wasn't clear. In fact, there's little I disagree with Ian except what he seems to think that I am saying.
[quoting Hart, 22 Jan 97] Clark contrasts the "active engagement" of computer games with theater and stage magic which he characterizes as "passive." I would disagree--the actor and the prestidigitator both rely on the fullest mental and emotional participation by the audience to "suspend disbelief" or to allow their attention to be misdirected. Stage art is a cooperative relationship between performer and viewer, as is folk tales, ghost stories, film, and other narrative forms.
This is one thing I do disagree with Ian on. In part. I agree that most forms of art, properly appreciated, do engage the brain in constructive ways. However, for example, the appreciation of films operates at many levels not all available to all people. Raiders of the Lost Ark is a wonderfully entertaining movie, as is The Wizard of Oz. I would argue, however, that the latter has a far greater commentary on the human condition. To many, they are equally appealing. Drama is a form of entertainment I have spent some time studying. Not true for art; while I enjoy the Impressionist paintings, I find Picasso to be bizarre. Yet others think him a genius. There's much more going on than just "engagement." Those who have learned to read nuances will get more. And that learning happens through a cycle of activity and reflection (as embodied in David Noah's [21 Jan 97] quote regarding vicarious learning).
More importantly, you do not have control in watching movies, (most) plays, looking at a painting. You do not actively explore and manipulate. You can't intervene and ask "what about this." In that sense it's passive. I'm not saying that well designed art isn't engaging, what I'm saying is that in designing engaging interactive activities, you need to have elements of control and feedback.
To my mind, the problem with multimedia is that it is stimulus overload--it tries to show us everything.
Let's differentiate between what's out there and what's possible with "creativity" and "vision." I'll most wholeheartedly agree that most multimedia ranks with TV in average quality. That is, low. But what CAN be done? Ian, you yourself point to Myst as an excellent example.
Can you imagine the MULTIMEDIA presentation?
Screen depicts darkened landscape with forest, stream and manor house. You can choose to view it in elevation, plan, or oblique angle. Use this control stick to rotate the landscape 360 degrees. Click on any animal or human or monster to hear its voice. You can click on any object to inspect it in detail as well as to find out its Latin name. Use the hand tool to pick it up and put it in your "smuggler's sack."
A villain is lurking somewhere. You can only see him when lightning strikes. Your current "Lightning reserve is 9" Click on the "Lightning panel" to choose FORK LIGHTNING, SHEET LIGHTNING, BALL LIGHTNING...
I obviously didn't make clear the type of games I was talking about. I want to explicitly distance myself from "twitch" games. Ones that rely on gratuitous technological wizardry to substitute for good design. Ones that use violence as a substitute for brains. I want to focus on designing ones that challenge us to use our brains, to explore and discover, to stop and reflect. This is where learning occurs. And this is where our effort should be.
Yes, I know there have been creative, engaging, even artistic multimedia CD-ROMs, and Myst is probably still the best example. By these creations, which display an artistic voice and a creator/spectator tension are all too few. Clark's essay seems to deny the possibility of engagement through art and the unique voice of the artist and concentrate exclusively on the postmodern concerns of the "text" and the "reader."
What? On the contrary! I mentioned the tension that is part of good engagement, and suggested that it arises naturally out of the instructional goals. And I absolutely believe that the design of a game should be an artistic endeavor. Specifically, the choice of the fantasy to embed the learning is a very creative act. However, when we have an educational goal, can we wait until an artist creates the definitive game? I believe both that it still is an art, but that with a systematic approach we can increase the likelihood of finding a solution that is both engaging and effective.
As for postmodern, I think it is a style that has occasions when it is valuable (my guess is that it is the graphic style used in Quest), but others when it's not. You wouldn't want postmodern when doing a Chandler-style detective story. Nor is it appropriate for a "sword and sorcery" setting.
Frederick Jameson puts it very well, I think. Even though he was writing about experimental film, he could be describing Microsoft's Encarta:Now reference and reality disappear altogether and even meaning is problematized. We are left with that pure and random play of signifiers that we call postmodernism, which no longer produces monumental works of the modernist type but ceaselessly reshuffles the fragments of pre-existent texts, the building blocks of older cultural and social production, in some new and heightened bricolage: metabooks which cannibalize other books, metatexts which collate bits of other texts [and CD-ROMS which collect them all] --such is the logic of postmodernism in general...
This isn't fair! Encarta (and I'm not a Microsoft nor even an Encarta fan) is NOT a game nor an educational application, it's a reference work. It needs:
(a) to support manipulation,
(b) to succinctly represent a breadth of ideas, and
(c) to have multiple representations if possible.
So complaining about the fragments of information and multiple representations seems a bit misplaced. There are undoubtedly ways in which Encarta falls short, but you could hardly claim that it fails as art or engagement when that is not the goal of the product.
To my mind the creation of "engagement" is wedded to those taboo words (for instructional designers) "art" and "creativity" (Clark doesn't mention them either). Art lies in the very personal tension which an "author" creates with the reader/viewer. Engagement requires the viewer/reader to supply a great deal of the message from the imagination.
Again, I'm sorry I didn't explicitly mention creativity, but I think the process of designing engaging learning material (specifically choosing the fantasy and embedding problems) is a creative act.
However, I will argue that systematicity and creativity are NOT mutually exclusive. Just look at the process of artists, be it directors of movies or painters. They will refine and revise time and time again. That's systematicity to capture the creative vision.
I guess what I'm suggesting is a recognition that whereas Clark's precepts may help us to create usable, interesting CD-ROMs (or textbooks) which transcend the rag-bag "postmodern" creations which bloat the catalogues that come across my desk, really engaging media requires tension, creativity, and (dare I say it again?) artistic vision.
No, I want to go beyond just usable, and create engaging and effective learning environments. They can well be art, but they don't have to be. I'd like to hear how Ian thinks we can engineer art, rather than merely try to create an environment where it can happen. I'd purely love to know that we've created an environment where the resources exist to put together the teams that will lead to art. I think we must emphasize, however, that it is more than painting (individual), it's more like the movie industry (teams of skilled people, despite the director-worship culture). Note, however, that for every 2001, there are a LOT of Porky's. And it's VERY expensive.
So, I'd like to agree with Ian that the design is a creative process, but while we need to create an environment where art can arise, we also need to be willing to live with effective and engaging.