Storytelling is as old as the Lascaux Cave paintings. Imagine prehistorical storytellers illustrating their own tales. That custom, skill and art has not fundamentally changed. Stories are how humans connect, create, and communicate, The Future of Storytelling: How Immersive Experiences Are Transforming Our World (Artisan Books) by Charles Melcher provides an inspiring, colorful road map to the next evolution of experiential expression.
Melcher, founder and CEO of Melcher Media, the Future of StoryTelling (FoST) Summit and multidisciplinary FoST story studio, guide us on a journey into the realm of “living stories” that expand on a fast growing storytelling environment that he calls “agentic, immersive, embodied, responsive, social, and transformative”.
The book is comprised of interviews with the new generation of what Walt Disney called imagineers – the creators, technologists, educators and thought leaders conceiving and producing ambitious living stories that invite audiences to be active participants and co-creators. Woven throughout the book are nearly fifty visual breakouts of living stories from around the world, from immersive theater productions and interactive art installations to experiential retail, escape rooms, and much more.
Through the book’s unique twelve-cover cover Melcher invites readers to consider what a book’s “costume” says about the story inside. The dust jacket is an extension of the narrative. Each of the twelve covers (below) reflects a genre explored within the book, from sci-fi to romance to westerns, allowing readers to choose the “character” that best fits their taste, mood, or space.
Melcher is a creator, curator and founder of FoST produces storytelling workshops; curated exhibitions with local and international organizations; and hosts the bi-weekly Future of Storytelling Podcast. I asked him to discuss the past, present and extended future of storytelling and its continuing wonder.
INSTRO. . .
This is an extraordinary undertaking. At first, I was seduced by the 12 book jackets. That’s novel and remarkable. But you’ve touched a nerve with your approach to storytelling. What inspired you to do such a decidedly work-intensive book?
Glutton for punishment? Seriously, I’ve been incredibly blessed to have a front-row seat (wrong metaphor for immersive experiences) to participate in so many of these extraordinary immersive productions (both analog and digital) over the past 14 years that I felt a strong desire to document them and give back to the creators, technologists and thought leaders who have inspired me. The book is meant to be a celebration of the birth of this young medium and a record of some of the seminal works that have defined the early canon.
Ever since I was a kid, I was entranced by Disneyland, the New York World’s Fair (on which I did a book) and Freedomland. These are precursors to the immersive experiences you are showcasing here. What was your selection process in creating this book?
There were a number of different criteria that I was trying to balance. First I wanted projects that represented my thesis about “living stories” being ones that are agentic, immersive, embodied, responsive, social and transformative. I was looking for the kinds of projects that demonstrated these characteristics and where I felt the teams developing them were clearly pushing into new territories and pioneering new ways of creating immersive experience.
I wanted to include the “best of the best,” like Punchdrunk’s “Sleep No More,” TeamLab’s “Borderless” or Alejandro G. Inarritu’s “Carne y Arena.” As a curator, one of my goals was to be able to showcase some of the most important work and, hopefully, to inspire the next generation of creators.
I also wanted to make the point that this kind of work is happening all around us and impacting many different fields. Immersive experiences are not just happening in theater or VR, they are impacting many different types of media and industries. I intentionally drew from theater, art, entertainment, advertising, consumer products, hospitality, nonprofit foundations, etc. I want to help connect the dots between the work being done in all of these disparate fields so that people would see this as the paradigm shift in human behavior that I believe it is, and not just a trend in one small field.
I also looked for examples that were commercially viable. While not everything was necessarily a big financial success, it was important to demonstrate that this is already a growing industry with serious financial returns. My hope is that this book will encourage creators to pursue their dreams with the support of backers who will see there are large profits to be realized through their investments.
Finally, I wanted to choose projects that are visibly spectacular and demonstrate the high level of creativity, artistry and production values that these creators are attaining.
Years ago, I wrote a story in Metropolis on Edwin Schlossberg, who was among the first to advocate for interpersonal public experiences. He had worked with Bucky Fuller on the World Games. Who and why are your influences in this realm?
The Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight at the Waverly with the live audience performers is seared in my teenage brain. Disney’s Imagineers are the OG. Felix Barret from PunchDrunk is a master. Marshall McCLuhan’s Understanding Media and Walter Ong’s Orality and Literacy opened my mind to the power of “the medium.” Pine and Gilmore’s The Experience Economy helped explain it all from an economic level.
Do you think that interactive storytelling (which has been attempted in movies, environments, theaters and museums, on large and small scales) is really going to replace the intimacy of a good book, and is this growing medium going to redefine what a “story” is?
I do not believe “living stories” are going to replace the intimacy of a good book, but I do believe they will capture a larger share of people’s attention and dollars. Once we solve the challenge of creating intimacy at scale at an affordable price, living stories will be irresistibly popular. If you had your choice between learning French from a book or by going to Paris and learning from your French girlfriend, which would you choose?
What are your criteria for a mind- and body-altering experience?
The truly mind-altering experiences need to engage one’s entire body (not just their eyes and ears), give one a role to play where they get to participate and make real decisions, and their actions need to have profound consequences. You need to feel that you have lived the experience and it has made you question or discover something new about yourself. The best of these “living story” experiences will bleed into your real life and leave you permanently changed.
Do you believe that culture has come to anticipate this form more now than ever?
Reading was an unnatural experience and difficult to do for most people for hundreds of years. Going to movie theaters at the turn of the 19th century was an unnatural experience. People need to learn how to become comfortable with new modes of communication and technologies. I believe that the explosion of social media and popularity of gaming have primed people for media that is co-created, interactive, agentic, responsive and social. I truly believe that the majority of younger people today are hungry for stories that they can live in. Fixed, unidirectional, two-dimensional and passively consumed media cannot hold a candle to the joy of stories that are agentic, immersive, embodied, responsive and social. True, these new forms will take some getting used to for many people (“actience” and creators alike), but as they mature, their appeal is so great that I believe they will become more popular than movies or video games combined. It is like the difference between going to see a silent black-and-white film versus going to experience The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere in full 4D. We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto!
I have to ask: Did you experience all the examples in the book?
I’ve done approximately 80% of what is in the book. Some changed my life, others were less successful. Not all of these examples are perfect. Sometimes they are included because they are admirable attempts at solving specific challenges, while others took me out of my comfort zone and reawakened me to the great emotional and sensorial joy of being alive.
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