Writer, professor at the University Paris 8
Last published book: Contextes de l'art numérique, Hermes, 2000

Trajectory : fiction of the fiction

Fiction is one of the most interesting problems set, for creation, by interactive and generative approaches, to creation. In fact, occidental cultural tradition considers fiction as something which should be developed into a unique dimension, linearity.
Present time of any narrative, of any story, of any fiction is only interpreted according to a "before" and an "after" of events which build it's lecture or vision. Rhetorical figures of most fiction's rest upon the possibilities of such a space: suspense, for example is a game on the anticipation produced by any present and the comparison between the effective fulfillment and this anticipation; the flash back introduces, in the present of the narration, a past that must have happened but is either recalled or presented as memories, etc. Creation, mainly with editing techniques, has only possibilities to put side by side fragments which all take place on the same arrow time.

Several artists, in the cinematographic field -for example Robert Altman in Short cuts, or Alain Resnais in Smoking, no smoking- and even more often in literature, less restrained because of technical matters -Georges Perec in La vie mode d'emploi, Julio Cortazar in Marelle, Jacques Roubaud in Le grand incendie de Londres- tryied using different ways to introduce an other dimension to this space for fiction, juxtaposing several lines with gates on the gaps in between. They were setting the base for rhetoric of interactivity as the interactive scenario uses, that is a two-dimensional space building the fiction's space as a surface: one of the most interesting example of these attempts being Marc Saporta's "Composition #1" (Le Seuil, 1962) which the one hundred and fifty one pages, without pagination nor bounded, can be shuffled "as a card game".

Most of interactive fictions defined themselves as choices to be made, more or less local choice and more or less opened to the public, in a space where small or big number of events are, in term of narration, presented as equivalent. Fiction's linearity is no more included inside the writing process of the piece, but during it's reading. It doesn't exist a unique lecture but a number of fictive readings, all equivalent. Problems of local and global coherence do arise because of those equivalencies, depending on the technic used. The most inventive is the possibility proposed to the spectator to mark out his own way inside this space, forcing the creator to work on the layout problems to define at the same time their ergonomy, their modalities and their limits. Those questions require invention of what might be called the rhetoric of interactivity playing on the opposition freedom-restraint, or in other words pleasure-frustration for the reader which is invited to choose, in a preconceived, pre-defined and limited set, even if this limit, often due to combinatory possibilities- approaches mathematical infinity. (1)
Generativity adds a third dimension to this space: generative approach actually implies that any point of the fiction, dominated by generativity, is a virtual point. The actualization of this virtual spot, only occurs at the time T of the reading. In the space of fiction, all those actualization have a degree of equivalence-because they -according to the reader's point of view- have the possibility to substitute one from an other. It is no more a question of choice inside a predetermined route, but it's a question of always having an original actualization of a route: the reading no more has to face the number of choices but has to face the unknown, the original. Either the reading is interactive -or not-, in other words that generative parameters are being offered to the reader, doesn't really affect the fundamental difference: the reading move through virtual layers of a space which two out of it's three layers can be infinite.

This is what computer games have perfectly understood and this is what mainly explains their success. Actually, this technological gain radically modifies the relation production-consumption and, as a matter of fact fiction's socio-cultural positions [for example, see about those points Jean-Louis Weissberg: Présence à distance (distant presence), ed. l'Harmattan]. This is why interactivity and generativity lead creation into new fields and are no just some kinds of gadgets only meant to regenerate ancient expression formulas. For instance, what can the fiction be since the it's proposed universe is open, dynamic, always changing? The idea is then to conceive no more definite and permanent fictions, but to conceive open spaces for fictions, offering numerous possibilities on the also wide space of the Web: it is no more a question of telling stories to the reader, but to let him, into a narrative space, to build his own story. Any reading of an interactive and generative fiction is related to games: it should be infinite because the meaning only appears in a permanent confrontation of several readings.

What demonstrates "Composition #I" and what allows part of generativity to exist, is that linearity is a fake problem, or more precisely, that if there is such a linearity problem in fiction, it concerns built-in linearity rather than logical linearity: as we know, the narrative's "before" and "after" are really not chronological "befores" and "afters" but they are semiological markers in a dynamic construction of one possible linearity, taking into account memory, anticipation and multiple demonstrations of present time (non perceptible but yet analyzed). In other words, if the presence of markers allows to structure the relation between events, then no matter whether the event which I read the description, occurs, in time, before or after any other event. The problems goes from a "general" linearity, which concerns large portions of a piece, to some "local" linearities, which only concern micro-events, because the possibility of markers then becomes the problem.

Trajectoires is an interactive and generated detective novel made by the groupe@graph group (www.agraph.org) and put on line on December 7th, 2000 for the ISEA (www.trajectoires.com). The structure is based on 96 pages, each page being composed of five different objects: a title, an epigraph, a written text, a visual artistic proposal, and a generated text. Those pages are virtual objects, they should not be confused with the screen page which is only a visual display. A page can then, according to some dynamic internal constraint, appear on one to x screens. Those pages are free from any external linearity: the circulation mode between them is either built according to mathematical rules which are fully integrated to the fiction, are either made randomly, or are either the result of local choices made by the reader: calendar, hours, letters of the word trajectoires, etc. Each elements of the page has its own actualization constraints, from the text which remains the same in form and contents whatever is its reading or whenever the reading occurs, to the generated text which only appears in at the time of a specific reading (3), or the title, the epigraphs or the plastic proposals, each content following specific rules, could appear different from one previous reading to the next one, even if at the same time the intern fictional coherence would prevail: usage of sound recording, videos, etc. All those possibility do not use the technic for it's own aim, but to try answer particular needs of fictional expression.

It is not possible to show here neither the range of offered possibilities, nor the writing choices made. In all, they respond to a particular conception of detective fiction: any detective fiction is a challenge to the reader's perspicacity. In this perspective, the reader should always try to understand what's happening: enigma, true or false clues, hypothesis construction, anticipation of the answer. The particular pleasure of the detective story is in this hide-and-seek game. Trajectoires is, for instance, built upon a "conventional" enigma: twenty-four principal characters (4), beginning from august first, 2009, receive some death threats and have more and more severe incidents and accidents. They must find out who is guilty before the 24th of august. As a matter of fact, the reader stands as a detective, he looks for clues and must stop the mass murdering, but the clues are infinite and no reading could possibly explore them all since some of them, made by generators, could appear only once. The more the readers reads over the text, the more the easier it gets to solve the enigma, which is based on a complex set of events,: the purpose is to simulate reality where context, background events, more or less risky encounters reveal an other vision of the world. Interactivity, reading and generativity, playing complementary, aim to define a consistent fictive world where every secondary rhetorical object plays a specific part and what matter are not fixed formulas of a unique event but rather the multiple formulas of complementary events: reading is reading over, but it is also comparing the readings, exchange. The reader -individual or a group- does not stand outside of the fiction, he is one of the main element.

"It is a day, a summer day, the sky spreads ! At the time when the sun leaves the city to shadow, just when the darkness are about to chase the light, white sun: The landscape seems close upon itself! The swifts' call challenges the sky: the slaughter's tip cart arrives on the Grève square. the sky is a sky: the sun burns. Decent people are rushing over… Two women carrying muddy children are begging… Red carts arrive on the Grève square, the soldiers are walking behind them: a young woman is climbing the scaffold's stairs going toward the executioner: the blue sky is a mockery -sky so turquoise! Someone in the crowd asks somebody else: "who is it?" the answer is heard " a nasty corrupted"; in no time, she is lying on the plank, the execution-master actions the blade, on the blue sky where only crows add black spots… the blood spurts out in streams. The executioner turns toward the crowd as he was expecting some applause ! The blood flows, in so much, that the earth cannot soak it up, the quality of the sky is of infinite transparency! One of the executioner's assistant grabs the head by the hair and shows it to the mob, and slaps it! Nobody talks, the silence is total, almost religious! unceasing sun, the weather is very appropriated ! The executioner's assistant goes to seek a young woman in the tip cart; the sky challenges the space… The swifts' call faces the sky…"

" Thermidor Nonidi 19, year 1, At the time when the red firmaments covers the sky, the people are shouting, in the middle of jostles and shouts, big carts are slowly going through the square where the crowd is waiting: wide opened the windows are watching… The drums rolls without resting, three carts painted in red arrives on the square filled by the mob. Next to the scaffold several women are sitting on small benches are knitting while chatting, it's very dark ! A man approaches, looking like he'd just came out of the tomb, he walks bear feet and is bear head and wears a shirt. He is staggering, the executioner's assistant holds him up, he seems very weak. The threatening space of the demanding sky tightly holds the soul. The people let out their cloud-joy! "De Nonville, traitor… You only get what you deserve" one of the assistant takes the prisoner by the shoulders, an other takes the legs, they lay him down on the guillotine's plank, slipping it under the blade. The executioner moves toward the death machine, take a look at it, and actions the blade…The bloods gushes out! The executioner's cloths are stained with blood; the blood flows out onto the pavement. The body is thrown out on a cart, the executioners are rushing, time goes too fast; a voice is heard in the crowd: "war to the castles". The sky is quivering in red and black; the executioner's assistant comes down to pick a young woman in the cart, the sky is full with chaos, with lots of clouds emotions and black."

whether this page comes before or after another is of no importance, because the reader has all ready figured, before, through a large number of clues, while reading other pages, that the novel takes place during two "historical" periods, de first one from august 1st to august 29th, 2009 and the other one from august 1st to august 29th, 1793. Those two pages, refers, with many clues to the 1793 year and the date which appear in one of them (Nonidi 19 Thermidor an I) is used only for it's redundancy virtue, because in fact, this inscription is quite unreadable. Yet in each of these pages, several events tend to shape a local temporality. This could be summed up as followed:

Arrival of the condemned persons + climbing on the scaffold + taking in charge by the executioners + killing + removal of the bodies

This is a constraint: " The blood flows out onto the pavement - The body is thrown out on the cart. The executioner moves toward the death machine, takes a look at it, and actions the blade… one of the assistant takes the prisoner by the shoulders, an other takes the legs. The bloods gushes out! The sentenced man is staggering, the executioner's assistant holds him up, he seems very weak. Looking like he'd just came out of the tomb, he walks bear feet and is bear head and wears a shirt. "De Nonville, traitor… You only get what you deserve" they lay him down on the guillotine's plank, slipping it under the blade."

This sequence is almost unbearable - it doesn't mean that this sequence is absolutely unbearable, because it would become bearable only by adding clues based on psychological or dramatic mode- because the reader's mood doesn't find his position in the succession of events, what Barthes called "functions" (fonctions). All the other events from this page do not participate to this linearity, they are only "catalysis"(catalyses) as Barthes defined it :

" At the time when the red firmaments covers the sky, the people are shouting, in the middle of jostles and shouts, big carts are slowly going through the square where the crowd is waiting: wide opened the windows are watching… The drums roll without resting, three carts painted in red arrives on the square filled by the mob. Next to the scaffold several women are sitting on small benches are knitting while chatting, it's very dark! The threatening space of the demanding sky tightly holds the soul. The people let out their cloud-joy! "De Nonville, traitor… You only get what you deserve". The executioner's cloths are stained with blood; the executioners are rushing, time is running; a voice is heard in the crowd: "war to the castles". The sky is quivering in red and black; the sky is full with chaos, with lots of clouds emotions and black."

The order is not even relative, it remains mainly independent :

" The threatening space of the demanding sky tightly holds the soul. Wide opened the windows are watching… Next to the scaffold several women are sitting on small benches are knitting while chatting. The drums roll without resting. At the time when the red firmaments covers the sky, the people are shouting, in the middle of jostles and shouts, big carts are slowly going through the square where the crowd is waiting. It's very dark! The people let out their cloud-joy! "De Nonville, traitor… You only get what you deserve". The executioner's cloths are stained with blood; the executioners are rushing, time is running; a voice is heard in the crowd: "war to the castles". The sky is quivering in red and black; the sky is full with chaos, with lots of clouds emotions and black."

In fact, the linearity tend to be restricted inside a sentence and have almost all a syntaxic form. Those independent sequences, allow, if wanted, a random production which provides the narration a narrative background, as well as nourishing, yet not being exactly part of the narration.

This articulation between layers of linearity enables the narrative generation: Since the narrative is controlled by a strong structure, which means a thick and attractive clue network, all is needed is to respect the local linearity so that the all belongs to the narrative mode and work really as a narrative. Those local linearity cannot be considered as fiction elements but simply as elements of knowledge representation. In other words, in order for the reader to accept fiction of fiction, it's is enough to offer him local coherence which are linked with the reader's expectation of the world, and to create a network of rhetorical links between those local coherences. The reader then reads a linearity which is formally inexistant: the fiction can then be interactive, hypertextual or generative…