detected. The approach is the same as above: try known solutions, and, if they don’t work, go for more drastic measures. On a wider scale, we can consider as another example the new driving permits that are now under study in some states. A driving permit containing a secure core presents the credentials of the driver directly to digital systems, allowing a quick review of the permit and the rights associated. For example, in the case of infraction, the policeman would just insert our driving license into a terminal connected with the overall police network. Now, as this technology develops somewhat independently in many states and countries, we will see areas of commonalities in the various driving permits, and we’ll see differences. For each state checking another state’s driving license, the differences might be viewed as so many threats. Each state’s network will have to decide for itself how it wants to manage these differences, again, using set solutions or taking more drastic solutions, like for example deciding to check by phone with the original state instead of relying on the digital network, which is a way to actually cut the licensee, in her or his digital representation, from the network. Here we see again that humans, computers, and computers representing humans on the network can, like the actors of the commedia dell’arte, manage unknown situations, relying of a set of pre-staged and relief actions.

Improvisation

Throughout this book, we have investigated fields far removed from our core domains of expertise. Any domain of knowledge is a constantly evolving field of surprises, inventions, arguments and discovery. The only way for us to avoid technical arguments that we would be unable to defend has always been to attempt to be faithful to the seminal writings that those well versed in the field take for granted, whether they agree or disagree with, or want to disprove or improve, the premises. Therefore, we will leave the unavoidable and healthy critique of our interpretation to the experts, and we choose Constantin Stanislavski as our XX^th Century teacher of acting. In An Actor Prepares, Stanislavski wants actors to get ready for the interactions of the scene by relaxing to prepare their sensori-motor system to the stimuli of interactions; to study the play in details and do what-if scenarios to prime their emotional system with the projected characteristics of the role; to master the script so that the objectives and sub-objectives stay in constant perspective; to establish faith, communion, and adaptation to keep the scene flowing so the audience empathizes with the characters of the plot. The lesson is “unconscious creativeness through conscious technique,” the threat is breaking the flow of sensations, sentiments, actions and events that establish the alternate reality allowing to develop the feelings and metaphors that the spectators build up into their own psychology and understanding.

Following on Stanislavski theory, theater can be turned on its head as the actor’s role can now become its own rationale, by performing in front of an audience in the absence of predefined plot or script, In Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre, Keith Johnstone condenses the performance to its fundamentals: the status rapport of the actors, the creativity developed in the interaction and their flow, and decoration, epitomized by the mask. For him, rapid changes in the relative status of the actors match the essence of conversation, and we can only relate this to Roland Dunbar’s Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language. With an explicit or implicit plot, plays on status form the backbone of the improvised script, whose sustenance keeps the audience involved: interaction must be spontaneous, which means that there is little time for the brain to process the immediate emotional reaction; much of the success of the improvisation is related to the audience relating to the state of mind that led the actor to a particular reaction. To sustain the narrative, actors need to consciously break routines, creating the very threats that lead to resolution and comic relief. In our terms, the creation of asymmetries yields intriguing interactions via the immediacy of emotional reactions. Finally, the use of masks allows changing the very perception that actors have of themselves, thereby altering their sensori-motor environment, as well as that of

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