https:\/\/pad.profolia.org\/s\/chekhovs_gun<\/a><\/p>\nThe plan was to write a description for a series of lectures and conversations at Merz Akademie in upcoming semester, but it became a manifesto, I’d like to share with you.<\/p>\n
Disarming Chekhov\u2019s Gun<\/p>\n
The mantra passed down from generation to generation \u201cyou can\u2019t put a loaded gun on stage if no one means to fire it\u201d first appeared in a letter Chekhov wrote to a young writer, criticizing the way his vaudeville was structured:<\/p>\n
“Dear Alexander Semyonovich!
\n I received your vaudeville and immediately read it. It\u2019s beautifully written, but its architecture is obnoxious. It\u2019s not scenic at all. Think about it. Dasha\u2019s first monologue is completely unnecessary. It stands out like a sore thumb. It would have fit if you wanted to make Dasha more than just a supporting role, and if this monolog \u2013 that promises a lot to the audience \u2013 had anything to do with the content or the effects of the play. You can\u2019t put a loaded gun on stage if no one means to fire it. You can\u2019t make promises. Let Dasha be silent altogether \u2013 that\u2019s better.”[1]<\/p>\n
Dasha, her first monologue and its unkept promise did not go down in history, but the analogy of the loaded gun left on stage unfired did: Chekhov\u2019s Gun \u2013 the dramaturgic principle that advises authors to remove irrelevant elements from their stories, be it in novels, theater plays, or later in films and television scripts. Closer to the end of the 20th century, the concept also entered the digital realm, from interactive fiction to Extended Reality.<\/p>\n
But it is not only in literature and entertainment of all genres and media where playwrights\u2019 rules are applied. Dramaturgic principles have long taken over the socio-political spheres of our lives that are computer mediated since digital environments like Aristotelian drama happened to be an \u201cimitation of an action with a beginning, middle and end, which is meant to be enacted in real time\u201d, as Brenda Laurel pointed out in Computers as Theatre, 1991.<\/p>\n
A century after Chekhov warned against leaving unfired guns on stage, Laurel recognized the same pattern \u2013 \u201cgratuitous incidents\u201d[2] and the unwanted effect it can have in the design of software, when on staging an interactor\u2019s experience. To properly script user\u2019s expectations and actions no minor detail standing in the way of \u201cconstraining what is probable\u201d[3].<\/p>\n
30 years later software got more sophisticated, complex, and literally invisible. It means that today these constraints need to be tighter than ever before. Designers of chatbots, robots, and immersive environments take care that guns are fired or nonexistent. To succeed in fully automated environments, CGR \u2013 Chekhov\u2019s Gun Recognition[4] algorithm, was suggested recently
\n\u2026and then there is the concept of Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s Gun[5], a combination of Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s Cat and Chekhov\u2019s Gun, an algorithm that can render any numerically represented element from gratuitous to necessary. Everything can be turned into a loaded gun in computer generated environments.<\/p>\n
Outside of tropes and virtual worlds, the playwright\u2019s principle has become a curse. There is Alec Baldwin\u2019s Gun that was supposedly just a prop, and currently, there are Putin\u2019s guns that we so much wanted to believe were just for show, not loaded at all, or at least would not fire.<\/p>\n
What if Chekhov\u2019s letter was never written, got lost or was simply ignored? What if the unimportant Dasha had a chance to recite her unnecessary monologue?<\/p>\n
Imagine a world where our lives weren\u2019t shaped by the predictable laws of drama and we were not a part of Aristotle\u2019s tragic progression.<\/p>\n
Leave the guns unfired and give the stage to Dasha!<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
\u0422. 3. \u041f\u0438\u0441\u044c\u043c\u0430, \u041e\u043a\u0442\u044f\u0431\u0440\u044c 1888 \u2014 \u0434\u0435\u043a\u0430\u0431\u0440\u044c 1889. \u2014 \u041c.: \u041d\u0430\u0443\u043a\u0430, 1976. \u2014 \u0421. 273\u2014275. [my translation] Source http:\/\/chehov-lit.ru\/chehov\/letters\/1888-1889\/letter-707.htm \u21a9\ufe0e<\/p>\n
Laurel B, Computers as Theatre, 1993 p.74 \u21a9\ufe0e<\/p>\n
Ibid., p.76 \u21a9\ufe0e<\/p>\n
Tikhonov A., Yamshchikov I. Chekhov\u2019s Gun Recognition, 2021 https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2109.13855v1 \u21a9\ufe0e<\/p>\n
Robertson J., YoungR.M., Finding Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s Gun, AIDE, October 2014 \u21a9\ufe0e<\/p>\n
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