Touch and interactivity is becoming increasingly popular in museums countering decades of traditional museum styles and creating new ways to experience culture. This paper examines five cultural...Show moreTouch and interactivity is becoming increasingly popular in museums countering decades of traditional museum styles and creating new ways to experience culture. This paper examines five cultural heritage institutions in the Netherlands and specifically focuses on the use of handling and interactivity with collection and display objects for the general public. Niel Kotler's 2004 article "New ways of experiencing culture: the role of museums and marketing" provides the basis for the ideas on where museums fit into a cultural framework and the importance of experience for education. By exploring this idea this paper answers questions about what modern museums and collections are doing to meet the growing public demand and general necessity of increased accessibility to and understanding of objects with importance to cultural heritage. How these methods for allowing touch and interactivity contribute to the learning and understanding of participants about the objects and their cultural importance is one of the main focuses. Each institution is discussed thoroughly under a division of themes between how handling is introduced through an educational lens and an exhibition lens. The paper concludes that museums are far more open to interactivity with collection objects than is often assumed by both museum studies and by the public. A positive outlook is concluded on behalf of the efforts which provides an understanding of the importance of the work being done to increase public knowledge and understanding of historical and cultural objects through the ability to handle and closely interact with objects. These efforts will be essential for the continued preservation of objects as well as technqiues, stories, cultures, and histories for years to come.Show less
Video games form one of the latest media in which stories are told. However, video games are not just stories - they are interactive experiences in which players have an active role. Therefore...Show moreVideo games form one of the latest media in which stories are told. However, video games are not just stories - they are interactive experiences in which players have an active role. Therefore there has been much debate on how video games should be academically approached: can video games be analysed with methods used in literary studies or should new methods be developed. Yet, little to no research has been done on the relationship between storytelling and interactivity in a video game genre that blends these two features together unlike any other: choice-driven video games. While the genre is not unique in its approach to blend storytelling and interactivity, as role-playing games (RPGs) have done so for several years, it has become increasingly popular with video game developers specialising in these sort of video games, such as Quantic Dream and Telltale Games. This genre of video games is often marketed to highlight the players' freedom and control over the video games in which their decisions dictate the outcome of the story. Nevertheless, these qualities are often overplayed as scripted events serve as boundaries limiting the extent players are actually able to affect the outcome of these video games. Thus I propose that choice-driven video games (and RPGs) offer the illusion that players' choics, decisions, and actions are significant to the outcome of the video game they are playing through clever use of mechanics that provides players to chance to immerse themselves in these video games. Until Dawn (2015), Life Is Strange (2015), and Undertale (2015) are used as case studies for this thesis.Show less
