Keywords

1 Introduction

Constructing a non-linear branching narrative is a process frequently associated with developing coherent story pathways, often with the help of specialised software such as Twine Footnote 1. Unusually, in the case of the Cinelabyrinth pavilion at the 1990 Osaka World Expo, the construction was not metaphoric but real and solid, as the pathways offered to the visiting audience were interconnections between a maze-like series of screening rooms in which filmed sections of the fictional story could be viewed. Although as Psarra makes clear, “narrative enters architecture in many ways,” [1] it is certainly unusual for audience members to be quite literally walking through the branching structure of a cinematic story, and an analysis of this ambitious project is of benefit to those designing the digital non-linear narrative experiences of today.

Cinelabyrinth was one of the last major projects of Radúz Činčera (1923–1999), who emerged from behind the Iron Curtain onto the world stage with Kinoautomat, a prototype of interactive cinema that captured the imagination of the public at Expo’67 in Montreal. Recognised as the world’s first interactive film, Kinoautomat has deservedly received a significant amount of academic research and analysis [2, 3]. Much of the material presented in this article was gathered collaterally during the author’s visits to Činčera’s daughter Alena in relation to Kinoautomat research—this material included Činčera’s personally compiled list of all his major projects. In Kinoautomat, audience groups sitting in a custom-built cinema were given several opportunities to vote on binary choices during a fictional film narrative, the successful option being that with the majority vote. There was nothing digital or computerised about Kinoautomat, the technology was electromagnetic (using relays similar to those found in the telephone exchanges of the time) and multiple 35 mm film projectors were used to show the film. Realised 23 years later, the Cinelabyrinth was fundamentally different in its concept, function and technology and marked a turning point for Činčera (then aged 67) from the restrictions of the analogue era to the potential of the digital age.

Činčera, with a background in both theatre and film, was part of a creative generation producing large-scale and technologically innovative projects for World Expo exhibitions: during the Cold War these high-profile events were used by many Communist states as propaganda and a chance to showcase their cultural and technological prowess. Budgets were generous and “although these inventors lived under a totalitarian regime, they enjoyed more freedom of experimentation than they would have in some Western countries.” [4] Such was his reputation that the rock musician Peter Gabriel, known for his technically innovative stage shows, met Činčera in the late seventies but nothing concrete resulted from the discussions [5]. After a meeting in Prague in 1998 Michael Naimark reported that Činčera “acknowledged his ambiguous stance between art and commerce” [6]. Cinelabyrinth in fact represented part of the Japan Gas Association’s Gas Pavilion at the Osaka “Flower Expo” (April to September 1990) with the involvement of Dentsu Inc. of Japan. The year of 1990 has additional significance because the first democratic elections took place in Czechoslovakia that year after the Velvet (or Gentle) Revolution had taken place late in 1989 (the separate Czech and Slovak republics did not come into being until 1992). Despite this, a major project such as Cinelabyrinth with a budget of five million dollars must have been planned and prepared under the old regimes and could not have arisen as a direct consequence of (but would have benefitted from) the dramatic changes taking place in the country of its creation. The film shown in the pavilion takes a clear ecological theme rather than making any expression of freedom, although each visitor is indeed empowered with freedom of choice rather than suffering the so-called ‘tyranny of the majority’ associated with group voting—the leaflet advertising Cinelabyrinth stated “Make your choice and then proceed. Enjoyment at your will”.

2 From Kinoautomat to Cinelabyrinth

Činčera’s initial proposal for something resembling Cinelabyrinth is connected closely to Kinoautomat at Expo’67. A Montreal newspaper (Dimanche Dernière Heure; the journalist was Jean-Louis Laporte) reported in 1970 that Činčera was to bring Kinoautomat back to the Expo fairground for the year 1971 in a new format: a real architectural labyrinth with many projection rooms in which “the audience must walk around to follow the development of the story. Sometimes the protagonists will be lost, but will later be found again. Turning left gives a different story than turning right. If by chance one turns left again, the audience can continue their story but it will have branched for a second time”. The fact that this news was announced in a press release suggests the project was well on the way to becoming a reality (filming locations were specified) but ultimately it was not made and references to any similar project disappear until Osaka in 1990. Činčera remained productive with Kinoautomat reprised at Expos in 1968 and 1974 and in Prague in 1971, as well as a version shown at Expo’81 in Kobe in connection with Osaka Gas. A collaborative project Vertical Cinemascope gave him a first trip to Osaka for Expo’70 and The Scroll was shown at Expos in 1986, 1988 and 1992—Činčera’s primary interest was large-scale spectacle, and branching narrative was only one of his methods for achieving this.

Given that at least one 35 mm film projector would have been necessary per room, it can be reasonably assumed that expense and technical difficulties were the reason why the ambitious labyrinth project was shelved in 1971. One might argue that the project was ahead of its time and Činčera’s regular technical experts Jaroslav Frič and Bohumil Mika belonged to a pre-digital generation that did not embrace rapidly developing computer technologies, preferring bulky and antiquated electromagnetic systems. Fortunately two technical solutions emerged in the 1980s, both with a connection to Japan, which would have brought the project back on the agenda. Firstly the development of the LaserDisc, a true non-linear audiovisual delivery system of reasonable quality with the Japanese company Pioneer Corporation as the majority stakeholder in the format. Secondly, as Hornbeck reports, the “first LCD color video projector was introduced to the market in 1989 by the Sharp Corporation,” [7] with another Japanese company Epson also an early manufacturer. Although these remained analogue technologies the functionality and affordances were closer to the digital tools of today.

In terms of non-linear narrative, the fiction-based branching structure which had been such a novel aspect of Kinoautomat was no longer unusual—it had been popularised worldwide since 1979 by the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) series of paperback books (which went on to sell 250,000 copies). Činčera nonetheless felt his projects were technology independent, reflecting towards the end of his career that:

“Unlike the recent interactive computer games and CDROMs, the Kinoautomat was presented in a group audience situation: it was not designed for just one man sitting in front of a computer monitor… Kinoautomat in 1967 represented a “stone-age” of interactivity as to the technology, but is a very original and advanced presentation form, still attractive and impressive until today. And it is easy to improve (which we do) its technology by recent computerized components.” [8].

It is hard to say whether the CYOA books might have influenced the genre of film eventually designed for Cinelabyrinth, which was basically a children’s fantasy adventure, but presumably a branching narrative was now no longer enough to ensure sufficient novelty for such a prestigious event as a World Expo—but adding physical walkability of the narrative through decorated rooms provided the standout feature. The Cinelabyrinth therefore represents a change in thinking about the role of the user (the project might usefully be analysed through the emerging discipline of ‘experience design’) by allowing a personalised journey and outcome whilst retaining the benefits of a shared group experience. Činčera was clearly well aware from his experiences with Kinoautomat that a majority vote system did not necessarily permit viewers to see what they had made the effort to vote for and this could lead to dissatisfaction.

3 The Cinelabyrinth

The Cinelabyrinth pavilion, which had an external aspect resembling multiple green pyramids, held within it a control room of 22 LaserDisc players (with corresponding monitors) feeding into eleven rooms (so-called ‘show spaces’) which were equipped with a total of 22 video projection screens. Each of the choice-enabled rooms had a main 4 m × 3 m projection screen, a live presenter, and two smaller side screens, making them similar to the Kinoautomat theatre but without the vote tally system. Traversing the Cinelabyrinth each audience member would have three opportunities to physically move to a screening room of their choice, thus guaranteeing they would view the sequences that they wanted. Since each room was devoted to a particular sequence played from its own LaserDisc, there was no need for any complex logic—it was a case of coordination and timing of when each LaserDisc was restarted (whether this was done automatically to a clock, or manually by an operator, is unclear). An astonishing audience throughput of up to 15,000 a day was possible in Cinelabyrinth, an impressive figure when compared to the Kinoautomat of Expo’67 which totalled 67,000 visitors in six months, this being possible by allowing a group of up to 200 (at busiest times) to enter the pavilion every ten minutes. Room sizes became progressively smaller with each choice made, since statistically smaller and smaller numbers would be expected to visit them, and each was ornately designed and decorated (including a background soundscape such as the chirping of jungle insects) to suit the theme so as to immerse audiences into the changing narrative locations.

The art- and stage design of the Cinelabyrinth show spaces was credited to R. Máca and J. Frič with the SCARS production team. Činčera was listed as director, and credited with the script alongside M. Macourek and H. Franková. A diagram of the architectural layout and the narrative structure it afforded is presented as Fig. 1: the diagram makes it clear how certain rooms had multiple entry points so as to limit the extent of the branching possibilities and rooms were sized to reflect the average amount of visitors they might attract. A brief description of each show space is given in the Appendix. Since audience members would traverse four show spaces a total of about forty minutes of filmic content would be seen (at ten minutes per room). A live host introduced each room to its incoming audience and offered humanising guidance to visitors at the moment of choice. The narrative of the film, whose title translates roughly as The Flying House, was described in its contemporary publicity (reproduced on p. 100 of Bielicky [4]) as follows:

Fig. 1.
figure 1

The layout of the Cinelabyrinth and a diagram of its narrative structure.

Full size image

“The story is an adventure fantasy about four children and their quest to save an oak tree. Cinelabyrinth lets you participate in a fantastic adventure. The story starts in the garden of a beautiful castle where an old oak tree is about to be cut down. The children Honza, Kuba, Suzanne and Fanda are asked by the spirit of the tree to save it. With the aid of magic acorns, the four children start on their fantastic adventure beyond spatial and temporal bounds. The story develops in different ways according to the visitor’s choices. Every story consists of exciting and humorous scenes. Travelling with the children, the audience can experience adventures as they attempt to save the tree.” [9].

As the pavilion doors open to start the experience, a new group of audience are led into one large room (‘The Castle and Park’), a concealed screen is revealed and all watch the opening sequence together under the guidance of a stage presenter. The first scene ends with the on-screen oak tree being halted in mid-fall, the action transferring to two smaller side screens to represent the two potential story paths. Each room, apart from the four rooms used for the finale which required just the one projection, had this three-screen arrangement (hence 22 LaserDisc projections were required). The screens were not revealed until the audience had been greeted into the room by its resident presenter and the exit doors remained hidden until the moment of choice.

These choices represent the travelling locations of the magical flying house in which the children pursue their quest to save the oak tree: for example after the first sequence, two previously hidden doors are revealed offering the choice to fly to a hot place (‘The Jungle’) or a cold place (‘The Snowfield’). Several show spaces were unsurprisingly themed on Prague. Whereas the plot of the original Kinoautomat film was based on realism and sequential plot continuity, Cinelabyrinth used magic and fantasy to allow the protagonists to explore a variety of exotic locations and also to travel in time (for example, two competing room choices were ‘The World of the Year 3000’ or ‘Historical Prague’). The film’s final sequence was the same for all audience members: the rescue of the tree. Michael Naimark describes it as follows:

“At the moment when the kids [in the film] shout “we did it!” the screen in front raises up to reveal a full-size replica of the tree used in the film. Simultaneously, three other screens on the other three sides of the tree rise up, revealing four theaters with everyone who began in the first room, now all facing each other. The gag was that no matter which options were chosen, the kids successfully saved the tree. It was as manipulative as the first Czech piece made 23 years earlier [Kinoautomat], but this time they made it transparent. The effect of realizing everyone ‘won’ and now were all in the same room together was really very powerful.” [10].

The implication here is that the dramatic revelation of the shared ending was an effective ploy that overcame the potential disappointment of realising that personal choices had not led to a variety of endings—Kinoautomat also had only one end scene but was deliberately coy about which alternative pathways actually existed.

Visitors exiting the Cinelabyrinth could examine the leaflet they were given which informed that “your choice of theater mirrors your personality” and which provided a whimsical psychological explanation behind each of the eight (1 × 2 × 2 × 2) routes possible through the rooms. One particular route, for example, was attributed to a “nice soft-hearted person but when a dangerous situation is to be solved he (she) often knows how to risk for a good reason”. Despite the freedom of choice offered to visitors, one can imagine that at busy times audience members might elect to take the path of least resistance by choosing the nearest doorway rather than fighting through a crowd. Contemporary audience discussion of the experience is hard to find, although some modern day Japanese websites offer nostalgic and overwhelmingly positive reflections on Flower Expo and the Cinelabyrinth experience. Czechoslovak television filmed a five minute article which shows audiences traversing the labyrinth, a shot of one of the large video projectors. and scenes of the control room (with personnel watching a bank of monitors displaying each LaserDisc’s output, and the discs themselves being removed and cleaned).

Cinelabyrinth was never reprised after the Expo, presumably on grounds of cost, although some months later the video sequences were presented again in a traditional theatrical setting with push-button seats at the Cinéautomate cinema in the Futuroscope theme park in Poitiers, France, where it ran from 1991 to 1996 under the title Le vieil arbre et les enfants. This was undoubtedly a retrogressive step (tellingly, it was replaced by Ciné-jeu which offered a variety of games using the Cinematrix [11] system which was a more technically innovative interface for audience voting) which effectively marked a return to the original majority-decision format of 1967 and offered the group audience a mere three choice points. On witnessing Cinéautomate, the media scholar Erkki Huhtamo reported the voting to be “over-determined by multiple forms of direct address: stopping the film, projecting graphic signs on the screen, turning on the lights and even having a live hostess appear on the stage to direct the voting!” [12] With interactive technologies rapidly developing, the traditional staging of the show must have seemed an anachronism at a time when Huhtamo was calling for a greater sophistication in interactive artworks: “It is difficult to introduce intelligent multi-person interactivity into a situation in which a traditional audience sits in an auditorium… The problem with multi-person interactive cinema is related to the very fact of combining it with a 19th century idea of public spectacle and the audience.” [12]. In contrast, writing just a couple of years later than Huhtamo, Naimark [10] claimed that two of just four interactive art projects to have genuinely moved him were Kinoautomat and Cinelabyrinth, although his judgement may have been influenced by the engaging qualities of the filmic narratives and the high (filmic) production values which at the time were rare in the field of interactive creativity.

4 Conclusion

In terms of building a physical construction as a non-linear audiovisual narrative, nothing of the scale or ambition of Cinelabyrinth seems to have been attempted before or since, and the project remains a unique example of an architectural interpretation of branching narrative. It is doubtful that Cinelabyrinth directly influenced any subsequent works of physically constructed narrative since it was not extensively documented. One might vaguely compare the overall design with certain aspects of later projects including theme park rides, handheld museum/exhibition guides (which tell related information as rooms are visited), theatre pieces which require audiences to move from room to room, or installations by video artists using multiple rooms in which to project interrelated video material. Nevertheless, examples of interactive non-linear film interface through significant audience displacement are notably rare.

From a contemporary perspective, with the inherent non-linearity of digital files and with inexpensive flat screens and video projection so commonplace, one cannot underestimate the ‘digital’ thinking behind Cinelabyrinth, which owes its primacy to its awareness of the potential of the then-new technologies of LaserDisc and LCD projection. The project made little or no use of computer technology, but replacing the LaserDisc players with today’s low cost computers (such as the Raspberry Pi) loaded with the relevant digital video files would be the only change required to stage it today. Choreographing the video screening times could be controlled simply by means of preset chronological times (e.g. all video sequences repeat every ten or fifteen minutes) or a more centralised control system could be implemented by wireless communication. The army of hardworking live presenters could now be replaced by 3D animated characters or pre-recorded actors projected onto human-shaped screens, and these flawless digital presenters would never suffer from boredom or fatigue.

Taking things a step further, these digital presenters might become algorithmically intelligent, and the decreasing cost of hardware would enable the underlying narrative structure to be more complex—taking inspiration, for example, from Umberto Eco’s labyrinthine library at the heart of The Name of The Rose [13]. With digital technology there would be no need to have each room permanently dedicated to a particular projected film sequence, doors to other rooms could be activated or hidden depending on the narrative being shown, and finding an exit route might itself be part of the goal in the manner of the popular ‘Escape Room’ paradigm (although this would inevitably make the experience more gamelike). Sophisticated geolocation could keep an eye on visitors and flat display screens and ubiquitous computer technology could be embedded in the rooms to replace the static and passive décor used in Cinelabyrinth. Each user’s experience could be personalised by means of a handheld device such as a smartphone using earphones to deliver varying soundtracks and voiceovers and enabling augmented reality to permit the discovery of virtual content within the labyrinth. Suitable stories for a future labyrinth might well be those that link closely to the physical activity of exploring rooms/spaces in the manner of several of the Choose Your Own Adventure plots, bearing in mind that the concept of The Flying House enabled visitors to move through space and time by means of the show spaces—there was no unified metaphor such as exploring all the rooms of a haunted house or a cave system.

The communal aspect of exploring Cinelabyrinth with others, whilst retaining freedom to wander, and the fundamental premise of experiencing a non-linear film, are key characteristics that could easily be retained in a digital reinterpretation (the discussion here is of course based on retaining the dedicated physical space rather than reinterpreting the labyrinth as a virtual entity). It is worth bearing in mind that only eight discrete pathways were possible through Cinelabyrinth so that outcomes were not unique to each individual—an audience member would inevitably be accompanied by others, most probably strangers, on their narrative trajectory. A future labyrinth might be configured with a roster of non-linear films of different genres in the manner that this is currently done with digital cinema technology so as to provide a varied programme of daily screenings/stagings. Experience designers might inform on the optimum size of groups admitted to the digital labyrinth and how these audience members interact with each other—bearing in mind that cinemas can accept hundreds of passive viewers per screening whereas Escape Rooms take up to a dozen active participants who work as a team. Designing and overseeing the entire endeavour would be a far greater challenge than it was for Radúz Činčera but fortunately today’s digital creatives already have experience in complex transmedia storytelling projects and have the required tools and gadgets at their disposal to expand the Cinelabyrinth concept to a new, exciting, and potentially profitable, level.