VR is the big showstopper at the moment, with a lot of festivals and conferences focusing on grappling with the issues of making non-fiction work in this new medium. In this whirlwind of hype, it feels as though projects using other methods of interactive storytelling are sidelined – or at least don’t receive the attention they deserve because they aren’t this years big thing. …
Fifteen projects are competing for the IDFA 2016 DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling this November – some are playful experimentations, others explore complex situations and all employ new techniques to tell a story. Here’s a run-down of them all, with handy links to each project (if available): The Deeper They Bury Me by Ted Biggs/Angad Bhalla (Canada, 2015) An NFB project, The Deeper They …
The cross-discipline nature of interactive documentary production has led to the adoption and development of different production styles – one of which is the hackathon. For those who don’t know, the hackathon model has its’ roots firmly in the software world, but has been modified and adapted to work with interactive projects, bringing new benefits for participants. They draw together people from …
There were a few panels at this year’s SunnySide of the Doc festival which focused on transmedia and interactive documentary developments in specific regions. I attended both the Nordic and German panels to get a sense of where Northern Europe – specifically industry – is, in terms developing, funding and distributing this type of content. The Nordic panel involved 3 transmedia producers with SWIM, seasoned Norwegian …
Recently released on the Arte site, Soundhunters is an interactive documentary exploring the connection between sound and culture. At the centre of the project is four interactive shorts about four renowned musicians immersed in the heart of four cities across the globe, looking for sounds and inspiration. Their encounters with urban minorities in Sao Paulo, Lagos, New York and Berlin lead to …
We’re thrilled to announce that i-Docs 2016 will take place on 2 – 4th March at the Watershed in Bristol, hosted by the Digital Cultures Research Centre, University of the West of England . Themes of this year’s three day event will be: Tools for Thought – interactive documentary platforms for production, teaching and research; The Uses of Immersion – …
Fellow Pervasive Media Studio resident and Splash & Ripple’s Creative in Chief Rosie Poebright has just returned from Forward/Story; a place in Costa Rica where the pirates of future storytelling gather to plot and explore their craft… She has kindly allowed us to repost a blog about her experiences there: I’ve been wondering how to write about what I know will become a …
Research Fellow in Digital Cultures: Interactive Documentary (1 year fixed term and part-time 0.5 FTE) From webdocs to Virtual Reality, docugames to data storytelling and personalisation; digital culture has seen the emergence and proliferation of interactive and participatory documentary forms, and the transformation of twentieth century modes of documentary production, exhibition and reception. The i-Docs group within the Digital Cultures …
“We should not talk only about audience volume – we want to talk about varied measures of impact” – this statement framed the following discussion on impact for interactive works. A call to move beyond metrics and into a deeper assessment of impact measurement. Convened by Storycode’s Benjamin Hoguet during the Sunnyside of the Doc Sunnylab sessions last week, the varied …
From a realisation that the digital sense of presence is a powerful thing, to being dubbed the ‘Godmother of VR’, Nonny de la Peña took us through her experiments in ‘immersive journalism’ at a recent lunchtime talk in Bristol, followed by a Q&A with DCRC director Mandy Rose. — It was an account of a ‘rape in cyberspace‘ that first drew Nonny’s …
After the success of the last two MIX DIGITAL conferences, Bath Spa University is hosting Writing Digital: MIX DIGITAL 3 in the newly completed Commons building at the Newton Park Campus, just outside of Bath, UK. Confirmed keynotes include Naomi Alderman talking about how and why a literary novelist came to be the imaginative power behind the hugely successful apps, Zombies! …
Towards the end of last year, I convened a conversation between multimedia artist Oscar Raby and Pervasive Media Studio residents Pete Bennett, Amy Rose and May Abdalla. To give some context, Oscar was at the Studio showing his VR documentary Assent and we thought it would be interesting to change up the interview format and allow for more of a discussion about virtual …
Today marks the launch of the final chapter of HIGHRISE, the National Film Board of Canada’s pioneering, multi-award-winning interactive documentary series. Universe Within: Digital Lives in the Global Highrise, takes us into the apartments, hearts, minds and computers of vertical citizens around the world to reveal the digital human condition in the 21st century. Trapped in our highrise units, can we find love, hate, …
5th June 2015 1.00PM, Cinema 3, Watershed, Bristol Dubbed the “Godmother of VR” and named by FastCompany’s CoCreate as “…one of the 13 people who make the world more creative”, Nonny De la Peña is pioneering the use of virtual reality gaming techniques that offer fully immersive experiences of news stories. She has created a number of ‘immersive journalism’ pieces including …
A few months ago a listserv i’m a part of had a very interesting discussion about virtual reality (VR) and empathy – in part a response to Chris Milk’s assertions that VR is an ’empathy machine’, but also a wider discussion about how VR is being used for non-fiction narratives. As VR gets bigger – with the release of consumer headsets on the horizon …
