In Methodology Number One I chose four theoretical perspectives. For each one I selected a meaningful phrase or idea that was relevant to the new media object in question. Despite the fact that I rejected the following methodology, working with it helped me uncover many of the issues and notions I eventually focused on.

The first perspective was a postmodern examination of the tension between binary oppositions (Huyssen, 1986). The second was a postmodern feminist approach to subverting binaries (Haraway, 1991). The third approach was an interdisciplinary approach combining computer technology and theatre to explore the common ground between computer and user (Laurel, 1991). Finally, since Anderson is telling stories in Puppet Motel, an approach to narrative and mass culture was used (Fulford, 1999).

Puppet Motel presents a set of rooms that are shared spaces in late 20^th century American culture. The rooms explore the construction of everyday life in a quintessentially postmodern style. From the perspective of interactive multimedia, the interactive structure and methods of traversing Puppet Motel embody Anderson’s concepts relating to space, time and the shared spaces of American Culture. The choice of a motel allows Anderson to explore spaces that are both public and private. Anyone (who can pay) can check into a private room at a motel. The room itself, however, could house hundreds of people a year.

This exploration of public and private is one example of Anderson’s exploration of binary oppositions. When the relationship between the concepts public and private are seen as oppositional and exclusive, they form a binary opposition. The exploration of the space between the two sides of an opposition such as public and private is the focus of much postmodern art and theory. Many aspects of the construction of Puppet Motel demonstrate Huyssen’s argument that “... [postmodernism] operates in a field of tension between tradition and innovation, conservation and renewal, mass culture and high art, in which the second terms are no longer automatically privileged over the first; a field of tension which can no longer be grasped in categories such as progress vs. reaction, left vs. right, present vs. past, modernism vs. realism, abstraction vs. representation, avant garde vs. Kitsch” (Huyssen, 1986: 216-217).

Anderson not only explores the tension between traditional binaries, but transgresses these fields of tension by subverting them. Notions of space and time are intertwined, with properties of time being taken on by space and properties of space taken on by time. Certainly, these issues are integral to Anderson's aesthetic goals. Anderson does not answer questions but takes “... pleasure in the confusion of boundaries and for responsibility in their construction” (Haraway, 1991: 150). The construction of the interfaces, as well as the way participants use the computer’s mouse to explore the work, provide a framework for Anderson's stories and facilitate the physical experiences that portray the stories.

Anderson uses voice, sound, music and image to communicate her ideas gust as she does in her performances. Puppet Motel also uses interactivity and physicality to tell Anderson’s stories. Not surprisingly, Puppet Motel plays with traditional notions of user/viewer/participant. Laurel’s notion of common ground is instructive, and provides a mechanism for evaluating Puppet Motel’s interfaces. "The notion of common ground not only provides a superior representation of the conversational process, but also supports the idea that an interface is not simply the means whereby a person and a computer represent themselves to one another; rather it is a shared context for action in which both are agents" (Laurel, 1991: 4). Each one of Puppet Motel’s interactive events, mouse movements, clicks, and drags, assumes notions that must be shared by the work (and by extension its creators) and the participant. This common ground is one determining factor in the success of the work.

As a storyteller, Anderson takes many different approaches to being the narrator in Puppet Motel. In her most conventional approach she appears in the Stage Room and the Shadow Room through digital video. In these rooms she tells stories with a relatively physical representation of herself using video of her full body and voice. In the Aquarium she appears somewhat disembodied, telling her story through audio and animated icons. In the Green Room Anderson appears through her alter-ego: the dummy. The dummy is an animated figure resembling Anderson who speaks with a male voice. Anderson electronically manipulates her own voice to achieve this effect. She refers to this voice as her Voice of Authority. In the Cutting Room neither her voice nor her body is present. She places the onus on the participant to construct the story through manipulation of audio and video clips of her work.

In The Triumph of Narrative: Storytelling in the Age of Mass Culture, Fulford examines the ways that storytelling and narrative have evolved and continue to pervade mass popular culture today (Fulford, 1999). Anderson’s position as narrator ranges from explicit to implicit in Puppet Motel. My intention was to examine Anderson’s narrative approaches, that utilize interactivity, using Fulford's assertions about narrative in mass culture.

I hoped this methodology would allow me to examine and evaluate how Anderson constructs the interaction in Puppet Motel. I wanted to investigate the structure and form through which Anderson’s stories are told, but not the content of the stories. The notion of boundaries/fields of tension in binary oppositions would be broadened, as well, to concepts of spaces, allowing me to locate the stage/playground where Anderson does her work/play.

What did Methodology Number One identify as central? The following questions act as a summary:

• How do the rooms construct the experience?
• What is the interactive structure and how does it construct meaning?
• How do the methods of traversing Puppet Motel construct and embody the meaning of the work?
• How are notions of plurality (transgressing fields of tension by subverting them, not answering questions) constructed?
• Where does the user/viewer/participant sit in relation to the work?
• How is this multifaceted narrative told with different media and techniques?

While the ideas I discovered in Methodology Number One were all interesting and useful, linking the ideas effectively in the context was taking me in directions that I did not want to go. I couldn’t see how I could successfully communicate ideas that were my own through that methodology. I rejected that methodology outright.