Interactive Documentary » conference

Access All Areas symposium

Sandra — Mon, 31 May 2010 22:02:44 +0000

I have just participated to the Access All Areas Symposium in Bristol. The recently created Digital Cultures Research Centre (DCRC) had organised a one day event around user generated content and I did a presentation on the effect of user generated content on the interactive documentary form. You can have a look to the programme at http://accessareas.wordpress.com/programme/ and you can also have a very precise summary of each presentation on the live blog of Jennifer M Jones – who did manage to post photos and next to real time notes on each presentation in the most accurate way!

Documentary Now!- the afterthoughts

Sandra — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:02:11 +0000

I have a great news for you: interactive documentary is starting to be a buzz word…
Like last year Documentary Now! was a nice two days conference where a mixture of academic, PhD students and documentary makers exchanged their views on the new directions and evolution of the documentary world. It had the same informal and open athmosphere, but unlike last year I really got the feeling that interactive documentary is staring to be seen as an urgent strand to be understood. When I presented a paper last year (proposing a possible way to categorise interactive documentaries) people were looking at me like the freak that was into computer “stuff”…. This year people had a different attitude: they wanted to know what this “stuff” was. Also: there were so many people who sent papers for the interactive panel that they had to reject half of them (including mine!) .

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!

Documentary Now!

Sandra — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:50:13 +0000

If you happen to be in London on Friday 15th and Saturday 16th of January you might want to attend the annual Documentary Now! conference at Birbeck College.This is a small but friendly 2 days conference about contemporary documentary issues where some new media projects are discussed. For this year I know that their guest speaker is Florian Thahlhofer (creator of Korsakow System for Interactive Documentaries – see The Love Story Project in the archive).

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.

Documentary Now – the conference

Sandra — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:54:46 +0000

I have been to the Documentary Now conference for the whole day. What a pleasure to see so many documentarist speaking about their projects and their pleasure. I had a breath of fresh air: ideas, positive attitude, curiosity… the people here seem to enjoy their life and really have a passion for their projects. How nice!

My presentation went pretty well as well. I had lots of questions and feed-back. I was quite happy and I made a lot of contacts.

When I came back home and I described the day to Marc, my husband, he said “well, for once I can tell that your are really speaking from you heart. You are really alive today!”.

Gosh… this made me think. Was it so obvious that I am bored to death about theory and I want to go back to some sort of production? Maybe I should follow my heart more…