Scenario: Co-evolution, shared autonomy and mixed reality

This paper describes the Australian Research Council funded project Scenario, conducted at the iCinema Research Centre, University of New South Wales. Realized through interdisciplinary research, involving the domains of machine learning, interactive narrative and new media art, Scenario creates a mixed reality (MR) environment, surrounding the user within a 360-degree stereoscopic space, in which she can interact with digital characters that have a level of autonomy. Through its discussion of the aesthetics and technological architecture of Scenario the paper enters into an explanation of what is termed ‘co-evolutionary’ narrative, a function of the interactive relationship formed between a human user and an autonomous digital character. Understanding interaction as co-evolution the Scenario project enlists the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Manual DeLanda in order to propose interaction as a dynamic two-way process. The paper begins to unpack this theoretical framework for understanding interaction.