ABSTRACT
This chapter explores both historical and contemporary interactive narrative texts and theatrical performance. It considers choice-based narratives, virtual and augmented reality titles. Textual interaction includes the act of 'reading' and 'viewing'. 'Interpretative relationships' and 'active material relationships' are created when cut, tape or write in the margins of traditional analogue texts. Audiences must acquire new competencies and skills to understand and utilise new technologies. Char Davies's Osmose created a highly immersive world where the viewer, wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset, traversed a virtual world of colour and geometric shapes. Proprioceptive coherence is why spatial layout is so important in hypertexts. The interactive relationship, this discourse between artist and audience, blurred the line between the fictional and the real world. A non-linear text requires close study to ensure a logical story outcome where the viewer is taken on a journey and not led down a meandering 'blind alley'.
