STAGES - System for a Tangible Animated Game: Embodied Storytelling Ji-Sun Kim, Ashley Robinson, Francis Quek, Si-Jung Kim and Lin Zhang Center for Human-Computer Interaction Virginia Tech {hideaway, arrobin, quek, hikim, lin83}@vt.edu ABSTRACT We present a system, named STAGES, which is built on principles of embodied cognition and interaction for the communication of historical information. We motivate each aspect of our design with the need for engaged interaction, spatial and temporal situatedness, and social interaction. Our design model is based on extensions of the hyper-narrative with the concept of the ‘happening’ that occurs in place and is presented in the form of a dramatic scene. We further enhance the concept by situating the user in the context of place by use of a tangible tracked game board. We discuss the implementation of the system, highlighting how each system component is realized in hardware and software. As a first step to determining how well such a system might provide embodied access to historical information, we performed an evaluation of the system to determine how well users can engage with the system. Our pilot study shows the promise of our approach, while highlighting elements of our system that need improvement. Keywords: Context, Embodiment, Tangible Interaction, Game, History, Insight formation, Hyper-narrative INTRODUCTION Docudramas, textbooks, museums, and historical narrative serve the common purpose of conveying historical information. The differences lie along several dimensions depending on medium. In this paper, we present a system, named STAGES, for the communication of historical information in a novel combination of the hyper-narrative, the animated drama or play, and tangible game-pieces on a horizontal display as a game-board. The purpose of our system is to explore a new means of engaging the recipient of the historical information in an interactive way by placing her in the context of the history. In this work, we engage subjects with historical information relating to the Underground Railroad [22] in Virginia by which slaves fled north from the Tidewater region of southeast Virginia. Our approach is motivated by the premise that humans are ‘embodied cognizers’. By embodied, we mean that the human mind is inseparably associated to our physical being, social context, and our situation in place and time [1-3]. It involves the combination of physical action, social action, and the setting in which these actions take place [4, 5]. In ‘The Tacit Dimension’ where he explores the substance of human knowledge, Polanyi’s asserts that knowledge is ‘in the body’ [6]. Polanyi begins with the axiom: “we can know more than we can tell” [6] and proceeds to argue that human knowledge is ultimately contained in the unutterable vaults of our embodied experience. He contends that “we are relying on our awareness of contacts of our body with things outside for attending to these things. Our own body is the only thing in the world which we normally never experience as an object, but experience always in terms of the world to which we are attending from our body.” [6] The presentation of historical information in a non-linear fashion as to facilitate better comprehension of key elements of the history presents the designer with significant challenges. These elements include the facts that events have causes and consequences, and that people's reactions to events and their consequences are often causes of subsequent events. One key to understanding the context of historical information is to know how these elements are related (e.g. why one action/event caused another). Our system presents information in such a way that connects a cause to an event and an event to a consequence [7]. Our approach is to use embodiment concepts to create an interactive hyper-narrative game that portrays the circumstances surrounding particular situations. Our work in presenting the history of the Underground Railroad in Virginia serves as a case study for the approach presented here. In this paper, we overview our approach for embodied communication of historical information and our extensions to the hyper-narrative to enhance embodiment, present our system implementation, discuss our user study with the system, and conclude with a discussion of future work. Author's personal copy