The programme of  i-Docs 2012 is now online and you can already purchase your tickets !

Following last years success  i-Docs 2012 has been expanded to two full days and will take place in Bristol’s Watershed Media Centre on March 22nd and 23rd. Convened by Judith Aston and myself, on behalf of the Digital Cultures Research Centre, the symposium brings together producers, scholars and students of interactive documentary to grapple with the diverse practices and theorisation of this fast developing field.

Last year i-Docs 2011  had one basic message: i-docs are here to stay, and they should be seen as a form on itself  (not just as the evolution of linear documentaries). So the conference was arranged to give an overview of the sub-categories of i-docs that we could see emerging: collaborative docs, cross-platform docs, locative docs and database narratives. The event was very successful and we decided to make it a yearly event.

So… this year we are back. We have taken into account the wish of most participants to have more time to discuss and exchange ideas so we have made the event longer (2 days) and we have incorporated a variety of formats (panels, labs, workshops and feed-back sessions) to make it a dynamic event. Since we do not need to establish the  genre anymore,  this year we are focusing on some key questions/issues that we are seeing developing around us. The following are the questions that we would like to open to debate at i-Docs 2012 (and please have a look to the call for participation to see how those questions split in more areas of investigation):

1.      User participation in i-docs: how can the act of participating change the meaning of an i-doc?

2.  Layered experience, augmented reality games and pervasive media: are locative i-docs changing our notion of physical experience and space?

3.  Activism and ethics: how can i-docs be used to develop new strategies for activism?

4.      Open source and the semantic web: how are tagging video, HTML5 and the semantic web opening up new routes for i-docs?

There’s a very strong lineup this year including keynotes speakers reflecting cutting-edge and award winning work - Jigar Mehta (i8 Days in Egypt), Brett Gaylor (rip! A Remix Manifesto, Popcorn Maker) , Submarine Channel (Collapsus), Katerina Cizek (Highrise), who’ll be presenting via Skype, as well as the esteemed documentary scholar Brian Winston, from whom we can expect a challenging intervention. Panels will look at themes including Layered Reality, Participation and Activism. An important  feature of this year’s symposium will be sessions examining some of the key emerging tools for authoring and creating web documentary - Popcorn maker, 3WDoc and Klynt. It’s a rich programme with concurrent sessions running much of the time which has been carefully structured to provide the space for in-depth discussion of work and ideas.

I really hope to see you all there!!! This is going to be a fab 2 days!!!

In the mean time do explore the  i-Docs website which is fast becoming a rich resource for all people interested on i-docs  (from a research and academic point of view). You’ll find academic and blog references, an archive of existing i-docs , a forum open to discussions about all the possible forms of i-docs you can think of. A team of experts have joined forces to open the discussion on what is interesting and/or new in this emergent field, and on the ethical, aesthetic, political and financial consequences of the i-doc genre. We welcome your participation! Feel free to mail your papers and ideas to the co-editors of our discussion section, or simply comment on their posts.

Do spread the news and do participate!

For documentary lovers IDFA (Interanationl Documentary Festival Amsterdam) is like a sweet shop full of wanderful temptations… and for the interactive documentary festival lover it is  a bit as a treasure hunt… where lots of jewels can be found, and they are spread here and there in the city. Could there be a better excuse to visit such a wonderful town as Amsterdam?

I went to IDFA just for DocLab (the new media part of the festival), where fifteen idocs have been selected to illustrate the best stuff around this year. Follow the link to see their selection. The man behind DocLab is Caspar Sonnen: as early as 2008 he understood that the idoc genre was here to stay and to expand, and he created DocLab – that is still one of the best places in the world to spot and discuss interactive documentaries.

But there is more than fifteen idocs at DocLab: there is an exhibition space dedicated to idocs experiments and installations - Expanding Documentary – lots of talks and live presentations of projects by their authors, and also a forum where a few interactive projects are pitched in front of commissioning editors and potentially funding partners (this is the match making part of the festival).

So… what did I come back with in my DocLab goody bag? The jewels I found through my own teasure hunt are of different nature: people, projects, ideas and debates got all mixed up in my DocLab reward bag, and this is why it is so difficult to give them an order. I shall try.

First: simulating reality, rather than representing it, can be very powerful – but it needs an aim

I enrolled to, and tried personally, the experimental 3D VR project presented at the Exploding Documentary exhibition: CAPE. CAPE is a virtual walk through a 360 video world of Brussels where a virtual character guides you by hand. This is a bit difficult to explain, so I shot a video to explain it better.

The plot itself is just a tour around strange places in Brussels, but what is interesting is the possibility of being catapulted physically in another reality and adapt instantly to such virtual real/physical space. How can this technology be used in documentary genre? I could not help but linking it to Nonny de la Pena latest experiments – such as Hunger in LA (to be launched at Sundance Festival in Jannuary!).

Second: interactivity needs to be meaningful and project-appropriate

I finally met Casper Sonner, the guy beyong DocLab. He is the sweetest and most competent person I have met in this field for a while. With a typical Dutch casual and relaxed style he manages to hold together demanding guests, technical issues, introduction speeches and last minute panics. When introducing the idoc genre said something that made me laugh: “interactivity is like salt: it does not get better if you put more of it”. This is so true! How many projects are currrently adding features just because “it is possible”? Should we first not question what we want to create – as an experience, as a meaning- and only then decide what sort of interactivity is appropriate to convey such message/feeling? This brings me to my thirds point.

Caspar Sonnen at DocLab 2011 – photo by Sandra Gaudenzi

Third: the art of mobile Apps – interactivity as a way to perceive our environment differently

Barcode.tv had a double presence at DocLab: there physical installation where one could pick up white plastic objects in a room and barcode them to trigger a video (it was not working when I tried it and, to be honest, I do not think that as an exhibition it was particularly meaningful) and there was a Live presentation and debate of the project by David Carzon (Arte) and Hugues Sweeny (NFB). If you go to http://codebarre.tv/en/#/en you will see a sentence: “objects are like mirrors- they reveal who we are”. This ambitions project starts as a mobile app, and  only later became a website. The aim is to make you look at what is around you with different eyes. If you pick up an object (the act of selection is already a step towards awareness) you can then either barcode it by photographing it with your phone, or type its name into the  interface. This will spring up a video linked to the category of object you have selected. A pool of 30 artists created a 100 videos for barcode.tv

Carzon (ARTE) and Sweeny (NFB) presenting at DocLab – photo by Sandra Gaudenzi

When I first tried Barcode on the web I could not see the point of it – probably because the videoclips are not clearly connected with the object you have picked up (it is linked to the category of objects – so if you take “shoe” it will put it into the “clothes and fashion” section, and you’ll might watch a video about umbrellas…which might be a long shot from your original expectation). I think this is a floor in the project. But on the other hand I can see how, as a phone app, it makes total sense: it uses technology not to learn about things, but to see them differently. This type of idoc is not trying to inform us, but to get us out of what we perceive (or do not see anymore) all around us. This is quite powerful stuff! My next point goes exactly on the opposite direction…

Fourth: Proposition One or the art of immersive video.

Condition One is a technology (a technique of shooting with special lenses and a software to edit the rushes and author it for tablets) that is being launched and marketed at the moment. This is not a project per se, but a new way of presenting 180 degrees video (might be 360…I am not sure) where the user can navigate immersive video via his/er tablet or iPad. Imagine a gigantic image of which you only see a portion – the size of your iPad. In order to see the rest of the image you need to move your iPad around. This is supposed to make you feel part of the action. If you are not getting the concept – as it is quite complicate to explain it- do have a look to a part of the presentation that I recorder while I was there:

Now, this is a use of technology that is not trying to show you what you do not see, because what it is aiming at is the opposite: give you the feeling that you ARE there. This is not about changing approach, but about feeling immersed in the action.

They guys at Condition One did the fundamental mistake of using war footage to demo their technology. Show this at  a documentary festival and you switch on a bombshell: is it ethical to let you navigate into a war scene full of dead bodies? is the role of the filmmaker, and the editor,  not to select for the audience what should be seen? and if the filming is done at 180 degrees, then what is the point of having a cameraman – as there is no framing to be done? Wowww… the debate got quite animated!

But as Caspar Sonner rightly pointed out when you are browsing through the scene on your iPad you are effectively becoming the cameraman, and at this stage what is interesting are the decisions that YOU are going to make: are you going to watch that dead body or are you going towards that kids that needs help? We might have to learn when to use, and how to use such immersive video technology, but what is interesting is that along the path we’ll might learn even more about ourselves! Speaking about ethical decisions, which ones would we take if we were there?

This again points at the fact that technology per se is meaningless, it is its context of use that makes it useful, or not. And with “context” I move to my next point…

Fifth: the interface as context

Context is what gives meaning to our acts. Everything is situated. But what creates a context in an idoc?

While Bruno Masi was presenting La Zone, an idoc about the ghost area around Chernobyl, I could not help noticing that  his project made much more sense to me while he was explaining and introducing the videos, live, than when I was navigating through it on the web. The reason is clear: Masi was aurally expressing the context of his work, and therefore providing it, a context that is lost in the project itself. The three levels of navigation that are offered to the user are guiding through layers of videos, but they do not explain why such videos are crucial and how they might be meaningful within the global narrative. Arranging content into three levels gives videos an order, like in a map, but not a purpose nor a meaning.

As Sweeny and Carzon said in their presentation, color, font, navigation and interface all give meaning. The interface is as important as the content. And to this I would add that the interface does not only give the tone, the look and the mood of a project, it offers the entry and exit points, limits and possibilities… which effectively is what context is and does…

And finally: from desolated zones to playful cities…

Sixth: INSITU, or interactivity as playful poetry

INSITU has just won Best Digital Documentary at IDFA!!! Congratulations Antoine Viviani!

Interestingly enough this is probably the least interactive of all the projects that were presented at DocLab this year- it is effectively a 90 min movie on urban art performances covering different countries, with three  interactive points. Refreshingly director Antoine Viviani does not see interactivity as a must have, but as a plus that needs to be weighted depending on the topic of the idoc. Since INSITU is a symphony of city poetry –  I sincerely suggest that you watch it online, as it is really so beautiful and subtle as a movie – it generates a dreamy atmosphere that does not call the user to act or change the plot, but rather to dream with it, maybe by listening to people’s thoughts in the tube, by a simple click of the mouse…

INSITU proves that interactivity can be linked to fantasy, playfulness and dream, and does not always be linked to decisions or choice.

In conclusion: a lot of interactive projects have been presented to DocLab this year. Please go an see their website as I cannot review them all.  What I came back with from this trip to Amsterdam is a lot of fog (litterally!) and the conviction that it is not technology but a carefully balanced syntax between interactivity and context that makes a project work, or not. Interactivity can lead to choice,to dream or to immersion, while context can be provided by a narrating voice or by an interface… but those elements need to work together to build a whole.

Kat Cizek, and her NFB team, have just launched Highrise’s latest baby: One Millionth Tower.

This is the fifth experiment in four years of what is now becoming a networked documentary, rather than a simple idoc. When Highrise started at the NFB in 2008 it was described as a “multi-year, multi-media documentary” but I have to admit that the whole concept was not very clear to me. By the time Highrise launched Out My Window, in 2010, the idea that digital media was not just used to document vertical living, but rather to explore it, started to make more sense to me. But I had to write an article to understand how each of Highrise’s offsprings was not a separate project, but  a new bridge that continued an exploration started before.  I then called Highrise a “relational object”, because it became clear to me that while each project had its own goals, its characters and its interactive logic, as a whole, if you zoom out of it, Highrise looks like a series of pathways that slowly link territories that were not connected before. I suppose it took me time to see this because each project being so totally different (the Thousandth Tower invites residents to document their vertical living, Participate asks people around the world to upload photos on Flickr, Out My Window uses 360 degrees video and allows you to understand people’s lives through the exploration of their flats…) they feel as separate units. In a way they are: they use different technologies, they involve different people and they are made for different purposes. But then, in another way, they also have things in common: they all speak of vertical living and, more importantly, they treat digital media not as a way to document the world but as a way to change it. While Highrise opens up the discussion about our vertical cities at a global level, it also stays focused on its goal: empowering local people to change their environment, if they wish to. Global in scope and yet local in action. Empowering the subjects and informing the world. Macro and micro linked by a narrative thread. Technology used to push the limits, and create the new…

Now… if you see it like this, this relational objects starts to have a life: it creates a dynamic of change and then it moves to its next challenge. Like the rippling effect of a stone launched in water, each wave leads to another one. And yet: it would not have been possible to predict the next wave, as neither Kat, nor her team, are trying to control this living network, the just make sure it can evolve. Seen like that Highrise looks as a fascinating living network to me…

It is with all this in mind that I arrived to London’s Frontline club, on Monday 7th of November, to see Kat’s presentation of their newly launched One Millionth Tower.

This time Highrise experimented with 3D spaces, Popcorn technology and webGL. Why going in such controversial gaming aesthetic when you come from video and documentary? Well… to start with Kat is a documentary maker, but she has a background in graphics and photography – which explains a lot about the aesthetics of Highrise mixing stills and playing with 2D and 3D representation of space. But more importantly One Millionth Tower has a story: the residents of a tower block have been involved into the redesign of their communal external space, they have worked with architects to imagine the possible and then with animators to visualize the possible… this is what is being documented thought the project… and since it is about redesigning space, then they have decided to visualise it “in” space, hence the 3D navigation.

Now… what is it that is visualized in One Millionth Tower? The 3D world that they have created is NOT just the final result of such common production. The animated view of what the space could look like, if there were fundings to build it, is just ONE of the SIX stories that are being told in One Millionth Tower. This means that the 3D world that has been created is more than a standard architectural 3D animation: it is a storyworld. And what does it contain?

This is where it gets tricky, as my computer graphic card is not good enough to support webGL… so I have not managed to experience the space by myself. But here is what I understood during Kat’s demo – and I include a short extract of her presentation for the 58% of people that, like me, rely on already-old-media to study new media!

Extract of Kat Cizek’s presentation of 1MT, London 7.11.11 – shot by me

So… while you are moving with your arrow keys into the 3D space, two technologies are working together:  webGL allows the 3D experience to happen in the browser while Popcorn.jr links the place you are in to the next action script, and to real time data – so that if you are exploring the space at night, Popcorn will link to the real time and weather conditions at the tower block. Popcorn acts as a conductor of your experience – making sure that things do happen to you, as in any good game environment – but it also links you back to reality (real time and weather in Toronto), because this is not a game, it is a 3D documentary experience.

And what is a 3D documentary experience?

Nonny de la Pena has already plaid with this concept in 2007 when she re-built Guantanamo Bay in Second Life. In Gone Gitmo 3D space was used to simulate a reality to which neither the media nor the public had access to. The 3D space was built by using rigorously documented material and the user would experiment what it is like to be locked in Guantanamo Bay. The interest of the project was that Second Life was used to simulate things that exist in reality, and to reflect on them.

But in One millionth Tower, the reality is still to be re-built. The 3D space contains a mixture of videos and graphics that sometimes speak about the resident’s dreams, sometimes show what their gardens could look like and sometimes leaves you wondering in the in-betweens of stories… wondering what sort of space you are in… trying to make sense of how you navigate and listening to the sounds that subtly guide you toward the next story. I cannot comment at the “user experience” of it, as it does not run on my computer, but by watching it being demonstrated by Kat I had the feeling that, as a space, One Millionth Tower feels a little too artificial. Although a lot of maestry has been used in mixing graphics, animations and videos – which is a challenge in itself! – it looked to me too much as a “container space” rather than an “explorable space”. Somehow I had the feeling that it was there to give me access to the six stories, but that the space itself had no independent life to be explored, I did not feel the urge, or pleasure, to get lost into it. I know this sounds weird, but anyone that likes walking into an unknown city would know about the flaneur’s pleasure found into thinking that a space is rich, rather than directive.

This being said, while Kat was navigating through One Millionth Tower it also occurred to me that although  space is used to navigate through stories (much as in Out My Window, but just here it is a 3D space, and it appears larger than a single virtual tower) in reality the added value of it is in representing a dense and layered space. Let me explain what I mean by it: effectively the stories that are made accessible by such space represent different stages, and times, of reality. While you access time as “present time”, through a video of residents telling you about the absence of communal areas and paths between one tower block and the next, you move to “dream time”, listening and watching animations of what could be built, and therefore you land in “future time” as you visualize a possible space that Highrise is helping in becoming.

Also, different media are been used for different purposes: video documents residents’ ideas, graphic animations visualize a dream, or a potential, and sound creates the fluidity that links the two. All of One Millionth Tower seems to be a metaphor of Highrise as a whole: a space for linking present, dream, and future – a space for action. It is not by chance then that this time it is you, the “external user”, that have to navigate the space. Highrise takes care of making change possible by putting its subject in contact to the relevant authorities, and to the world, through the web, and through you. Now that you are watching you have been “linked”, “networked” to this web of change… what will you do? Browse? Make sense? Escape? This is now down to you…

Kat Cizek started her talk by reminding us Grierson’s definition of documentary as “creative treatment of actuality”. As I sit here thinking of One Millionth Tower I wonder… if the “actuality” is the need to feel entitled to participate in the construction of our own cities… what is the “creative treatment” here?

For me the “creative treatment” in One Millionth Tower consists in creating a space that can visualize our right to action. It is a space that tells the stories of others, but that reminds us that we are in that same space while we navigate it, we are not external to such reality,  this is our world too. As a user experience it might be that this space does not quite work yet, or maybe it works for some and not for others, but what is important here is the message it sends out: we are all connected in creating a space where reality unfolds. Reality is layered, connected and in constant movement: where are you right now in this?

Plof, the wave has started rippling. I do not know where this will lead us to, but one thing is sure: the process has started and we are part of it.

There will be a full presentation of One Millionth Tower on Monday that I will attend so… I’ll right more about it then!

The Call for Participation is just gone public: have a look to it do send us your propositions for papers, presentations, workshops, panels or ANY alternative forms of debate!

i-Docs is rapidly establishing itself as a unique community event, where i-doc producers, broadcasters, academic, artists and researchers can meet and exchange ideas that will influence the  future of i-docs. Don’t miss out!

Now: the morning was all spend at explaining how trans-media is the next big thing – and how all major Hollywood companies should expand into it, if they have not done so yet. Trans-media producer guru Jeff Gomez was clear that Walt Disney had already embarked in this new revolution, and the lovers of Harry Potter will see how PottersWorld is much more than an advertising coup: it is a new logic of dialogue between the audience and the author.

All this is very good… new revenue streams, new jargon to learn, new creative opportunities, new trends to speak of at conferences… but what does this do for i-docs? – was my inner question. I started to wake up when Lance Weiler showed his latest mixed reality performance: Pandemic – a five days game/experience. In the same league,  Christopher Sandberg too showed some of his magical productions, including Conspiracy for Good. They are all immersive stories in which people give up a lot of time – more than one day!-  to live in the woods, sleep into nuclear reactors or re-enact World War I. Now… those are all mixed reality stories (games/performances?) that mix different media with physical experience in order to “feel real”. This seemed to be the clue point: when you are immersed in real life, it feels “real”.

My first reaction was: who the hell has the time to sleep for one month into a nuclear reactor (or something similar)??? This was obviously beside the point. The fact that I would have zero time for it does not mean that other people – that have a life, or not- are very happy to “go for it”. I suspect the point actually is another one: taken to this level “trans-media” has nothing to do with having a story world that is spread between more than one media, it becomes a mixed reality performance – as the part experienced in the “physical world” is the glue that then gives the participants the reason to go on their mobile phones, their iPads and computers to solve the quiz, or dismantle the conspiracy.

So: real life as the “experience”, and mixed media as “our tools”. Are we going backwards or forwards in our media approach here?

Also: the abundance of conspiracy plots is a bit sickening to my taste – although I understand how this is a good driver for the participants (but have we not all seen too many Hollywood films on this? do we really need to become the heroes of a movie we have  seen a thousand time?). OK, I am being simplistic here.

But: if the clue of trans-media is to perform, what has Highrise to do with it? All of Highrise, and its others sub-projects, are accessible via internet. We might be able to send a picture through Flickr for Participate, but that is about it. We are not moving into a Tower block, we are following what their inhabitant see. So is Highrise a trans-media documentary? To my understanding, no. It is a multi year and platform agnostic project that keeps re-inventing itself, but  not a performance, not a mixed reality documentary and therefore not a trans-media project either.

I know I am being a bit pedantic here. But sometimes precision is useful. What it showed me is that even trans-media experts are mixing projects that are certainly new media, often cross-media, but not necessarily trans-media!

And finally: how can the trans-media mixed reality logic be used into a factual context? Are there any projects that are “simulating” the real? Is it about re-enacting factual stories? Is it about building a real story – as it happens – as opposed to look at the past events? Those are really the questions that fascinate me: where, how, when can we build a reality instead of representing it… and what are the moral consequences of this approach?

And for those who are looking for inspiration in the mixed reality / augmented reality / trans-media world… have a look to the video below… I am sure that ideas will start blossoming!

if not, just read more about it here, or check its website here.

Jonathan Harris at Pace/MacGill Gallery – Social Media Exhibition from Pace/MacGill Gallery on Vimeo.

Eva Dominguez gives an overview of those 4 content editors in an article written for lavanguardia.com.  Have a look to it… it will maybe give you some ideas for your next production!

Although both dissertations have their weak points (they effectively needed some extra time to write a final draft) I think that they are both refreshingly positive and courageous. Moreover they use case studies to show how user participation in an i-doc can be life-changing (in the case of someone who decides not to join the American Army) or eye opening (in the case of 18 days in Egypt).

I am uploading both dissertation (with the consent of their authors) in the hope that students and scholars interested i-docs get inspired and continue the debate! Also, if you have comments on Filippo and Dickon’s work please send it here and I’ll make sure they get it.

Dickon Waring: Is there a role for interactive documentary within modern day activism?

Filippo Bonino: Is interactivity in interactive documentaries exploited at its full potential?

CBC News correspondent Nahlah Ayed and Radio-Canada’s Ahmed Kouaou and Danny Braün spent two weeks documenting life in Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut whose 12,000 inhabitants are among the oldest group of refugees in the world. The website’s interactive, street-level interface allows you to follow some of their personal stories from inside the one-square-kilometre camp and experience firsthand Shatila’s maze of cramped, dark tenements, narrow alleyways and shabby infrastructure. Some videos are obviously very strong and the web-doc gives a good feeling of what life might be like in the camp.

This is a strong web doc: the topic, the interviews and the interface makes it very powerful. My only draw back is the hypertextual mode of interactivity. I personally have some problems in feeling engaged when I have to select people and click on them. My attention span must be short, or maybe I am not curious enough… but I tend to stop my exploration quite quickly…

By the way: the authors’ blog is also quite interesting!

“Cote fenetre, cote couloir” Upian’s new webdocumentary (online since the 8th of September) is a co-production with French train national service, the SNCF. This is a strange mixture between documentary (it explains what happens during a train journey and how many people need to work to make it an efficient service) and fiction (you can follow the story of two young girls that are on board of the train). Effectively it is what is normally called a docu-fiction. Its form is very simple: two windows, on one you follow the point of view of the two girls and on the other one you follow the logistics  point of view of SNCF.

cote fenetre

If the script is at time quite cheese (but I suspect the audience are young travelers – which by itself is not an excuse because who said that they need soap opera lines!) what I think is interesting in this form is the use of sound to give prominence to one of the two videos, and the exploitation of points of view. Effectively the interface that is used in “Cote fenetre, cote couloir” is a simplification of Figgis’ movie Time Code.

time code

If you remember Figgis did split the screen in four narratives which were playing at the same time – but only one sound track was dominant, allowing you to follow it properly while your brain was also following the other three plots from the side of your vision spectrum. Figgis also had an interactive version of Time Code, that he was performing at festivals, where he was doing the mixing of the narrative strands live, deciding each time which narrative would be dominant at each point and effectively constantly switching points of view.

What Upian has done is to go from four to two strands, but the clever part is to give direct control to the audience. A simple but effective logic: switch point of view when you like it by simply clicking on the video… Try it, it works quite smoothly. I am maybe not fascinated by the SNCF as a topic, but I think that this simple structure could well be used in lots of double sided situation: the justice system (barrister versus incriminated), school life ( teacher versus pupil),  daily life (parents versus kids), politics (dictator versus normal people) etc….

What seems at the moment as a compromise between interactive fiction, interactive documentary and interactive corporate marketing could well be exploited in activists i-docs, or in lots of other fields!

On Tuesday 2 August, SBS will launch the online documentary and interactive website, Goa Hippy Tribe (sbs.com.au/goahippytribe).

SBS commissioned this documentary project, releasing it first on Facebook – using the social network not as a marketing platform, but as an original content channel. In this way, the audience was able to follow the documentary in real-time and engage with the director, influencing his work.

Goa Hippy Tribe explores two of the major social revolutions of the past fifty years – the hippy movement, which changed the way we lived, and Facebook, which has changed the way we communicate. The project is about people who shared a common space and time on the shores of Goa, India, during the 70s ‘hippy revolution’ and how they re-united after more than thirty years, via social media.

SBS’s interactive website, sbs.com.au/goahippytribe, is distinctive in theme and form – featuring video interviews with the original ‘tribe members’, plus factsheets, music tracks, video extras and photo galleries, which become unlocked as you navigate your way through the site. This innovative story telling technique allows users to actively control which parts of the documentary they wish to view, rather than passively viewing, as they would with television.

Between 90 to 120 minutes of poetic essays on city artists and performances moves us between Berlin, Paris, Anvers, London and other cities linking the reports to a participatory map – where people can upload their own city art discoveries. The city is re-descovered as a place to listen to (sound is given a lot of relevance in the film) but also as a magic place full of surprises: a man dancing with diggers, a group of poets whispering poetry to city cleaners, urbanists dreaming of building passages between buildings, street artists hanging out from buildings… and also magic Pamelia playing music with the city  trhough her enchanting theremine instrument.

Although the latest baby of Arte’s website does not look very interactive to me, it nevertheless grabbed my attention through its subtility and finesse… For me In Situ would gain at becoming an installation… but even as a film it works well. Furthermore a certain activist theme is present through its interactive map, and its blog, that push people to express themselves and to create more in their environment.

See for yourself!

INSITU – international trailer from PROVIDENCES on Vimeo.

As I was researching a little how AR has been used in museums and educational contexts I came across this great article by Gary Hays. His article reviews different examples of what he calls “situated documentaries via Augmented Reality”. I propose that you read his blog for a full review of the genre, but what attracted my attention is the coming launch of Londinium on the 25th of July 2011.

Londinium is the result of a collaboration between London History Museum and the History Channel. It is an app that allows people to walk in the streets of the capital and see on their iPhones’screens how ancients roman used to live. Through augmented reality video, layered into the streets, you will see gladiators fighting, builders creating and listen to Romans talking (apparently you will hear the voices of the forum around you as you walk!).

Now… this is clearly a nice education app…but is it an i-doc? I do not want to go into this debate of education versus narrative. If there are historical documentaries I do not see why an AR app would not count as a historical i-doc… but, anyhow, my point is another one: is layering reality the same as augmenting it?

Augmenting suggests “adding”. Obviously an app such as Londinium “adds” life from the past to life as it is today. I get this. But is this past not still present, although not clearly seen-able? Is the past not just a layer that makes the present possible and that is therefore still present itself? Is reality not just “complex” and “dense” because of all this layering?

When soundscapes were allowing us to listen to voices of the past, in the early locative documentaries (such as 34 North by 118 West), we were talking of a “scripted space” (Lev Manovich)  or a “narrative archeology” (Jeremy Hight)… how can such space suddenly become “augmented” through video layers emerging on our geo-tagged iPhones? Is the assumption that video is “adding” (augmenting) more than sound?

My impression is that the arrival of  AR apps on our iPhones has created the usual techno frenzy where “video AR” is “better” than geotagged sound, and therefore “more”. This is obviously to be taken with a pinch of salt. To me the fact that the extra layering is “video” just adds a visual representation on top of “real” one. Yes it is sexy, and so? How can this add something valuable to a possible i-doc experience?

Now, here is my take – for what it is worth: we all know, after reading McLuhan, that acoustic space is better at dealing with layers of sound – as they can co-habit creating a richer space… while vision tends to exclude layering (we only focus on one thing per time)… could it be that Video AR can blur that old distinction between acoustic and visual space? If that was possible, then the real added value of Video AR would not only be to distract our kids showing ancient Romans while we are in a traffic jam, but to gradually blur both ac0ustic and visual space into a complex space. This complex space is a layered one, not an augmented one. It is reality as it has always been: complex, layered, in constant movement and situated. The novelty is in the fact that technology allows us to visualize a little part of this complexity. Video AR does not “augment” our reality, if anything it “simplifies it”, but still… such simplification is a step ahead from the normal assumption that reality stops at what we can see and hear with our senses.

When I am stuck in a traffic jam I tend to forget that this is only one layer of the reality that I am in. Although it would do me lots of good, I tend to forget that around me are years of history, maybe also the becoming part of my future, I forget layers of thoughts, of smells, of cosmic causalities and of other people’s presence. If a Londinium app can show me the legs of an ancient legionnaire, it might distract me, but it will not solve my traffic jam frustrations, nor give me a full visualization of the moment I am witnessing and yet… but I will be one step closer to that complex reality that dictates every single moment of my life.

What I am suggesting is that Video AR offers to i-docs the possibility to document layers of reality. For me its potential is not to augment reality, but to offer a way to document some of its complexity.

The project has been going around the globe since 2008, both as a website and as a moving exhibition (not to mention the book, the DVD, the poster, the postcards and all the relevant merchandising). I have played with the website a lot of times, but I had not seen the exhibition yet… so I was very excited to catch it in Brussels…

The archive of footage is indeed mind blowing. And the fact of watching faces coming from the whole world, speaking to you about  personal things, is really touching. Interviews have been devised by themes (family, war, women, fear, happiness, religion etc…) and each theme is projected in a hut (or in Brussels’ case there were lots of small rooms). As a result one browses through a gigantic space, coming in and out from viewing rooms, and moving from a woman speaking about death in an Indian village to a man speaking about love in Canada. If some times the experience is a little too “easy” (is it enough to cut back to back people just sharing a topic?)… I have to admit that the justaposition of themes and people can create some interesting contrasts.

For example: on the theme of “family” one could easily see how what we expect from marriage and children is culturally encrypted. The old man from rural Mali was obviously more interested in the sheeps that he got from his first wife than in some kind of soul meeting. But kids were good for looking after the sheeps, so it all made sense to him. When the cut moved to a German lady, she described family as “jail” – as the end of her independence. Love was for her an ephemeral dream. The next person was a Spanish girl that was dreaming of meeting the right man to give sense to her life through kids as, for her, family is the essence of love. The Japanese geisha that followed had sacrificed family life to live in the shadow of men that already had  families – but wanted other things from her…

The fact of cutting from almost cliched people from all over the world allows a dissonance of answers which creates new meanings. If we all know that family might mean love at times, and compromise at others, it might slip our minds that families are also an economic systems in rural areas and that marital love might not be as essential as our culture wants us to believe. After all sheeps can be more important  than passion in some part of the globe and, more importantly, love with the big “L” might not even be a requirement when looking for the perfect match.

So… there you are: a very simple idea (the one of creating a global database of how people live around the globe) mixed with a large budget (only possible if you are Yann Arthus-Bertrand) can be quite strong!

But more importantly: the fact of sitting in a room watching the interviews makes you spend a lot of time in the exhibition, and the fact of moving through space allows some interesting readings  (for example: I noticed that the room about “love” was full of people, while the one about “women” was nearly empty… interesting no?). This is a completely different experience than watching the website: first because of space and time, but also because the pre-cut films that are in each room are edited specifically to highlight cultural contrast. This contrast is not always obvious when browsing through the website, as one jumps from person to person without selecting the topics – and without knowing which are the best grabs!

All in all I really enjoyed the exhibition and it made me realize, once again, that installation i-docs can be very immersive and very touching…

I suggest you watch the video, as it rises a lot of questions… What it made me question is the difference between context of exposure to the piece and type of interaction. It makes a lot of sense to move within a space in order to understand, and experience, the scale of a flat… but really, what is it that we gain? Immersion, I suppose. In “immersion” there is the wow factor, the “hey, this is cool, I feel part of this flat”… but is this enough? Since I am not in the flat (I am in an installation space with another 50 people around me) how can we use such artificial representation to understand differently the same content that is on the web?

Would the mode of interaction be the key to add a layer to the piece? Space and scale are important for immersion, but is interaction not the next step to “relate” to content? From what I understand in the video people could interact by stepping into a spot of light on the floor. This means that instead of clicking an image with a mouse they phisically move into a spot of light. When movement becomes the key for change, things become interesting… in the same way that our world changes with us when we move within it (creating a whole where in and out is not relevant any more), an interactive documentary could use space to simulate, not reality, but our way to engage with it… This is for me the beginning of a new path in conceiving what interactive documentaries could do, or could become. I am not sure that moving into a spot of light is strong enough in this regard. After all this is a little bit too much a translation of the click of the mouse (a gesture that symbolises a decision). But… it is a beginning… To use our body as a catalyst for change is a way to realize how we perceive and relate to the world around us… and this is using interactivity at its most profound level!

Annabel Roux has used the tools to make an idoc scoop.it  page… check it out!

And if you wanted to know more about how to use webdoc.com, here is their video:

webdoc in action from webdoc on Vimeo.

Basically I claim that the interactive documentary should be seen as a relational object, and therefore it needs a new metodology of analysis that is not film related. In my chapter 4 I coin the term Live Documentary explaining that  the interactive nature of idocs gives them carachteristics and behaviours that are not graspable though film theory. I see in idocs levels of autopoietic behaviours (Maturana and Varela) that puts them in-relation with their user and their environment, and that changes both. I claim that assemblages theory (Deleuze, Guattari, Latour, DeLanda and others) can be useful to see idocs as layers of interconnected elements. Finally I establish four questions that I then use in my case studies to unfold both their autopoietic and assemblage nature.

Ok… this is a bit abstract and concise… but if you read chapter 4 it will hopefully be clearer…

If you do ever end up reading those chapters I would be very grateful if you could send me some feed-back on them. As you know all the material that is on my website is work on progress and it will need several re-iterations before finding its final PhD shape… I am happy to open up my research, and my thoughts, if this helps to start an interactive process of dialogue… if it stays only a one way process I think I would feel a bit cheated…

Also… feel free to use, but do not forget to quote!

A very political and serious topic indeed, and this time the format is very linear – in the sense that it is a real film that can be interrupted to have enhanced information about key points, and that has a space for indepth information about the EU and the way the crisis is dealt with. The movie follows European deputy Pervenche Berès, who is encharged of the special “crisis” commission report. You can follow her in her meetings, in her thoughts, in her deep left wing beliefs and in her struggles to convince other parties… But more than everything you can follow her in her dilemmas: can we solve an economic crisis just with financial tools? Does is not actually need a profound moral evaluation of where our society is at? How can we start this discussion?

Contraty to Journey to the End of Coal,  that was fundamentally photo based, with very little video, and a lot of branching narrative points – as you were made to play the role of a journalist/detective, this film is totally  video based and much less stylised that the other one… But this is a “serious” topic, and the climate is more educational than adventourous/gamish. Have a look to it, as it is a rare case of intelligent reporting over a complicate political dilemma. I actually quite liked it, even if it is not very interactive, because its interactivity follows the folds of the problematics that it enfolds. What I mean by this is that while I was watching I was thinking at why the crisis is so difficult to tackle from a political point of view and, as I was thinking about such issues, the interactive options that appeared were allowing me to go deeper into my questions…

In the same way that a good teacher brings you to the point were you are curious about the next thing that s/he is about to explain, Rapporteur de Crise leads you through the labyrinth of the European Parliament with a calm, but secure, friendly hand. Quite difficult to achieve actually!

Have a look to Rapporteur de Crise.

More about Honkytonk

More about Klynt - the interactive software used to author it

Have a look to http://www.chromaroma.com/ to play the game, or to read the BBC article to know more, or just have a look to the trailer below!

Chromaroma from Mudlark on Vimeo.

Do have a look to it!

Also: Ann Danylkiw, a PhD student at Goldsmiths, who was a super extra active twitter on the day, wrote this blog entry on i-Docs.

And finally: Alex Butterwoth, the author of The World That Never Was , did write the following article on Illuminations’ blog.

Voila’, if you did not manage to be with us those blogs should give you a flavour of the day. Also, do watch out the i-Docs website – as we should soon upload some video of the day…

Have a look to http://www.detective-avenue.com/ … Actually, I propose that you think of it like this: this is clearly a fiction… but how could we use the same logic and make a trans-media documentary that interests the 15-30 yrs old target group?

I thought the reply was too long to fit as a comment, so I include it here as a post from Arnau. I hope you enjoy it:

On multi-platform production: the case of “Guernika, pintura de guerra”, the first catalan I-Doc (CCRTV, 2007)

From my point of view (and in relation to the post of Sandra Gaudenzi: It is sleek and it works; is this enough? (February 2, 2011, http://i-docs.org/blog/), which compares the projects “Brèves de Trottoirs” (Olivier Lambert and Thomas Salva, 2010/2011)  VS  Dans un Quartier de Paris (Janet Murray, 1996), and put forward the question about the evolution of gender in fifteen years of its existence,  I think that this project perfectly illustrate the theme of the multi-platform production in relation to interactive documentaries.

Is a similar example to the first interactive documentary produced in Catalonia: Guernika, pintura de guerra, 2007 (translatable as “Guernika, war paint”).

As Gaudenzi said, “Brèves de Trottoirs” (translatable as “Sidewalk Shorts”) it is a 2010/2011 stylish French multi-platform documentary from writer Olivier Lambert and photojournalist Thomas Salva. The aim is to portray what they call “daily celebrities” living in  a complex city such as Paris. […] Janet H.Murray had already realised a very similar project at MIT:  Dans un Quartier de Paris.Murray’s project was done with a linguistic aim, but the idea was very similar: use digital technology (CD-ROM!) to simulate a walk in the streets of Paris and discover its diversity through the glances of its inhabitants.

On the other hand, 70 years ago, the German air command of Franco bombed Guernica, the Basques’ holy city. The brutal attack inspired Picasso to paint the masterpiece “Guernica.” Since then, this picture has become an universal cry against the barbarity of war. This idea led to the creation of a linear documentary called “Guernica, pintura de guerra” (http://www.tv3.cat/30minuts/guernica/home/), a project developed by the team of the program “30 Minutes” of Televisió de Catalunya (TV3).

The novelty and importance in this case is that, alongside the audiovisual documentary (http://www.tv3.cat/videos/219786691) and working with the team of “30 Minutes”, the CCRTVI (interactive section of Catalonian autonomic broadcast) developed three interactive documentaries that users could watch on three different platforms: web, digital terrestrial television (DTT) and Media Center. The contents of the documentary explore the interactive format and allow the viewer to extend their experience beyond the conventional documentary. The three applications provide information about the history and travel of “Guernica,” an iconographic analysis, composition and conservation of the painting, and biographies of people who have maintained a close relationship with this Picasso masterpiece.

Thus, with this project, Televisió de Catalunya opened in 2007 an innovative experience in television: the interactive documentary. On January 2007 it was launched by the documentary television program “30 Minutes” about the history of painting, and also simultaneously on three digital platforms: DTT, Media Center and a website on the internet. This allowed viewers to access, in an interactive way, a large amount of information: analysis of the picture, documents, interviews, biographies, games and more. The added value based on this initiative combines the long experience of “30 Minutes”, the great referral reports and documentaries program of TV3 news service, with next-generation interactive applications developed by Interactive CCRTV. This is ultimately a new way of watching television and audiovisual production design from the perspective of the multi-format and multi-platform, related to diffusion, and the platform, related to the display.

In relation to the last question of your post, I think that fifteen years of experiments in interactive documentary brought us to a better user interface and user experience (but not to a new language). Some of the experiments (early I-Docs) as French and American cultural offline CD-ROMS produced during the 90’s were already using these same resources and other platforms for display.

Some of these masterpieces are that:

1. Au cirque avec Seurat (1996). Hyptique, Reunion des Musees Nationaux, Gallimard Jeunesse, France Telecom Multimedia. Paris.

2. Dotze sentits (1996). Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Proa, Barcelona Provincial Council. Barcelona: Proa.

3. Joan Miró. El color dels Somnis (1998). Fundació Joan Miró, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Club d’Investissement Media. Barcelona.

4. Le Louvre (1994). Montparnasse Multimedia, Réunion des Musées Nationaux; Index. Paris: BMG Interactive.

5. Le mystère Magritte (1996). Virtuo. Brussels • them.

6. Makers of the 20th Century (1996). News Media, Digital Arts Zappa. Leighton Buzzard (United Bretanya): News Media.

7. Microsoft. Art Gallery (1994). Microsoft, National Gallery; Cognitive Applications Limited. London.

8. Moi, Paul Cézanne (1995). Index; Télérama, Réunion des Musées Nationaux.Paris.

9. Musée d’Orsay. Visit virtuelle (1996). Montparnasse Multimedia, Reunion des Musees Nationaux, Le Lab: BMG Interactive.

10. Opération Teddy Bear (1996). Index, Flammarion, Paris.

Interactive documentary (CCRTVI):

http://www.tv3.cat/30minuts/guernica/home/

Audiovisual documentary (TV3 – 30 minuts):

http://www.tv3.cat/videos/219786691

Brèves des Trottoirs

http://paris-ile-de-france.france3.fr/brevesdetrottoirs/#/home

Dans un quartier de Paris

http://web.mit.edu/fll/www/projects/StGervais.shtml

The Tribeca Film Institute is launching a New Media Fund aimed at supporting projects that go beyond normal filmmaking and which tackle crucial social issues. For 2011, the fund will award $750,000 in grants, and $1 million a year for five years afterward. The fund is a partnership between TFI and the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms initiative.

Read a CNET article about the whole scheme.

Check the Tribeca website

(and thanks to Hugo Rupert Soskin for passing on the news!!!)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20048013-52.html

Big names (Nick Cohen from the BBC, Alexandre Brachet from Upian, Matt Adams from Blast Theory and Florian Thalhofer) will show their latest projects and discuss their future plans… but we also have producers, directors and academics from all sort of backgrounds that will present their current work. What is exciting for me is to mix people that see interactive documentaries from a different angle. Even if it is a big generalization, I would tend to say that the producers are more interested in the financial side of things, the academics tend to investigate the consequences of the genre, the artists are excited about the expressive potential of the media… while the directors are more focused on the practicality and feasibility of the projects. Now… those people rarely mix together at conferences. The academic style is often too dry and theoretical to interest those who are hands on, and vice versa. For me though, all points of views have something to add to the discussion. I would say more: cross-fertilisation of ideas is essential to keep an open mind and learn something. I suspect the fact that I come from a television background, and that I am now in academia, puts me in that small niche of people who misses examples at academic conferences and gets irretated by the marketing tone of industry conferences…

I hope that with i-Docs we will manage to create that famous magic blend that is so rare: a space where worlds meet and start dreaming and constructing anew together!

I’ll keep you posted after the event…

Have a look to this great study done by the Canadian Documentary Network. It is called Documentary and New Digital Platforms: An Ecosystem in Transition and it is a good 56 pages report on what is happening in the idoc world. Worth checking!

Last week has been very active for documentary maker Katerina Cisek:  Highrise, the project she has been working on at the Canadian NFB for some years now, has just re-launched its website. At the same time they have launched a new experimental web-documentary, to fit under the umbrella of Out My Window: a collaborative photographic essay of views from the towers of the world called Participate.

Now… this is starting to sound quite complex, and indeed it is! Highrise “ explores vertical living in the global suburbs. It’s multi-year, many-media collaborative documentary experiment at the National Film Board of Canada, directed by Katerina Cizek, produced by Gerry Flahive” (see the “about” section of Highrise’s website). Being “multi-year” means that those guys have a good amount of time to explore the topic of suburbia and tower living around the world, and being “many-media” really means that they can explore and being  experimental with the use of digital and analogue media. Bottom line: this is a project that emerges from its doing, it evolves like ripples in water… one leading into the other… and that is its beauty. Very frankly: there is no other project at the moment that has such freedom of exploration and uses it as well as Highrise does.

But what is the interest of such vast experiment, and what does it consist on? I suspect its own growing is the very reason for which they just re-launched the website: it was starting to get confusing. Highrise contains several projects: the 1000th tower (a web-doc) and Out My Window (which takes both the forms of a  360 degrees web-doc and of a physical installation). But Out my Windows now has a new “feature” called Participate (that to me looks as an  independent participative web photo essay)…  if one tries to understand the project as a constructed whole, one misses the point. It is exactly because Highrise has an evolving journey that it can only be described through the timeline that allowed those ideas to emerge. You will be pleased to know that Highrise’s home page now acts as a mini-portal that re-directs you towards the section that might interest you, and that a very handy section called “The story so far” explains you the ramifications of the project to date (the journey is so well explained that I invite you to check it directly on their website, as it feels superfluous for me to cut and paste it).

Now… what do all those sections have in common? Of course they all speak about suburbia and highrise living. The very prologue of the project explains that global urbanization is the defining trend of the 21st century and that, since cities tend to grow faster in their edges, it is suburbia that seems to be at the forefront of the expansions of our cities. This brings us to our understanding of what suburbia is… and here is where we enter the sociological and political aspect of the project: can we re-shape suburbia? Should we? And first of all: do we understand suburbia? What is it like to live in a tower block? Which lives, mysteries, dreams, wishes or projects are inhabiting the thousand windows of a block that from the outside looks pretty much the same?

Highrise is not about suburbia, it is about our preconceptions about suburbia. Its political value is to use documentary as a way to bridge several worlds: the one of people living in tower blocks with the one of people living outside of them. But there is more: there is the relation suburbia-city, but also suburbia-other suburbia, and also the difference of suburbia within one city, and within other cities of the world… So the way I see Highrise is as a relational piece: it puts in relation people, worlds and realities… and this is why it is a damn good documentary (although it can use unconventional forms such as a Flickr photo essay or a physical installation in an art gallery – not to mention the web format).

One more thing: why are so many different projects essential to speak about one same thing? Well… to me this is where it gets really interesting: if one wants to create a relational object one has to create situations where those relations might emerge and create something new. When Katerina Cisek wants to understand what it might be like to live in a tower in Toronto she does not conduct a series of interviews and cut them into a clean edited video that illustrates her point of view; she goes in situ, meets people and asks them to tell their stories through The Thousandth Tower. Although the final result might not appear as a collaborative project, The Tousandth Tower explores a view of collaboration as personal engagement within a mediated piece. Katerina here acts as a facilitator, rather than as a narrator. This journey leads into a natural expansion: understanding tower living in other places in the world. So Katerina goes out again and crafts news bridges into other cultures using a new interface: a  playful virtual tower block that can be explored through Out My Window. Here again, technology is not just a gimmick: it is a way to explore new modes of relations. Katerina plays with 360 video technology as an explorer would use light in a cavern: it reveals stuff, it creates tension, it infuses curiosity… Finally this project, that has the merit of being international (the people portayed in the virtual tower block come from all around the world) reaches its own limits: it maybe lacks of spontaneity – as every person featured in it has been carefully selected by an editorial team. So, here again, another bridge starts its linking work: it is now Participate that is being launched. By allowing people around the world to spontaneously send pictures and stories of their life in tower blocks, this project tries to add another dimension to the project: spontaneous collaboration and crowd sourcing. Here collaboration has a different meaning than in the other projects: it is not a personal and long lasting bond that is created, but a spontaneous wish to be part of something.

When I write, and think, about  interactive documentaries I often try to see what they are good at: what is it that this interactive  media  adds to the whole process of documenting reality? For me Highrise encapsulate a lot of the potential of interactive documentary: it shows how an emergent and evolving process can be more effective than a linear one to describe a complex reality such as suburbia. It also shows that stepping out of the narrator’s chairs can be done in a multitude of ways, and that the route is wide open to exploration at the moment. Finally, Highrise shows that collaboration – the hype word of the moment- has multiple meanings, and that participation can be used in different ways to reach different results.

Now you know why I am a big fan of this project: because it shows that interactive media might be a very effective language to learn to relate with the complexity of our world; not through straight lines, but through layers and networked journeys of exploration…

CHAPTER 4- The Live documentary

CHAPTER 5- The Hypertext interactive documentary through the lenses of the Live documentary

Chapter 4, the Live Documentary, is my attempt to theorize interactive documentary from a new media prospective – moving away from any film theory and concepts of frame/editing and narrative. I try to see interactive documentary as a form that is defined by its interaction mode, that has levels of autopoietic behaviours, and that can be seen as an assemblage (where the whole is not the result of an author, an audience and a media, but of the infinite relationships formed by its components). I finally call the interactive documentary a “Live documentary” (to know more read page 6 of Ch4).

Chapter 5 is my first case study. I will have 4 case studies in my research, one for each interactive mode (Hypertext, Experiential, Conversational and Collaborative). This first case study is Florian Thalhofer’s [LoveStoryProject] – an example of Hypertext documentary, done with the Korsakow software.  I try to look at it through the Live documentary lenses, a methodology that allows me to look for the elements that constitute such assemblage and to question what kind of autopoietic behaviours it might have.

My next case study, Chapter 6, is already written but still needs lots of re-touching so… it will be up soon, but not quite now. I have chosen  Rider Spoke, by Blast Theory, as a case study of Experiential documentary.

If by any chance you do check those two new chapters please be so kind to comment on them on my website!!! I occasionally  have people sending me e-mails but you all seems  too shy to comment publicly… how shy should I be to upload stuff that has not been totally accepted yet? I do it because I believe that discussion and exchange of ideas is more important than anything else… so please do assist me on this! What I write (and what you comment) is meant not to be perfect… but if we share it we all learn and grow through it… if we keep it on a one to one level we cut out everybody else!

I have received an entry to the archive, by photographer Yuki Kishino, that is rather intriguing… In search for her is a desktop application (this is the first odd thing about it) that is photo based, but that tells a story, which itself explains a rather complicated “theory of human gravity”… The photos are as clean as a Japanese Haiku and the theory as incomprehensible as a piece of physics (at least to me!). To those two one has to add a story that is not a story, but that leads to a theory of encounters… As a result the feeling I had while running it on my computer was that there are three levels in this work that are apparently distinct, but that actually mix – or encounter themselves?- in a rather odd way.

I invite you to try this for your selves. In term of interactivity it is pretty basic, but it has an inner balance – and a grace- that are difficult to explain. The theory of human gravity still has some mysteries to me… but maybe one of you could elucidate me?

• Nick Cohen - Multiplatform Commissioning Editor, BBC, UK

• Alexandre Brachet – Upian, FR (Upian is the company behind Prison Valley, Gaza/Sderot and Portraits d’un Nouveau Monde)

• Matt Adams - Blast Theory, UK (Pervasive games specialists, Blast Theory is famous for Can you See me Now?, Rider Spoke, and their latest A Machine to See With)

• Florian Thalhofer - New Media Artist, DE (The inventor of the Korsakow System, the non-linear authoring tool which made Forgotten Flags, the [LoveStoryProject] and Rehearsing Reality possible)

So… what are you waiting for? Book your ticket now! I know I am co-organizing the event, and therefore I could be somehow biased, but for anybody interested in interactive video and new media documentary this is honestly an event not to be missed!

I found an article by Nicoletta Iacobacci (Head of Interactive TV/Eurovision at the European Broadcasting Union) that is actually quite clear on the topic. Here  is a selection of her article:

In a crossmedia environment, content is repurposed, diversified and spread across multiple devices to enhance, engage and reach as many users/viewers as possible. It is common to call crossmedia “content 360″. It is generally the same program re-edited for different screens, fragmented content disseminated on different platforms, possibly incorporating extra content and channels to extend the viewers’ experience. Brand here plays a key role and needs to be always identifiable. A typical form of crossmedia is when the plot of the story ends with a call-to-action, and drives the audience across different media. A good example is the BBC’s Spooks, where, at the end of the TV episode, a cheerful announcement gives directions to a website.

In transmedia storytelling, content becomes invasive and permeates fully the audience’s lifestyle. Stephen Erin Dinehart, who coined the term transmedia and created the VUP (viewer/user/player) relates this model to Richard Wagner and his concept of “total artwork” (“Gesamtkunstwerk“) where the spectator becomes actor/player. A transmedia project develops storytelling across multiple forms of media in order to have different “entry points” in the story; entry-points with a unique and independent lifespan but with a definite role in the big narrative scheme.

Check the article itself for more elucidations…

I personally think that this project is done with style and attention to the detail. The characters are interesting and emotionally grabbing (a 26 years old girl that invents the job of “explorer of flavours” , a homeless speculator, a papy dancer, a transvestite hairdresser…). The visual style is sleek (the use of photos to bridge between a video and another as a way to “stop time” is particularly effective). The graphic style is elaborate (an interface of Parisian street walls and posters allows the user to navigate within the project)… and the whole thing really works! (Yes, i did watch at least four stories and kept browsing for a good 30 minutes!)

And yet… is it really interactive? As authors Lambert and Salva said themselves in an interview for Nieman Storyboard “Brèves de Trottoirs is linear. You can’t create your own storytelling. That’s what we like to do. For that reason, our storytelling is not different from a traditional documentary”.

Although I like this project, because it really works, I am wondering what is new about it. In 1996 (15 years ago!) Janet H.Murray had already realised a very similar project at MIT:  Dans un Quartier de Paris. Murray’s project was done with a linguistic aim, but the idea was very similar: use digital technology (CD-ROM!) to simulate a walk in the street of Paris and discover its diversity through the glances of its inhabitants. Brèves de Trottoirs is obviously a thousand times more immersive and sleek than Dans un quartier de Paris: finally video can be full screen and good quality, and we can see that in 15 years graphic design has made miracles in inventing its own language – made of consistency and fluidity. So… has the evolution of interactive media language made all the difference between those two projects?  And is the so called multi-platform aspect of Brèves de Trottoirs adding anything to it?

Basically, what I am asking is: have fifteen years of experiments in interactive documentary brought us to a new language, or just to a better user interface and user experience? 

Here is how the project is described in its website:

Toronto, January 26, 2011 – Imagine your hometown never changed. That no one ever grew old or moved on. Part book, part film, part family photo album, Welcome to Pine Point unearths a place frozen in time and discovers what happens when an entire community is erased from the map.

Welcome to Pine Point is the first online interactive documentary from internationally renowned Vancouver-based creative team The Goggles (Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons), produced in collaboration with the NFB’s director of digital content and strategy, Rob McLaughlin. Inspired by Simons’ childhood visit to a mining town in the Northwest Territories, Welcome to Pine Point is accessible through NFB Interactive, the NFB’s online portal, which showcases an evolving collection of innovative, interactive stories exploring the world—and our place in it—from uniquely Canadian points of view.

Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons are award-winning authors, artists and creative directors. They have spent most of their professional lives telling stories in compelling new ways, creating unique books, magazines and television spots. They are most known for their award-winning work with Adbusters Magazine.

Interestingly enough, like me,  they just seem to realise that archiving all i-docs is mission impossible!!!! Not only there is too much happening, but it takes too much time for any person to follow it all… So they have introduced a “do it youself option” – a bit like me who offer a “contribute to the archive” option, inviting people to archive their own projects by themselves. If you go to the option “referencer son webdocumentaire” you can input your documentary. I am not sure about the language… does it need to be in French only?

I am coming to the conclusion that we should all join forces in a way or another to create a centralised  online archive/forum/resource/network about interactive documentaries. It does not make sense to have Webdocu.fr in one language, me & other blogs covering other things… we should unite efforts! Whenever I will have more time (will this ever happen?) it will be my next project.  Any person intersted in such project, just get in touch with me…

Stay tuned – in about a week a draft programme should be online at http://i-docs.org/

We need to wait for confirmation of the speakers before publishing the final programme but… it looks like a very exciting day so… even if you do not want to present, buy a ticket online and join the discussion on the day!

While last month Power to the Pixel was all about transmedia and documentaries (with big star Tommy Pallotta presenting Collapsus) Doc Fest kept the transmedia card quite low key. Somehow people seem to get used to the idea that a documentary now needs to have some sort of digital offspring… but their interest now is shifting towards financial concerns: how do you get financed and distributed in this brave new digital world?

In a land of “do it yourself and screw the regular TV channels” several options seem to emerge, from crowd-funding extravaganza to new web distributing channels. If last year the fashion was in following The Age of Stupid’s incredible self-funding route, this year more official channels were put on the foreground.

Babelgum has created an online platform to distribute film and documentary content. They sometimes help in the production process and look after the online rights of their clients. SnagFilms is another platform dedicated to documentaries that allow costumers to customize their viewing. With the advent of the new generation of set up boxes (such as 3view) that will allow streaming YouTube and iPlayer content straight into our televisions a new problem is hitting the industry: if TV scheduling is going to loose all its strength, to leave the place to a true video on demand logic on our television sets, who will promote and put our documentaries into the front line? Content aggregators such as Babelgum and SnagFilms are trying to position themselves as the option of the future: a trusted web channel for good content.

It seems to me that when most discussion turn to financial topics it means that people are less thinking about “shall we go interactive” but more about “how shall we do it”. As a result I did notice that there were fewer presentations of interactive documentaries than last year… most panels this year seemed to turn around practical matters.

I did assist though to an interesting presentation of “Seven Days”, Channel 4 latest reality TV series. Seven Days is the little brother of Big Brother. We do not follow people in a house anymore, but in a borough, Notting Hill – London. A selection of real life characters are allowing to be followed 24/7 and every week a new episode is being broadcasted. The novelty is that it is shot and edited in one week, but also that the audience can intervene and chat with the characters themselves via  the web (the dedicated channel is called ChatNav). Now… this two way communication means that audience comments are now influencing real life people in their daily acts! This is obviously the exciting and juicy bit for Channel 4, but I have to admit that it makes me raises some concerns about the ethic side of things: should we all be allowed to influence complete strangers of which we know very little – a part a one hour simplification of their life on television?

Finally Doc Fest does not have a digital award, but I had a few interactive documentaries running in the “cross-platform docs”. Those were:

1. Florian Thalhofer’s Planeta Galata
2. Doxwise
3. Arena Mash

I found this selection quite confusing as during the conference what clearly came out was that the interactive productions of the year were:

1. Out my window (NFB)

2. Prison Valley (Arte)

3. Collapsus (Submarine/VPRO)

4. Galata Bridge (Florian Thalhofer)

5. The waiting room (BAVC)

So… if those were the interesting interactive projects of the year… why were they not discussed and presented all together in a specific session? I must have missed something…

I leave it to you to go and browse those projects…

But a session was dedicated to docu-games and, surprise surprise, it was over-crowded. Are producers thinking that the easiest way to get some interactive stuff produced is to go towards the game logic? Or maybe it is the flip side of all this cross-media fashion which make documentary producers think that if they can sell the film to the television and the game to its website then they get their programme commissioned… All I know is that there were some very interesting projects.

SuperMe on Channel 4 caught my attention. In an article the Guardian explains “SuperMe was produced by Somethin’ Else for Channel 4 in partnership with the creative studio Preloaded, and is based on principles of positive psychology. As well as videos, there are facts, quotes and probing questions to help players build life skills and deal more positively with bad experiences. Players earn points for connection, influence, wisdom and ability through a number of different games including Proximity, where players have to use teamwork to fly through a series of gates, and the navigation game Swerveball, which challenges the user to accurately recall how well they performed”. The great idea behind SuperMe is to use a mixture of videos to deliver information to teenagers and of games to keep them into the website – and learn through playing. For such a difficult subject as “happiness and teenagers” I think this is a very clever approach.

Nick Cohen from the BBC presented Wallage and Gromit’s World of Invention, a game website aimed at interesting a young audience to science and engineering. By building, doing, experimenting online kids can develop the skills, and the passion, that they will need later in their studies. Sounds like a fun project… not really a documentary… but still fun for kids.

Last was another Channel 4 production: Trafalgar Origins, an online battle game rigorously designed respecting historical evidence of the battle itself. Here it was the historical accuracy that was interesting – also because the kids that play will probably never know that they are being historically correct!

I like what Margaret Robertson, from Hide and Seek, said during the session “Games give a dynamic system to relate to reality, and they are good at making us change behaviour”… this sentence summarizes for me the potential for edu-games when mixed with documentary logic: they can inform, entertain, build skills, but also make us relate differently to reality…

Over all Doc Fest was very enjoyable, as always, but from my niche point of view it did not have enough to offer for people that look at the interactive and cross media development of documentaries.

I am now really hoping that i-Docs, which I will co-host with John Dovey and Judith Aston in Bristol on the 25^th of March ,will be the right platform to discuss in depth what is happening in the interactive documentary world!!!

So… feel free to play with it. The 360 degrees videos are an interesting technology…although I am not too sure what they add to the whole story… I have mixed feelings about this project: it is old and new at the same time. I like the idea of a virtual building, but I am not sure that the individual stories are strong enough… I probably need to play with it more… let me know what you think of it!

Here is an example of the 360 videos:

Doc on Web
Uploaded by La_Scam. – Watch original web videos.

‘A Machine To See With’ is being launched this week in San Jose. There is no YouTube video about it yet… so I cannot really comment on it. But for those of you who are in that side of the world, or that just want to follow this project, here is the blurb that I received by e-mail by Blast Theory:

‘A Machine To See With’ is Blast Theory’s new work, produced through the inaugural Locative Cinema Commission by partners ZER01: The Art & Technology Network, Sundance Film Festival‘s New Frontiers Initiative and Banff New Media Institute at The Banff Centre.  Developed through a residency at the Banff New Media Institute and premiering this week at the 2010 01SJ Biennial, ‘A Machine To See With’ is a work for pedestrians and their mobile phones and puts participants inside a movie as they walk through the city. Following the premiere in San Jose, the work will be presented at Sundance Film Festival in January 2011 and Banff Summer Festival in July 2011. ‘A Machine To See With’ mixes documentary material, stolen thriller cliches, and the films of Jean-Luc Godard and invites you to become someone else. Step inside a film as you walk through the city, receiving phone calls. Are you the protagonist or a bit part player? Start making decisions and you will find out. Blast Theory is supported by Arts Council”

Sounds super exciting….

Have a look to Arte’s website if you are fluent in German… the smooth panoramic interface effect looks great!

Ah… and the linear documentary version goes on air on Arte TV this September 27th at 23.30… tune in!

A year down the line its director Katerina Cizek is clearly cooking an intriguing collaborative project using 360 degrees images.  Her team first announced that they were  prototyping an art installation in physical space (to re-translate digital space into physical one) and now they are asking for collaboration from all of us who live in a tower block (sending our highrise views to a Flickr account). How are they going to assemble them is a mystery… but from what I understand both a website and an exhibition should come out of it soon…

Although 360 technology is sexy, the point here is to know how it will be used. In her last project for NFB, Filmmaker-in-Residence, Katerina Cizek took very seriously the meaning of “collaborative” media.  During 5 years she worked with the medical staff, and with the patients, of an inner-city hospital… and it is only through deep rooting into their universe that she emerged with the version of the interactive documentary that is available online – and on DVDs. I am really curious to know what type of collaboration she is experimenting with in her new project, Highrise. After having directly engaged with a selected group of tower residents in Toronto (see their descriptions of their space and the presentation that has been organized with Toronto’s major here),   they are now asking everybody to send photos to Flickr… is this a contradiction or a cleverly balanced dose of crowd sourcing and intimate collaboration?

And also… is 360 degrees technology an aesthetic landscaped choice or does it experiment with new type of digital interaction?

I am afraid that for now they are the only one to have the answers… maybe they want to share some information with us?

I suggest that you have a look to it as the online project makes use of Google Maps and Google Street View to incorporate images of the viewer’s home town into the video. It also opens different windows at specific times and allows you to draw a postcard and send it back into the video itself. The use of google maps to personalize (customize?) a video is new to my knowledge… and it really works!! While you are looking at the video you cannot unglue your eyes from a setting that you really know well (since you lived there!).

This type of personalization could also be used in interactive documentaries…. imagine a topic like bulling, or education, where you are fed images of your own school as opposed to the institutionalised image of “a school” (in the UK Victorian schools seem to be the chosen as representational image).

Also, the use of windows – as opposed to picture into picture editing- is really working well. Image juxtapose themselves adding meaning to the other one – as opposed of composing a new “unique” image.

Even just for the inspiration and breath of fresh air… have a look to http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com

I need to do some extra research before entering it into the archive. If you have any comments or extra  information please shout now!

Have a look to  http://linterview.fr/new-reporter/le-moteur-de-recherche-du-web-documentaire/ and type any topic or location… and a list of web project will come up (photo-journalism, interactive news, web-docs etc…). It does work for English projects too but it is less effective (if you search for a topic you need to do it in French!).

LINTERVIEW web site is really worth checking. They do interviews, they follow what is happening as we speak. I am not too sure who is behind it (I shall enquire) but it is a useful resource…

If you subscribe to their newsletter they also inform you about interesting stuff. Today I received a link to a 40 minute piece on the web documentary format (http://linterview.fr/new-reporter/les-webdocumentaires-revolution-ou-effet-de-mode/) and to an interview to David Dufresne about Prison Valley : http://linterview.fr/new-reporter/les-coulisses-de-prison-valley-par-david-dufresne/.

Have a look… !

check it out at http://globallives.org/

read about it at http://globallives.org/ybca/media_information_sheet_GLP.pdf

The production team of GDP has also opened to the public their delicious page. Over time they have collected  a great list of docu-webs! This is a great research resource for anybody interested in interactive documentaries… have a look to http://delicious.com/gdpib and discover more photo essays and docu-journalism pieces than you can ever imagine. Well done to GDP’s team to open so generously to all of us such a great archive!

Have a look to their trailer. If you are interested in this project you can also subscribe to their newsletter.

This is how they describe the project on their website: “HIGHRISE, a multi-year, multi-media, collaborative documentary project about the human experience in global vertical suburbs. We will use the acclaimed interventionist and participatory approaches of the award-winning National Film Board of Canada’s Filmmaker-in-Residence (FIR) project. Our scale will be global, but rooted firmly in the FIR philosophy — putting people, process, creativity, collaboration, and innovation first.”

Worth following…

Have a look to arte.tv/afrique. I think this is a nice attempt to speak about the 50 years of African independence by doing a series of web-documentaries. Each African country is represented by an interesting guide (normally someone hip and young) that shows you around during a day. Really well done for a young public!

France 5’s project is safer, but still quite brave: it picks on issues of the  “New World”  (ecology, immigration, capitalism etc…) and covers the topic trhough 3/4 webdosumentaries. You can have a look to their portraits on China france5.fr/PNM.

BBC is currently broadcasting its series about the history and consequences of the web. The original title “Digital Revolution” – which was opened to crowd sourcing – has finally become “Virtual Revolution” (the crowds were not very inspired, after all). It is currently downloadable on  BBC iPlayer – or broadcast  on Saturdays on BBC2. For those who have been following this blog, you might recall that BBC has called it an “open source documentary”… and this has been the source of several blog entries since I personally think that it is not open sourced at all – although it allowed some input from the viewers during the production phase.

But the reason of today’s entry is that – honouring what they had announced 6 months ago-  BBC has launched a “3D documentary explorer” to allow an interactive viewing of the series content. This effectively means that you can either watch the programmes on TV (or on iPlayer) OR go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/3dexplorer_start.shtml and view it online in a 3D environment that allows you to jump off at any time from the video content and  browse related websites. Effectively what BBC has designed is a clever visualization tool that simplifies navigation in and out of the video stream and allows you to jump in between segments of the video itself. A glorified DVD navigation with the added bonus of web links.

But what sort of experience does this browsing create?

I have to admit that I was quite sceptical when I tried it out. At first I thought that the paste of the video was too different from the paste of the web browsing. When you start watching the episode you do not feel like browsing out of it. TV editing is made to keep you inside the story – and not to allow you breaks of freedom out of its narrative.  But after a while I liked the idea of having a topologiacl view of the whole content of the series.

In a way the 3D explorer is any TV producer’s dream: a way to show you all the research that has been made while doing the documentary itself and still keeping you tuned to the author’s linear documentary. Is the explorer also responding to the viewer’s dream? I do not know… probably not mine… What I am searching in new media is a way to show some of the layers that compose any reality. I like the idea of representing the multiple. Here the 3D explorer adds layers of information to the video stream… is this enough?

Well… I suppose it is a first step. But we stay in the informational layer of “associated data”. Nothing is shown about the users that have collaborated to the documentary via the crowd sourcing process that the BBC has experimented with. Nothing is said about the multiple other ways in which the history of the web could have been depicted. There are no doubts, no other possibilities, no other paths… just some clinical extra information to support the argument of the film.

Behind a sexy visualisation tool that gives a 3D effect to the story a strangely flat view of reality emerges: a reality that is supported by objective data, a reality that gives more of the same and does not consider “the rest”, or the “possible other”. Maybe the documentary explorer is not that 3D after all… which is a shame, because something was there… somethig could have emerged…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/3dexplorer.shtml

Tobias Hülswitt:

In my opinion, the Aristotelian way of storytelling, i.e. storytelling that’s

based on Aristotle’s Poetics, which was brought to perfection in Hollywood,

is a metaphysical system. First because the storyline functions as the

literal metaphysics above the characters and the action, since everything in

the narration has to obey the storyline. Secondly because the storyline

represents the superior order, in which everything, even the death of the

character, makes sense, since it supports the dramaturgy. Thirdly because

Aristotelian storytelling contains the assumption that there is a true self, an

inner core, to the story – if you take away all the scenes, there is still the

inner strong idea, the true self of the story, it’s just not embodied anymore,

it became an animus, a specter or ghost. People are stories too. People

who are told stories in the Aristotelian way tend to believe they have a true

self. The same goes for nations. The true inner self is another

metaphysical concept. Many problems arouse from these concepts. (For

example a general life panic.) – Now if you look at youtube as a narration,

that’s different. There’s no true inner self, if you take away all the ’scenes’

or narrative units, there’s nothing left. Everything can be replaced. Is that

the narrative of the future?

RAY KURZWEIL:

If you look at phenomena like youtube or blogs, they are tapping into a

wisdom of crowds, which is not directed as an Aristotelian concept of a

story. It is self-organizing instead, but it ends up having a lot of wisdom. So

any one blog might be just series of flames, but the whole blogosphere is

very powerful in uncovering the truth of a situation. And Google doesn’t

have its library to decide what link is going to come up when you search an

elephant – it’s a self-organizing system that is based on the decisions of

millions of people. It’s really tapping into the wisdom of crowds. So these

new technologies are actually allowing us to create a supermind from all of

our minds, which can outperform the most brilliant mind. There’s not that

much difference between different people, but if you can actually tap

thousands of millions of people it leads to insights that would be impossibly

any other way. There are limitations to storytelling, I mean, Hollywood for

example, there’s a certain Hollywood paradigm, like love wins in the end,

and certain rules, and you can pick out the story that will come out in the

end based on those overriding concepts. Real life tends to be messier than

that. But people have some idea of the narrative of their own lives, they

tend to overlook some of the real complexity of their lives based on the

narrative that they tell themselves. And I think we can come to deeper

insights by looking at the messy reality of the world. There is a content that

goes beyond just the videos on youtube and the content of blogs, it’s

interacting with each other and it’s self-organizing, and it does come to

some deep insights.

Extract taken from an interview with RAY KURZWEIL (Boston, January 10, 2008) done by Tobias Hülswitt  (full interview available at http://institut.korsakow.com/_texte/RAY-KURZWEIL-INTERVIEW.pdf )

This is an incredible networked journey through interviews of scientists, artists and creators that allows you to effectively create your own documentary out of a database of interviews. Since the theme is that “everything is connected” the interface allows you to link – and see your path- between ideas, concepts, topics and people…

Really worth browsing- great topic and great design!

So for me the big news is that even documentary makers are now puzzled by the options that new media might offer to their craft… For me, after 10 years researching this field and saying that new media is not a threat but an opportunity… this is quite refreshing!!!
Of course classic documentary makers are still sceptical. They wonder what the difference between a cut and a link might be, they fear that interactivity creates new problems of ethics, they question how the lack of a unique ending could ever create a strong narrative…. They basically resist this form as much as they can (and stay very critical about it)…. but – and here is the change- this year they massively turned up at the interactive sessions.  They even staid till the end of the conference to listen to Florian Thalhofer presentation! Not only:  the questions were so many that I really sensed a change of attitude towards digital documentary. This was obviously also due to Florian’s great presentation.  And, yes: Florian got invited as a Key Note speaker!!! Is this not a sign that interactive documentary  is becoming more main stream?

This was a great conference. For once I found people that spoke my language and were interested by my same topics and (most impressive of all) that knew all about my blog – and even read my phd writing!!! This was sooooo exciting… I often get disapointed because people do not commemt on my website, and I too often think that I am writing a monologue with little purpose – while my original aim was to create a community of people interested in my same topics…. But then I discover that some people do read the blog, even if they do not participate.   I suspect commenting on someone’s else blog is intimidating but, common, if you see it as a way to create a community of interactive documentary makers …  does that not make you feel better? I take this occasion to encourage you to debate more on my blog,  to find a voice and to help creating a community…

Anyhow, back to Documentary Now! : not only the atmosphere is nice and informal, not only “big” names as Brian Winston, John Dovey and Florian Thalhofer and many others do participate – but also interactivity is seen as a serious strend so… watch out! Once again thanks to the organizators Alisa Lebow, Michael Chanan and Holly Giesman for putting together such an interesting event!

The several posts of this blog, and following discussions with  BBC and Brett Gaylor, lead me to write an article.

My question is: what does it really mean to open source a documentary? How can the ideology of free software and open collaboration in code influence a new style of documentary making?

I would like to open the  discussion on this. Please feel free read the article, comment and feed-back. I am not an expert on free software so I might have missed some points… but also I am wondering where to place this article. Is it useful for film makers? Is it mainly academic stuff?

Please do let me know…

here is the PDF: open-source-documentary_sg_60110

A little more information is available here. They do not do a lot of advertising, but I went last year and it was a very interesting event. Highly recommended.

I did not go there because Doc Fest is UK’s most well known documentary festival, but because they are opening up to a vision of documentary that is much wider than linear documentary.  Among all the seminars and sessions that run on the side of the film screening a large number were dedicated to cross-platform projects, to the merging of games and documentaries and to new forms of business models to finance projects. All of this, to my view is the result of a television audience that is turning more and more to the internet for entertainment.

Now that around 70% of the UK has access to the internet where should broadcasters spend their production budgets? This is not only valid for TVs, the press is also heavily pushing their internet presence and some big educational establishements, such as the Open University too, not to mention the UK government that pours money to push forward it vision of “digital Britain”…

So what is happening now is that the model of TV as the main financer for documentaries is starting to shake hard and several new models are starting to appear.

Jane Mote, commissioner from UK TV, said during a session something that made me think: “linear TV is now just not enough”.

But if we step aside from financial considerations only, digital media is also bringing along a new generations of content creators: the photographic journalists that are used to the digital format, the game designers that know how to immerse audiences in their stories, the web editors that are used to curate content and digital activists that know how to use online social media… all those people are starting to have an impact on documentary making, as they create factual content using digital platforms and they are therefore creating new genres of documentaries.

This is what I found really interesting during those 4 days at Sheffield: new media – and specially the web- are changing the rules of documentary making. It is sometimes affecting the production process, sometimes the financial model, sometimes the narrative structure and sometimes just the distribution logic; but no documentary maker can today ignore the impact of new media in factual narrative.

From what I heard at Sheffield -and I only followed the new media strand, although most of the festival is dedicated to standard linear documentaries – the following are the shifts that I have observed and that I see as caused by the introduction of new media in all the stages of documentary production:

1. 1. cross-platform pitches are now becoming the norm for all broadcasters
2. 2. the funding for interactive documentaries is still scarce but the players are starting to change
3. 3.independent finance and crowd-funding can work, for linear and non linear projects, especially when linked to activist topics
4. 4. docu-games are emerging as a recognised form of documentary
5. 5. web-documentaries are also being recognised and have now a presence at festivals such as Doc Fest

1. cross-platform pitches

The logic here is quite straightforward: broadcasters all have a web presence. Each programme has its website and its content needs to be as sexy as possible. Web advertising is also raising (while TV advertising is decreasing) so web editors are starting to have a little bit more budget to spend. The solution is therefore simple: a TV idea now has to have more than one life. Commissioning editors are looking for ideas that can produce a linear documentary but also a non linear experience that will bring people to their website. Social media, content participation, educational games, and online competitions can all have a long life and keep attracting people, while a documentary is only broadcasted once.

As a result broadcasters are welcoming cross-platform ideas. Local Food Hero was presented by UKTV Director of Lifestyle, Factual and New Media Jane Mote, as the ideal cross platform idea: it is a cooking TV series, an website that collects audiences recipes and a cooking book. Three products for nearly the price of one.

Channel 4 has a dedicated cross-platform commissioning editor, Adam Gee. Have a look to Embarassing bodies to see Ch4 efforts to link broadcast interest to social media logics. This is a project that starts as a strong documentary idea but that has a social forum life on the web that keeps it attractive to the youth audience. Channel 4 has also created 4ip to promote collaborative ideas online that do not have to be linked to linear documentary. If you want to see the sort of projects that 4ip has financed have a look to Mapumental , Help me investigate and Patient option. Those are projects that start as web ideas, and might never become a linear documentary. Tom Loosemore, head of 4ip, said “I do not want to tell stories, I want to facilitate people telling their own stories”.

2. funding: the players are changing

Of course broadcasters are still dominating the scene. Speaking to Arnaud Dressen, the French web-documentary producer that presented both Journey to the Coal and L’Obesite est-elle une fatalite , I was told that televisions are still the most likely to finance an interactive documentary. But new players are emerging: newspapers can be interested on investigative online documentaries to boost up their online presence. Although with a very small budget, French newspaper Le Monde did finance part of Journey to the Coal. Tom Happold, head of multimedia at Guardian News & Media, also seemed to predict a growing presence of interactive dossiers on the Guardian’s website.

The usual European Media programme is still active in the background, but other international players, such as the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), are particularly active in the field. Not only the NFB organizes in Sheffield a Cross Platform Pitching Competition, where the happy winner receives £5,000 of developing fund, but back home it does finance very innovative projects, check them out http://www.nfb.ca/ .

Finally, the players are changing because more and more success stories of self-financed projects seem to indicate  that money does not always have to come from the professionals…

3. independent financing models

The big hype about independent financing comes from the recent success story of The Age of Stupid, an environmentalist documentary that was entirely financed via donations and private investment. Super motivated director Franny Amstrong managed to raise the entire £500,000 budget of her film by selling “shares” of her movie before even having started it. She coined the word ‘crowd-funding’ to illustrate her financing model. People were told that they could make a profit if investing in the film, but no guarantee was given, they could also never finish the film. Eventually they did finish it, and it became a big hit, but Amstrong had very cleverly sold the theatrical rights worldwide but kept all the other rights for herself, so that she now self-manages, and entirely profits, from the DVD sales, the non-theatrical releases and the broadcasting sales. This model not only allowed her to raise much more that what a broadcaster would have granted her, but it also assured her full editorial control of her content.

If self-funding is maybe not a very quick route, it took Armstrong 4 years to finish her movie, it has also been used more radically by other people that decided to open source their content in exchange of free donations. Nina Paley went this route with Sita Sings the Blues . Although this project is an animated film, and not a documentary, it shows a new possible model: people seem to be ready to pay for free content if they think it is worth it. Sita Sings the Blues is freely downloadable from the web in all the possible definition formats (including HD for theatrical release) but Paley accepts donations and people seem happy to do so. She has managed to cover the production costs of her project and even to do a small profit. The problem with this model is that, not only there is no guarantee of a return of investment, but also the money only arrives after the project is finished… It therefore only works for small projects where the director can put the money upfront.

Finally collaborative forms of documentaries have used the web to look for help during the production process. This does obviously not cover all the costs but it can minimize them. A good example is the open source documentary RIP: an Open Source Manifesto where Brett Gaylor has asked his online audience to collaborate in specific tasks: shoot some footage, remix video or find music mixes. If collaboration is not a form of financing it is still a way to keep the costs low, as the people that participate do it for free.

4. the emergence of docu-games

Interactive games are not new, web games either, but what is starting to emerge is a critical mass of people who are creating digital games inspired by factual stories and that are researched as documentaries in order to create an experience of reality.

At least five sessions where dedicated at Sheffield to this cross-breed between documentaries and  games. You will find in delicious a list of examples that Matt Adams, from Blast theory, and Margaret Robertson, from Lookspring, have kindly prepared for their session. (see  http://delicious.com/tag/docfest09games?setcount=25)

The “classic” examples of docu-games that everybody were referring to were:

> JFK reloaded, an edutainment first-person shooter video game recreating the John F. Kennedy assassination.

> Darfur is Dying , a game about trying to survive in a refugee camp, mainly aimed to a young audience.

> Global conflicts , an educational game where you play as a journalist exploring worldwide conflicts, including Israel/Palestine.

Some new projects got also presented during the festival. Of particular interest I found Blast Theory’s latest Ulrike and Deamon compliant, a locative game which was produced for this year’s Venice art biennale. In this game the player is walking through the streets of Venice while listening to phone messages leading to a personal decision about the use of violence and terrorism. For Matt Adams, the game author, locative games are “situated narratives and powerful subjective experiences”. This is really what makes them a challenging forms of new media documentaries: they pose the problem of subjectivity in the creation of reality.

To those examples I would like to add Gone Gitmo , by Nonny de la Pena, a 3D reconstruction of Guantanamo Bay’s prison in Second Life, where people can explore a space reconstructed through thorough journalistic research and experience the frustration of being locked in such a place. Here again, the aim is to use game design as a way to illustrate an environment closed to the cameras, but also to add subjectivity to a user that is active in experiencing a specific situation.

5. the recognition of web-documentaries

This year four web-documentaries were shown at Sheffield. Those were:

> The Big Issue by Honkytonk Films

> Journey to the End of the Coal, also by the French dynamic Honkytonk Films

> Big Stories, Small Town by Australian Jeni lee and Sieh Mchawla

> Gaza Sderot, Life in Spite of Everything by Khalil al Muzayyen and Robby Elmaliah and produced by Arte television

Since those are interactive films, and they are freely available on the net, they did not have a scheduled theatrical viewing, and no Q&A with the authors, but they were accessible via four dedicated computers placed in one of the galleries of the festival.

Now, 4 web-documentaries out of 150 linear documentaries is not that much… but it is a start! Especially what is a start is that the BFN Cross-Platform Pitching competition aims at encouraging new media ideas and that Sheffield’s Innovation Award mixes new media entries with particularly arty documentaries. One can wonder if a special “new media documentary award” should be created, but it is somehow interesting to put in the same “innovation” category  linear and non linear projects… underlying that the novelty might not be in the platform, but in the style and the ideas…

So… over all this has been a very interesting festival for me. What it made me realise is that digital documentary is slowly gaining presence in the documentary industry. Under the different names of docu-games, web-documentaries, social documentary websites or simply cross-platform documentaries what is happening is that the digital format is opening doors to new types of factual content… and this is getting clear even for broadcasters and renowned festivals.

The project is a collaboration between researchers and filmmakers at the Infoscape Research Lab at Ryerson University and the Department of Communication, Florida State University.

So far only 10 people are participating – of which three are the initators of the project: Brett Gaylor (the initiator of the Open Source Cinema project & website) plus Andy Opel and Greg Elmer (the co-author of the book Preempting Dissent, who is also an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Florida State University, and who I suspect is the initiator of this specific Open Source project). To be frank at the moment there is not very much going on…

Of course I could have started uploading videos on surveillance cameras (the topic of the project) – which I will do soon- but since this was my first visit to the website I was mainly trying to understand how does the whole project work. Since the project itself is quite empty for now I turned to a project that is nearly finished, and that should work with the same Open Source Cinema logic, RIP: a remix manifesto.

I had seen video clips of  RIP in the past, since the documentary is divided in chapters that are downloadable from the web, but this time I was really trying to understand the process of user’s collaboration… how can I participate… and interestingly enough a lot of questions have risen.

How does Open Source Cinema projects’ work?

- you go to www.opensourcecinema.org

- you fill in a profile and log in

- you then choose and join one or several    projects

- once you have selected a project you can upload your content and start remixing

…but then?

I suppose you upload your remixed video

… but where are the remixes that others have uploaded? I could not find them on the RIP screen? This is the screen you get: an invitation to remix plus a blog of people’s comments on the project… but where are the remixes?

The idea of Open Source Cinema is to do to films what Wikipedia has done to encyclopaedias.  In his website Brett Gaylor, the creator of the site, writes “think of remixes as “wiki-films” – they’re produced through continual revision and collaboration” (http://www.opensourcecinema.org/about-open-source-cinema).

But is it really the case? When I add content to a wiki article I can see the layers of participations of other people (by clicking onto the “history” tag) and I work on an open canvas that stays open forever (in the sense that at any moment anybody can change/ add to what I have written). Can I do this in RIP: an open source manifesto?

The way RIP is organised is that it is already edited in chapters, and each chapter has a specific call to participate. If you view a chapter you will see that at the end of it Brett asks people to collaborate on precise tasks (add music mixes on the film trailer, checking if something is missing in chapter 3, add to the voice over of chapter 7 etc…)… so in a way the collaboration is “directed” by Brett – contrary to Wikipedia where you are your own judge on how you want to collaborate.

Once you have decided to add something to the chapter I suspect you upload it, but I am not clear about the following step: do you remix and upload it for everyone else to add on to, or do you send it to Brett – and then he decides if it is a good addition, so that he stays in control of the paste and narrative arch of the film?

This again is an important point if we want to compare it to Wikipedia, since the editorial role is collaborative in it, while it is not clear in Open Source Cinema. If the remix culture is all against copyright and ownership… how transparent is the relation between web collaborators and Brett?

The last point that is unclear to me is the lifespan of the project. A Wikipedia entry is potentially always open to changes. Its life is on the web and, until people will feel interested on it, it will keep breathing. What is the final form of an Open Source Cinema documentary? The version that is on the web is potentially always open, but Brett does show the documentary at festivals… and I suppose he keep choosing “temporarily finished versions”, each of which, though, is presented as a “normal” documentary to its audience – a film that has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

If I am right, this would mean that an Open Source Cinema documentary has different bodies: a fluctuating one, that lives on the web, and takes the shape of the last remix uploaded by Brett (or by the web remixers? I am not clear on this) – and a “finished” one, that takes the shape of the last acceptable remix (acceptable for whom? Once again, is it Brett that decides which version he presents to film festivals?).

Since I do not have the answers to those questions I will, as always in my blog, turn them to the people that are might have the answers: Brett Gaylor, Greg Elmer  and Andy Opel.

Their answer is important because I think that the term Open Source documentary is starting to spread, and therefore there is a need now to be clear about its meaning. For wikipedia “Open source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software’s source code.” but, when applied to media and video content, “Open Source Filmmaking refers to a form of filmmaking that takes a method of idea formation from open source software, but in this case the ’source’ for a film maker is raw unedited footage rather than programming code. It can also refer to a method of filmmaking where the process of creation is ‘open’ i.e. a disparate group of contributors, at different times contribute to the final piece.”

Which are the possible logics of production and ownership behind Open Source documentaries? Now that the BBC is flagging that they are also creating an Open Source film (obviously not via opensourcecinema.org, but in their own website and with their own rules – see my blog about BBC’s Digital Revolution and BBC’s answer to my questions!) it becomes essential to understand how far an open source logic can go once applied to video footage.

Can a documentary retain narrative interest if completely open sourced? What is the border, the limit, between author and participators in an open sourced film? Is an open sourced documentary really equally “owned” by its participators? And finally… how “open” can an open source documentary be?

Here is an opportunity for us all to get hands on and to be part of an interactive documentary!!

PREEMPTING DISSENT: OPEN SOURCING SECRECY

An Open Source Documentary Film Project
Call for Videos, Testimonials, Photographs, and other Audio Visual Materials

This project examines new forms of social control including the proliferation of Tasers and the rise of “no-fly” and watch-lists. We are seeking contributions to this project in the form of video, still images, and testimonials. This content will be made available for others to mix and remix into their own documentaries.

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE:

We are seeking video content from those of you who have experienced and/or captured on video new forms of surveillance and social control. Have you been Tasered by police, security guards, or other citizens? Did you witness someone being Tasered and record it on video? Has your name been placed on a “no-fly” list – or similar exclusionary watch-list? If so, we invite you to submit your video footage, personal video testimonials, audio testimonials, photographs, news footage, cell phone videos, mash-ups, and any other audio-visual medium which will convey your story.

To participate in this project, please go to http://www.opensourcecinema.org/project/preempting-dissent

BACKGROUND:

Greg Elmer of Ryerson University and Andy Opel of Florida State University are working with Open Source Cinema, to create a collaborative, open-source documentary film based on Elmer and Opel’s book, Preempting Dissent. Using the Open Source Cinema platform – a collaborative website which serves as a repository for user-generated content – the audience will be encouraged to submit their own media as well as to remix media uploaded by the filmmakers and other users. By publishing a “road map” of production, this project will encourage participation through all stages of production. The project will produce a feature length documentary, as well as enable a non-linear open source cinematic database that will evolve over time through the collaborative contributions of users. The documentary, the producer’s video clips, and user-generated contributions will all be available for remixing.

PREEMPTING DISSENT:
This project is based on the 2008 book Preempting Dissent that critically examines new forms of surveillance and social control. This new logic encourages the suppression of public dissent and mobilizes both “fear” of the unknown and “faith” in government leadership. Elmer and Opel show that this new logic stretches well beyond the realm of airport security and international relations into everyday police techniques, including the use of Tasers, the deployment of “stealth” crowd control, the zoning of protestors and the suppression of public dissent. Drawing on social theories and media analyses, this book reveals the underlying”logic of preemption“whereby threats must be eliminated before they materialize. By addressing the implications of this new logic, Elmer and Opel lay the groundwork for more effective resistance.

Well… they call it an ‘open source documentary’: “It is our ambition to open up the production process as much as possible; to share as much of our thinking as possible, as the production team strive to create a cohesive, accurate and relevant documentary about the World Wide Web. We’ll be blogging as we go; we’ll share our theories; we’ll be putting up rushes from the filming; we’ll be asking for advice and stories from you as we go along.” (quote from the programme’s blog).

From what I understand during pre-production the BBC is in constant communication mode with “us” (blogging, twittering, youtubing, deliciousing… you name it)  and in exchange we can come back with ideas, comments, interviews… but more importantly STORIES (“tell us the stories you think we should be covering”, they say in their website). So… in a way: we help them while they inform us. This is up to a point an interactive process: we are in contact, but is it really an open source dynamic? Our stories suggestions do not directly change the programme (we are not  adding a layer of code to a software) and more importantly we do not know how our suggestion will be used (contrary to what happens to an open source software where any change has been designed by its author to do a precise task). What is happening here is that the control stays in the hand of the BBC: what we suggest is considered by a producer that has the power to do what he/she likes with it. I might be over critical here… but more than an open source documentary this resembles to a partially freely researched documentary!

Obviously the fact that BBC is involving “web people” while documenting the web is laudable… for such a big corporate it is a courageous decision… but the risks are still very much under control, to the point that I wonder how much this open source documentary is a marketing trick more than a real shift of thinking. Brett Gaylor, the creator of opensourcecinema.org, has been experimenting for years now on ways for people to collaborate online towards the common production of a documentary. RIP: a remix manifesto is the result of people sharing footage, remixing other people’s rushes and re-editing material over the web.  Brett’s idea is to open up the entire process of the film production… and not only to ask its potential audience for good ideas…

The BBC too promises to make their rushes available online… but where are they? I have been looking for the rushes of programme one, the first been produced that, following the published schedule, should start its editing on the 28th of September. Now… it is today the 17th of September… I can’t find them… either I am thick, or they are well hidden, or maybe they will be published at the last minute… but if they do not publish them before editing the final programme… how are we supposed to deeply “influence” or “collaborate” in the production process?

Maybe the BBC has some hidden ideas that will make its project a little bit more open sourced – and a little less free sourced…

To be honest though, there is one line on the programme’s blog that seems to suggest that there will also be a parallel interactive documentary:  ” your input, your comments, and your links will be read by the production team and will shape the direction the story takes. And everything will be part of our online interactive documentary that launches alongside programme transmission” (quote from the programme’s blog). What will be the shape, form and intention of such online project is quite mysterious… and definitively unclear (but definitively exciting, don’t get me wrong!).

I am really curious to see how this BBC project will evolve and, since I already have too many questions about it, I think I will address them directly to the production team. Actually, if they could use the web tools, and comment directly on my blog’s entry, it would be a great clin d’oeil to the topic of their programme!

Stay posted, you will maybe have some answers soon…

Those of you that know Florian Thalhofer’s work will be glad to know that other people have used his software and that there is now a page linking to all the projects that have been done using the Korsakow software. Here it is.

Those who do not know about Florian can have a look to his website: you will find his online films but also information about him and his current projects.

So… what is a Korsakow film? I’ll take Florian’s words on this: “Korsakow-Films are films with a twist: They are interactive – the viewer has influence on the K-Film. They are rule-based – the author decides on the rules by which the scenes relate to each other, but s/he does not create fixed paths. K-Films are generative – the order of the scenes is calculated while viewing. Korsakow is not a religion.” (from http://korsakow.org/tiki-index.php).

For those interested in interactive documentaries though, it might be valuable to point out that they are also running a  5 days Lab/seminar on new media/participatory forms of documentary, wich is called the Crossover Docs. The Labs is “obvioulsy” not open to the public (what a shame!!!) and you need  to subscribe to it  in advance by presenting a cross-platform project.

The Crossover labs have been run by Unexpected Media since 1996 in  for a range of organizations including the BBC, Channel 4, Microsoft, Just B, Sagasnet, the Rotterdam Film Festival, X Media Lab, Reed Midem, Ogilvy and NESTA. From what I understand they are a sort of incubator for new media projects. These week-long events assemble producers and executives from different media (TV, web, games) to work together developing cross-platform projects. But the labs are very focussed on individual productions and there’s also a need to think about how companies — whether they’re  established broadcast producers or games-focussed start-ups — can prepare themselves for developing effective cross-platform projects

I have applied to the Crossover Docs Lab and – if I get accepted – I will keep you posted on my learnings… finger crossed!

Manchester International’s website describes the event like this: “It Felt Like a Kiss tells the story of America’s rise to power in the golden age of pop, and the unforeseen  consequences it had on the world and in our minds. Beginning in 1959, the show spotlights the dreams and desires that America inspired during the ’60s, when the world began to embrace the country and its culture as never before. But as this daring production unfolds across five floors, blending music with documentary and the disorientating whirl of a fairground ghost train, the audience is forced to face the dark forces that were veiled by the American dream – a dream that ultimately returns to haunt us all.”

As in all Punchdrunk’s production a certain mystery was created around the project: what is really going on when one walks around the warehouse? I have tried all my best to see the show but it was completely sold out and the press office was highly unco-operative (and definitively not interested in academic publications)… so I unfortunately cannot reveal the mystery for you…

All I know is what I have read in the reviews. Here are some selected paragraphs:

1) Mark Billington, from the Guardian 3.07.09:

“How to describe the experience? Well, like Caesar’s Gaul, it is divided into three parts. First we assemble in small groups in the lobby of a derelict office building and are warned that what follows may not be suitable for pregnant women or the highly nervous.

Not fitting into either category, I join a party that ascends to the sixth floor. Stumbling through the dark we suddenly find ourselves in a meticulous recreation of period suburban America. This is Norman Rockwell country: manicured lawns, toys in the attic, bakelite radios pouring out pop music. But there is a hint of something more sinister as we edge into a television studio, find dressing rooms decorated with horror-movie posters and hear news of the assassination of JFK.

So far this is all very Punchdrunk: a mixture of art-installation and immersive theatre, on the lines of The Masque of the Red Death, except that here there are no actors. But we come to the main bill of fare, and the real justification for the evening, when we enter an air-conditioned room and watch a 35-minute Adam Curtis documentary” (…)

“But the film, which I sat through twice, is jazzy, stimulating, nerve-pricking. I can only report, with dismay, that the last third of the evening is a total let-down. Coming out of the film, we find ourselves wandering through debris-filled rooms, entering desolate cells, even being pursued down darkened corridors by a masked man clutching a chain-saw.

I guess the aim is to show how the American dream turned into a nightmare. But to do it through these fairground shock-tactics is an insult to our intelligence.”

2) Dominic Cavendish, from the Telegraph 6.07.09

“For It Felt Like a Kiss you enter – in small groups of nine – a quasi “haunted house”. Over two hours or so, in a disorientating atmosphere of darkness and dread, assisted by the enervating strings of Albarn’s compositions and period footage edited to violent, perturbing effect by Curtis, you’re asked to turn sleuth and nose around eerie interiors.

These range from forlorn suburban dwellings to battered CIA offices and vacated film sets, many presided over by creepy mannequins. By the time you get down to the basement, where some very nasty surprises lurk, whatever spurious empowerment you might have felt has evaporated – a perfect fit between the show’s thesis and the spectator’s experience.”

3) Paul Vallely, from the Independent 3.07.09

“It Felt Like a Kiss moves from the 1950s to the present telling the story of America’s shift from the confidence of post-war Fifties Hollywood through the political and cultural turmoil of the Sixties and the social and economic revolutions of the decades that followed: the Cold War, the Space Race, the assassination of JFK, Vietnam, the Black Panthers, the legalisation of homosexuality, and the credit boom.

The audience moves through rooms decked out like a film set of each period, inhabited by creepy mannequins. In each room screens relay evocative archive footage of the nodal moments in history against a sinister atmospheric background score by Damon Albarn so you feel you are a character in some weird movie. It mixes pop, politics, fashion and sex along with shots of chimps sent into space and in the jungles where the HIV virus transferred from ape to man.

It is a powerful journey, through rooms and gardens deserted with the cherry pie half eaten as in some domestic US Marie Celeste. There is a poignant tableau of a father looking silently at his sleeping child as the world waits to be blown to smithereens as the Bay of Pigs crisis unfolds. And director Adam Curtis has done an extraordinary archive trawl to find historical curios like an architect condemning the World Trade Centre twin towers as “satanic” even as they were being built – or archive film of Osama bin Laden’s father building Saudi Arabia’s first modern highway to Mecca.

But there is paranoia among the poignancy. By the time you get to the centre of the piece – a 35 minute film on the implosion of the American Dream – you know too well what you’re in for.”

So… is this an interactive documentary?

To start with this is definitively not a DIGITAL interactive documentary. No sensors, no computers, no digital stuff is involved. But the idea is still to create an immersive experience using the viewer’s interaction with the space and the media content (mainly Curtis’ documentary).

What interests me is the fact that the linear documentary that Curtis has producedhas been taken away from the familiar cinematic (or home) context and it has been placed in a staged context. How much is the fact that viewers are moving in space, feeling anxious because of the setting, and feeling fragile (because they are physicallly involved)… how much is this transforming the video experience to a different type of experience?

Since I have not been to the show I can only guess. In this kind of production the user does not change the plot, and does not influence the content of the performance. But the audience is free to discover the narrative in its own personal order. In a way it is like the digital interactive hypertext mode (an interactive mode where the user clicks on the screen to browse through a narrative which is used in websites and CD-ROMs) but where there is no computer and the viewer becomes the mouse, and the clicking mechanism: while wondering into the warehouse the viewer/audience physically browses the potential narrative. The viewer is the hyperlink of the real space.

Is enough to make the link between It felt like a Kiss and a digital hypertext documentary? Probably no, as It felt like a Kiss is a physical experience and therefore what counts is the layers of emotions that are generated by this physical browsing, and that create what then becomes the “personal experience”.

Can anybody help here? Has anybody participated to the show?

So there we are again, once more we are confronted with the big fantasy of playing and conversing with the computer (television/console) as if it was a human… our “dream” of “natural interaction” is becoming closer and closer, it seems… But let’s have a look to what project NATAL really does:

Have a look to the promotional video on Microsoft’s Xbox’s website: a happy family plays football using natural body movements (but funnily enough without a ball!), a teenager boy scans his skateboard and sees himself on screen, a teenager girl does shopping online visualizing how a dress will fit her (the examples are just a tiny gender restricted!)… and finally a happy family plays quizzes together (using voice and movement recognition)… The novelty is NOT the activity but the fact that there is no physical interface (no joystick, no remote) and that the image on the screen reacts to the players’ body and voice interaction by speaking back and animating characters as if they were speaking to the user. Natal actually works using a camera to track the user’s movements via full skeletal mapping. It also recognizes voices and vocal commands.

This is definitively quite impressive… it seems to come straight from a sci-fi move… to the point that one questions how much the demo is fake (or at least cleverly rehearsed and programmed). But even if Natal is a few years away, the question still remains for me… how are we going to deal with physical and oral interaction when it comes to narrative?

In early June 2009, at the E3 video conference, Project Natal (or Xbox LIVE) was presented to the world showing  games but also presenting possible narrative structures – where the user/player directly speaks with a fictional character. In its Lionhead Demo, a fictional boy has an intelligent and sensible chat with with the user/player…  now what is the potential of such technology when applied to fictional stories? And to me, more importantly, could this be applied to interactive documentary? When simulation becomes very accurate, and when fiction verges towards edutainment… do we get a type of interactive documentary? If games such as America’s Army can be stretched to be considered documentaries – in the sense that they simulate real army life and that they are populated by existing characters – why could a Natal character not become a virtual representation of a real person?

Without entering in the discussion of whether true dialogue can happen between a human and a machine (therefore disregarding the Turing test)… my question is: even if satisfactory dialogue was possible with our television screen… what would we do with it?  Simulation used to be a way to grasp and learn things that we could not do in our daily life (i.e. flying a plane or killing aliens in a video game) but what purpose does it serve when it simulates our ordinary life?

When I kick a virtual football (that does only live in a TV screen) with a real movement of my body and I see a virtual me (avatar) doing my own movement on a screen… what am I doing? Do I simulate beeing myself? Do I visualize what use to be the feeling of beeing me in movement?

I cannot help to struggle with this concept… I find it surreal. And yet… if I simulate myself in the context of a Natal narrative… am I documenting myself?

I truely believe this is a fascinating project (you should check the details by reading the entry in the archive) because it uses database narrative in a very powerful way.

To start with it is not trying to “tell” a story. The 5,000 people that have been interviewed throughout the world are speaking about their believes, their notion of love, of religion… and the meaning of life. Those are universal topics that are very easy to follow without a specific need of guidance: it is not disturbing to jump from one grab to another, nor from one person to another, since we are just following a sort of stream of thoughts…

For me database narrative really works when it allows us to jump between people and feelings- rather than between narratives. For example Florian Thalhofer’s [The Love Story Project] really works for me for the same reasons: it allows us to jump between people that speak about their experience of love… this feels quite natural… While Manovich’s database narrative (see Softcinema) looses me completely because it is attempting to be a narrative and there it confuses, and looses, me.

I suspect this is also the big difference between interactive documentary and interactive narrative: the documentary has a grip on reality that serves as a motivation for the user (if you are interested in a topic you will have a good motivation from the start), while the narrative only works if the “story” is interesting (and this is not guarantee when interactivity steps in).

As I went to the reception of the ICA I was given a HP pocket PC with headphones and I was told to follow the indications that were on the screen. Effectively what I had to do was to go to the nearby St James park and choose a music track from the options given to me by the pocket PC. Once chosen my music I could browse for one hour while my movements were tracked by a GPS system. From what I understand some video clips, done by the author, where linked to specific locations in the park and by walking through those locations I was “collecting” them. ObviouslyI was not aware of what I was collecting.

At any point I could stop and check the videos that I had collected on my pocket PC – and view them as a movie that would have my selected music as a soundtrack.

I choose to walk for 40 minutes without checking the videos and I recorded on video my own experience while I was walking in the park.

By clicking e-merge you can view here the video of my very own experience.

I am not sure I can call e-merge an interactive documentary… what is it documenting? A walk in the park? Not really actually as one just enhance the experience with music and gets the “bonus” of viewing a movie by the end of it.

But the problem for me is that the movie was done by the artist, Jane Harrowood, and that I could not link with the movie I “collected” on my pocket PC. In a way while I was walking in the park I was not interested in the movie – but just concentrating on the music and my own perception of the park – and then once I stopped walking and looked at the video clips I was not interested anymore on the walk itself – and I was just curious about the movie.

Somehow the two experiences did not jell for me, and I cannot say that I got anything from it…

When I came back to the ICA and gave my kit back to the artist I had a brief chat with her. I did ask her about the feed-back that other people gave her and she said that she had all sort of feed-back. Some people thought her videos enhanced their experience of walking, some others saw them as their own memories, and others found it playful.

I obviously do not fit in any of those categories… I thought it was an interesting use of technology but without a clear purpose, or a clear proposition.

I am also told that my very own version of Jackie’s videos is published on a website alongside all the videos of the other participators. I cannot imagine anything less interesting than to go and watch videos that people did not do (they just “collected” them without selecting them) about an experience that was not theirs…

But there again, maybe I am missing the point…

You will find some more positive feed-back on the E-merge blog page.

Jackie Calderwood’s “e-merge” project is described as a film-making media-scape. What does this mean?

Basically e-merge is an interactive exploration of landscape through walking, music, artist’s moving image and mobile technology. From what I understand one can take a hand-held i-paq (a hand help computer) at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art in London) and walk around the nearby St James park. One can select music from the computer while walking in the park and recording images… the rest is not very clear to me.

I propose to test it myself on Friday and to post some of my experiences in this blog.

To be continued…

I went to ARTHUR ELSENAAR’s presentation on “Fundamentals of the Computer-controlled Human Face as a Medium for Kinetic Art” (this was part of Golsdmith’s Thursday Club seminars).

Elsenaar has been experimenting for years  now with wiring his own face to a computer and letting a software control his expressions.

The result is really weard indeed. What happens is that you see a face clearly expressing itself through movement, but those expressions do not make any “sense” at all. The lack of “sense” is due from the fact that the computer creates new expressions – movements that are physically possible through our muscles but that our brain has not learned to create because they are not part pf our body language (and cultural references).

Moving through a software logic, the face ceases to be the interface of the saul… This is probably what interested me most in Elsenaar’s artistic practice:  the distortion of what what is normally our most transparent link to emotions into a choreography of miningless motions.

On the other hand one could interpret his work differently: the computer is not destroying a cultural code but enhancing our body potential. By creating new face movement the computer goes beyond our cultural coherences and pushes us to visualize our potential.

But in his work there is no real interactivity. The body just follows the electrical impulses and cannot add, nor reply, with any movement…

I can imagine an interactive documentary on bodily presence using this type of technology but pushing it further… A group of people playing with balancing their “learned” body with their “potential” body could be quite a powerful experience!

Food for thoughts…