[quoting Peay, 23 Jan 97] While I disagree that Clark's essay rules out the use of artistic vision, I agree that incorporating elements we find in art, literature, and movies can also make learning environments more engaging. They're just another way of making learning environments more engaging.
Which misunderstands my point completely.
You were meant to understand that I regarded "incorporating elements we find in art..." as a deplorable postmodern approach to CD-ROM construction. Sticking in a few copyright-free Raphaels and a snatch of Beethoven's 5th is not what I had in mind, Mike. Write out the Frederick Jameson quote 500 times as punishment!
What I believe to be engaging (and so often missing from multimedia) is the vision of the artist and the tension that an artist creates between the work and the viewer. Peter Gabriel as done it fairly well, I think. Myst achieves it through its use of graphic space and almost surreal design, its music, and of course its subtle use of archetypal narrative formats (you can actually find the clues to the Myst puzzle through a careful reading of Vladimir Propp's seminal work The Morphology of the Folk Tale--first published in 1936).
Another example: The University of Wollongong's Investigating the Nardoo, while not "art," certainly has character and a certain historical and political tension which would be recognized by most Australians. (I'd be very interested to see how engaging it is in other countries--I'm due to try it out on a Hong Kong audience later this term.) It has a unifying scientific integrity and vision which sets up an argument about the conservation of resources vs. development.
My criticism of the mainstream multimedia form till now has been its excessive emphasis on the text to the exclusion of this tension. It is a medium still in search of its creative artists. No doubt they will arrive when the making of multimedia requires somewhat less than a small army of programmers. Until then, I fear, it is mainly going to be used as a way of making money by repackaging other material.
The French government officially declared comics to be an art form in 1982. Maybe games are to be multimedia's art form.
In the mean time, I endorse Steve Draper's possibly tongue-in-cheek invitation to Clark to add some games and engagement to this debate.