Panel Statement

Panel: Interactivity and Metaphors

A critical account illustrated by reference to the CD-ROM works Media, Myth and Mania and Dreamhouse. Media, Myth and Mania is an interactive spoof game examining issues of power and control of the mass media through a multi-choice biographical journey through the life of a media Mogul. The player makes choices at various life stages and views the consequences through photo-romance style tableaux. Dreamhouse is an attempt to create a multilinear structure of connected mythologies. It is a story-telling machine, driven by the user. The interactive house is a place of magic, permeable to other mythic spaces, but the narratives involved attempt to form a bridge between the personal and the political

• Martin William Rieser (UK)  is senior lecturer in Electronic Arts and Multimedia at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol. He has been a digital media artist since 1981 working intensively with multimedia for the last four years.