Nonlinear media as interactive narrative

As an interdisciplinary artist and composer I have found that, beyond the common language of new media, the connecting tissue between various art practices and music can be found in narrative. In particular, the kind of narrative that is structured using nonlinear representations of information, time, and space. Nonlinear narrative is an inherent aspect of new media that provides a common baseline whereby media artworks can be evaluated and understood.;The discussion of nonlinear narrative as interactive media is an exploration of the question, "what is the form of nonlinear interactive narrative ?" providing the impetus for a theoretical discussion, and a formal approach to the understanding of my past works, while providing a basis for the creation of new works that have a dynamic nonlinear structure and reflect on our modern understanding of knowledge and nature.;The domain of this document falls within the field of media art and is motivated by a transmodal aesthetic that developed and matured in tandem with my participation in a series of seminars led by Marcos Novak on the subject of transvergence. The terms and ideas presented in support of the concepts put forth in this document are derived from a variety of sources, including the histories of art, music, and literature; concepts in philosophy (in particular Deleuzeian philosophy); and pattern language as found in the field of software engineering. The result of this discussion is the definition, evaluation, and exploration of a transmodal, generalized description of nonlinear narratives in an abstract formal model called the Universe..;It is important to clarify that the term Universe is not intended to describe what can be understood as a "universal model." The Universe is a reference to the concept of worlds borrowed from Virtual Reality terminology in order to describe the qualities of immersive interactive artworks as immersive environments. Thus the Universe Model is a description of the formalized approach taken in the realization of my own work and, although not strictly about music, this document follows a long line of documents in music whereby composers formally define the techniques and theory used in their work.