Does storytelling have a place in digital worlds? Frigg Ragu, a storytelling researcher at the University College of Oslo, Norway creates a magic, snow-covered (of course) place in Second Life to narrate ‘The Companion’, an old Norwegian folktale. The story is about love and, at the same time, about the discovery of the self and the realization of friendship and loyalty. A boy starts a journey in order to find a girl and in the meanwhile he meets witches, he fights trolls and he makes real friends.
The Second Life location is seducing and fascinating, but what is most important here is that it makes a proper environment to house the storytelling. And even in the digital world, it is all about genuine storytelling. The visitor has to make a journey himself, to discover and follow a not-so-obvious route in order to listen to the parts of the story. Instead of limiting the imagination as one would have thought, the site offers a framework for the narration of the tale. Besides, the visitor does not live in the story, nor does he meets the protagonists, he is invited though to interact with the environment and explore it , while looking for the succession of the story parts.
In an interview, Frigg Ragu hopes that the Second Life Residents that experience The Companion will take off with impulses to retell the story and in that way keep it alive. That is what motivates him to experience with the medium, and he does it well.
To read more about The Companion see this, or simply visit the Second Life location here.
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