Sonata develops a conception of interactive narrative in which the viewer is able to modify a flowing stream of story. Its subject-matter conflates two classical works:
- Judith, the biblical story of a woman who decapitated the enemy general Holofernes by tricking him into thinking that she was seducing him;
- The Kreutzer Sonata by Tolstoy, in which a man stabs his wife to death because he suspects her of having an affair with a violinist.
Viewers of Sonata are able to look at each story from multiple points of view, or move from one to the other - the stories keep unfolding, and the
viewer navigates by pointing at a projection screen through a specially designed interactive picture frame. One idea is to be able to retain the powerful features of cinema like suspense and surprise in an interactive form.
