This weeks reading Plotting the Database by Will Luers discusses the importance of interface in assisting the users understanding of the content.

The material contained in an interface is significantly designed to present hierarchies and therefore highlight certain information. The audience interpret the plot as a whole through the data structure that allows interaction and understanding in the story time and space. The filmmaker has the power to conceal and reveal certain information at any stage in the plot.

An ideal interface is useful as it permits easy access to information, ability to control material and is well designed. A spatial narrative device is considered to be similar to a map in the way the user controls the time navigation and the way it provides paths that can be abstract and therefore interpreted differently. A plotted interface conceals and reveals the same amount of information, which therefore limits and delays viewer access.

A site may be designed to allow the user numerous entry points at which they decide the next move, giving them a varied outcome. An interface may begin with an randomly generate set of material and options. Luers explains ‘entry points can establish narrative frames, metaphors for navigation, genre motifs, present views of data sets, describe elements of plot, character, setting or theme – or withhold any and all of these’ (2013). It is essential that the interface engages the user to interact. A user is able to exit the site at any stage, it is their choice.

Examples of work are given to show that the interface must aim to preserve the user’s interest as well as ‘intuitively and effortlessly’ communicate…

• Quick and easy navigation
• ‘Depth, scale and structure of the database’ (Luers 2013)
• ‘Level of control over the navigation’ (Luers 2013)

Stories can be arranged and understood through missing parts. Artists may create ‘voices, images, sensations, abstractions…’ that are then transformed into material viewed and interpreted by the user (Luers 2013). Luers explains that ‘plot provides important tags (hero, villain), schemas (goals, obstacles) and navigation instructions (genre), it is ultimately the cognitive and emotional investment of the receiver of plot – the subjective associations, desires, visualizations, decodings and fast searches – that transforms a mere series of selected details into a story network that is always more than the sum of its parts’ (2013).

The interface is similar to the plot in linear narrative in the way the absences are structured. Database fiction is thought to benefit from perplexing categories, decision making and navigating tools.

Attention can be distributed evenly in database fiction, significant plot information can be hidden in details. The plot is present, but the details are less important. The behavioural patterns connecting the fragments are the most significant. Juxtaposition of media including text, links, image, video and audio create separations between the information, but also encourage users to interact with the interface and develop their own individual story.

Patterns within an interface utilise iconic and indexical signs. The design of an interface can be related to mise-en-scene and other cinematic techniques that help guide the user’s attention. The elements on screen can be a collage of numerous significant information or organised into a hierarchy. The Gestalt design principles including ‘contrast, proportion, proximity, isolation and repetition create hierarchies of importance in layout’ and are employed to assist the user to interpret the material (Luers 2013).

Navigation is ‘never natural; it is always the expression of a set of cultural assumptions and controls…’ (Luers 2013). The interface frames the work, orders the material and helps to creates relations between the content. The interface is compared to the structure of a book in the way that its ‘spatial and navigation structure supports the reader’s sense of chronology, causality, suspense and momentum’ (Luers 2013).

‘Abstract and emotional mental process such as reflection, comparison, speculation, projection are here displayed as relational panels, nested frames, radial and linear sequencing, repetitions and isolation’ (Luers 2013).

In narratives the users are encouraged to relate to the story world and have an interest in the outcomes. Database narratives are organised into individual fragments that can be accessed in any order. ‘At this micro-level, familiar temporal structures and plots can help orient a user to story.  But at the macro-level, temporal order is often communicated through graphic devices such as a timelines and timestamps’ (Luers 2013).

Luers describes a loop as ‘a field of temporal and spatial relations that emerges and is produced as narrative in the encounter with a user’ (2013). These loops are developed from time, they stop narrative rhythm, are grasped immediately and they most importantly point to complicated relationships between parts. Loops are utilised as a mode for accessing information in a database.

‘The interface maps the ways we orient our minds and thought processes to the world’ (Luers 2013). Luers explains ‘the narration of the database is through the interface; its design, entry points, absences, spatial complexity and simultaneity’ (2013).

In database logic there need not be climaxes, protagonists and the usual tropes of Hollywood cinema storytelling. There does not have to be a clear conclusion.

This week’s reading is an extract from David Shields’ Reality Hunger: A Manifesto. Shields expresses his fondness for the collage as a mode for conveying an artistic idea. This extract is almost a collage in itself as it contains significant ideas and does not to obviously link to the statements made before or after.

The compelling concept of collage allows an artist to link fragments that do not normally fit together. These numerous parts form in to one meaning for one viewer, but will result in a completely different outcome for another viewer. These bits all contribute to the collage, sometimes referred to as a mosaic. Shields refers to the ‘law of mosaics: how to deal with parts in the absence of wholes’ (2011).

Shields refers to Coleridge who believes the primary imagination is ‘a continuing process… in creative perception… of all human minds’ where as the secondary imagination is a repetition of the creative process that results in mosaic-like products that are composed of existing parts.

The plot driven narrative comprises of the presentation of a problem and a resolution to that problem. This implies that life is the same, that everything happens for a reason and results in a neat conclusion. Shields explains that this mode is a misrepresentation of life as this is not the case at all. This idea should be denied as should the novel ‘the novel is dead. Long live the antinovel, built from scraps’ (Shields, 2011). The collage is to be considered as an ‘evolution beyond narrative’.

Shields encourages the filmmaker to consider the audience as active in drawing meaning from the work. Leaving gaps in the plot allows the viewer space to interpret all of the fragments. The montage with reference to Lev Kuleshov’s experiment is a reminder of an audience’s ability to form meaning from a series of juxtaposed shots (forming relationships) that would not mean the same if shown individually.

Traditional novels are ‘predictable’ in their narrative structure, but uncertain in what they’re alluding to. Renata Adler’s ‘Speed Boat’ is viewed favourably for it’s use of collage that subtly reveals a concept through it’s culmination of parts. A writer should not be concerned about their concept transcending to their audience, but concentrate on what they are interested in as this allows excitement which is far more beneficial for the reader.

Artists should not make art, they should discover it and organise the material in a way that forms a significant meaning. All parts within a collage are important which is similar to shots within a film. Editing is considered a ‘key postmodern artistic instrument’ that selects certain sections and arranges them (2011). This can be applied to collage. The two types of filmmaking are identified through Hitchock, whose films are meticulously planned film and Coppola, whose films develop as they are made.

Shields describes ‘the purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known’ (2011). This relates to a collage artist who connects the audience and the work without the use of time.

This week’s reading by Bettina Frankham explores documentaries that are created with an open form and the ways in which this impacts a users understanding.

In a poetic approach to documentary seen in interactive documentaries, the filmmaker avoids common story form, creating an uncertainty in the user. This style opens up the opportunity for reflection on the work.

The relational aesthetic of a work provides the user to engage with the work and therefore form their initial understanding and so the connections used in a work deeply impact the user’s interpretation. When a user interacts with the work, a unique understanding is formed.

A strategy employed by filmmakers while creating a poetic documentary is the list. The list allows space for the user to engage and reflect, openness for the user to interpret and form unique interpretation of unity among fragments. Works that are structured through lists allow varied understandings to develop through relating the parts. The user has the ability to connect and form a complex meaning when a variety of fragments are engaged with. The users are the activators of the non-linear narrative.

Utilising a list allows the filmmaker to deform the narrative, the user to organise the fragments and form connections between those parts. The list does not provide a solid narrative structure, instead the fragments stimulates thought in relation to association from the users’ own memory, creating a unique interpretation of the material provided. In this method, it acts as a mnemonic device. The user chooses the form of the interactive documentary based on the content they are engaging in.

These films use theme, topic, place or concept to develop their fragments, although the connection between these parts remains ambiguous. As the user has that responsibility to form relations between the fragments, the temporal ordering is not considered significant. Within a poetic documentary ‘the facets are glimpses rather than ideal chronicles’ (Frankham, 2013). Associational form is utilised as the user is likely to create connections between fragments that are juxtaposed through their pictorial qualities and content.  Associational form is seen through the formation of fragments one after another (otherwise known as montage) through the choice of the user allowing a diverse array of combinations to be formed. Montage allows significant features within fragments to be accentuated.

The user is the activator of the fragments and therefore responsible for ‘editing’ the structure of the documentary they engage with. Frankham states ‘…material can be organised for the sake of clarity, to obfuscate, to emphasise power structures, to challenge established views or to create a particular experience’ (2013). Users are more aware and accepting of active spectatorship. The users are capable of understanding different formats for presenting information and dealing with the gaps that may be present in these poetic approaches.

Documentarians such as Philip Rosen view their role as responsible for ‘…transforming raw artefacts of the world…into meaningful constructions’ (Frankham, 2013). The poetic approach allows meaning to form through a non-linear narrative. This interpretation encourages the user to make sense of the relations between the fragments. The wider understanding that is formed excuses any gaps that may be present in the poetic documentary that are usually not present in traditional documentary.

Marks mentions there is also a potential for ‘superficial engagement over a critically engaged experience when the structure of a work permits a quick scanning to grasp its intentions’ (Frankam, 2013).

This weeks reading by Matt Soar provides a highly relevant description of Korsakow as a tool for creating interactive documentaries whilst acknowledging the limitations of all data base documentaries.

The uncomplicated open-source software is ideal for developing non-linear, interactive, web-based documentaries without the requirement of programming knowledge. A large number of films made in Korsakow ‘are documentary-oriented, typically small-­scale, observational, character-­driven, even meditative’ (Soar, 2014).

There are numerous changes occurring to the ways in which individuals develop and engage with media. These include:

• Introduction of HTML 5
• Promotion of alternative media platforms and audiences
• Opportunities for funding and exhibition of new media
• Introduction of rapid computer networks for high quality viewing and distribution of work
• Broader availability to a varied audience
• Development of ‘online read-write culture’
• Low production costs involved in creating this new media

These developments in new media practices such as data base story telling has formed after large experimentation in combining new digital media with cinema.

With easy and affordable internet access filmmakers are presented with a new freedom to delve into specific details of stories that they were never able to due to the restrictions of filmmaking such as time constraints.

This technology is intended for filmmakers rather than highly skilled technologists as it is relatively simple to use, but offers huge opportunities to explore creative concepts.

Some issues that need to be considered when determining the sort of interactive documentary software a filmmaker will use include:

• The Programming language
• The platform
• The operating system
• The plug ins
• The versioning

The new term ‘software salvage’ presents the dilemma of resurrecting new media works after the files are no longer viewable due to the rapid developments in technology, specifically online media. This issue is already problematic for works created on CD-ROM now that many computers or tablets do not provide a component for watching the media in their machines.

Creating a work in Korsakow allows the filmmaker to develop concepts that connect the images to form relationships. The creator can refine the presentation of their clips by determining the number of times they can be viewed and when they can be viewed through the connections made to other clips.

K-Films can be frequently altered and updated, allowing the story to evolve through time. These films require a certain level of time and consideration to fully engage and understand concepts.

There are three components of editing involved in this form of interactive documentary that provide the audience with their interpretation of the work:

• Traditional selecting and cutting clips together (before Korsakow)
• ‘Algorithmic editing’ (within Korsakow)
• Viewer selection (whilst viewing completed Korsakow project)

Soar refers to ‘the process of creating SNUs -­ adding self-­identifying (‘in’) keywords and contextual search terms (‘out’ keywords)’ (2014).

The key words used to connect clips need to be clear, without being too ambiguous. To create an effective K-Film, it is advised to draw the keywords from the meaning behind the clips rather than the obvious visual elements on screen.