37 Interactive Film and the Multiplied Self ROMAN DANYLAK and ERNEST EDMONDS Creativity and Cognition Studios, University of Technology, Sydney Interactive film, delivered by computational processes, collapses the self; the singular, personal identity to which we have become accustomed is challenged by the adoption of many selves, trans- forming our primary experience of identity. The new medium presents us with narrative multi- plicity, so that we are no longer just “John Smith,” our namesake. The combination of separate, unique, historically-evolved representational techniques, defined as counterfeit, production, and simulation, makes the creation of a multiplied self possible in a digitized environment. This pa- per will focus on Spielberg’s film Catch Me if You Can, whose narrative describes the actions of its game-playing protagonist, Frank Abagnale Jr., who exemplifies the emerging digital man. He creates many personas in a predigital world by means of the three techniques of represen- tation. His “art” is shown to be a precursor of interactive film, turning the world into a game of interchangeable multiple personalities. Manipulating and adopting screen media communication artefacts, Frank Abagnale Jr. creates an analogue of human-computer multimedia interaction. A comparison of similar innovations and their effects in earlier historical periods of media is also included. Categories and Subject Descriptors: H.5.1 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Multi- media Information Systems—Artificial, augmented, and virtual realities General Terms: Experimentation, Human Factors Additional Key Words and Phrases: Interactive film, the self, games ACM Reference Format: Danylak, R., and Edmonds, E. 2008. Interactive film and the multiplied self. ACM Comput. Enter- tain. 6, 3, Article 37 (October 2008), 9 pages. DOI = 10.1145/1394021.1394030 http://doi.acm.org/ 10.1145/1394021.1394030. Parts of this text have appeared in: Danylak and Edmonds’ “Acting interactively in a digital world.” In Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Software Methodologies, Tools and Techniques, IOS Press; also in: Danylak and Edmonds’ “The Interactive Game: Origins and Effects.” In Pro- ceedings of the 2nd Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment, Creativity and Cognition Studios Press. Authors’ address: CB 10.5.241, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, Creativity and Cognition Studios, University of Technology, Sydney. PO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2001, Sydney, Australia; email: rdanylak@it.uts.edu.au. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or direct commercial advantage and that copies show this notice on the first page or initial screen of a display along with the full citation. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, to redistribute to lists, or to use any component of this work in other works requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Permissions may be requested from Publications Dept., ACM, Inc., 2 Penn Plaza, Suite 701, New York, NY 10121-0701 USA, fax +1 (212) 869-0481, or permissions@acm.org. C  2008 ACM 1544-3574/2008/10-ART37 $5.00 DOI = 10.1145/1394021.1394030 http://doi.acm.org/ 10.1145/1394021.1394030 ACM Computers in Entertainment, Vol. 6, No. 3, Article 37, Publication date: October 2008.