Laying the Foundations for a Formal Theory of Drama

Abstract

Abstract. The goal of this research is to lay the foundations for a formal theory of drama, that abstracts from the procedural and interactive aspects involved in the generation of dramatic content. The theory characterizes dramatic qualities by reconciling the structural accounts provided by traditional drama analysis with an agent-based perspective on characters. Motivations and FormalizationIn the design of AI systems for communication and entertainment, much attention has been devoted to the dramatic qualities exhibited by interactive applications. Typical applications span from artificial characters for entertainment and instruction, to interactive systems for storytelling and drama [1,2,3]. The aim of this paper is to lay the foundations of a formal theory that systematizes the basic aspects of drama in a direct and explicit model, with an immediate integration with agent-based theories. The theory, called Drammar, abstracts from the interactive and procedural aspects of drama generation, and is intended as the starting point for specifying, implementing and evaluating practical storytelling systems in a principled way.The notions of direction, character and plot, pervasive throughout the literature on drama analysis since Aristotle, are the three main components of the drama ontology incorporated in Drammar. The goal of a drama is to make audience perceive what is intuitively called a "story" by displaying the actions of some characters in conflict; actions are organized in a plot; the plot moves toward a direction. Concerning the structure of drama, it has been a well known convention to segment the list of actions that form a drama into a number of units or sections [6]. Such units, despite terminological disparities, are of the same nature, so that some authors define drama as a recursive or "fractal" structure [7].Drammar is structured in two levels: the actional level models the intentional behaviour of the characters in a plot as intelligent, goal-directed agents. The directional level accounts for dramatic meaning, abstracting from the intentionality of the characters through the use of attributes that model the effect of plot incidents onto the characters' rational and emotional state. The drama direction is a change function that transforms the rational and emotional state of a character into a different state [4]. Such states are defined through values assigned to a number of attributes of the characters (or dramatis personae), defined as a set of attributes. The set of attributes defining a character combines a rational, BDI perspective with an emotional component.

Museographic Transposition: The Development of a Museum Exhibit on Animal Adaptations to Darkness

“…The goal of any dramatisation is to make the audience perceive a narrative by displaying the actions of some characters in conflict. The characters'actions are organized in a plot, and the plot moves in a direction (Damiano, Lombardo, & Pizzo, 2005). Accordingly, the degree to which the subject of an immersive exhibition may be dramatised depends on the degree to which the museum visitor understands and accepts their role as the main character, the degree to which the conflicts of that character are made clear to them, the degree to which the surroundings allow them to act on that conflict, and the degree to which they are able to make sense of these actions in terms of a direction.…”

“…The subcategories of logic of representation are mutually exclusive; the subcategories of integrating the visitor represent a range; both are from Belaën (2003). The subcategories of dramatisation of subject matter are interdependent components from Damiano et al (2005). Figure 2: Cross section of the exhibition unit Cave Expedition.…”