Interactive Narratives: A Form of Fiction?

In his article 'Inter Between: Actus Done' in Convergence, 2, no 2 (Autumn 1996) Luke Hockley contends that interactivity in its current forms merely creates an 'illusion of control' for the user. He argues that this trivialisation results from the power structures which control the media attempting to maintain their hegemony through safely limiting the forms of interactivity. True interactivity, he states, is dialectical and such two-way communication is radically challenging to all forms of mediated communication. His examples, however, are limited to the crudest user interjections into dramatic plotting or choice of web pages. Perhaps if we examined artists' experiments with interactivity and the nature of narrative, a fuller understanding of the potentials of the medium could lead us to different conclusions?