April – 2018 – Stay Foolish

Nowadays, people show the unprecedented demand for the information. Transmedia appeared when a single form of media could not meet the needs of the audience. Moreover, the development of new technology, especially the network, provided the necessary technical support. The reason why transmedia is inevitable is every kind of media seek a better living environment and development opportunities. Of course, the advantages of transmedia are obvious transmedia can expand the audience coverage, reduce the cost, and improve the efficiency of information dissemination.

Jenkins (2007) defined ‘ Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience.’ Take the <The Matrix> series as an example, Jenkins presents this new form of using the different medium to extend the story frame to people. It contains the commercial potential and promoting media industry to start thinking about the possibility of transmedia storytelling.

Fans play an indispensable role in the transmedia, and fans are more active than the general audience. Fans often spend on the media consumption enthusiastically, and they will put their worship of someone or something into their lifestyle. A brand needs the emotional support from fans, the value of fans is enormous, fans are willing to spend, they are high loyalty and high participation. ‘the relationship between transmedia with users lies in the diffusion of stories, which are provided by transmedia storytellers to attract great amounts of potential users. At the meantime, users immerse themselves in these stories by participating in related interaction through different media platforms’ (Yang & Zisiadis 2014). The creator and the consumer complete the content filling and form extension of the work together. The creators need to decide the theme, storyline and narrative framework carefully according to the audiences’ preference and create conducive and collaborative content. The ultimate purpose is to attract more supporters.

The most effective transmedia storytelling tool is to create a part of story world beforehand. The audience can participate and have understanding in any perspective, and the audience will get a feeling of reality through virtual Website. For example, the website ‘Buy&Large’ in the film <WALL.E> was launched when the film released, and it allowed the audience ‘buy’ different robot from the website. It made the audience to experience the parts which are not represented in the movie, also understand the robot world. Take HBO as an example too. They aimed the fans of <Game of Thrones>, they want to make the fans who have never read the original story to understand the complex world and know the plots and the characters easier. They ‘decided to create a sensorial strategy and used the five senses to present Westeros and the characters before the pilot episode of the show aired on HBO. For each sense (sound, taste, touch, sight and smell), they developed a specific material, online or offline, which was supposed to make the audience feel as if they were in the same places as the characters in the series’ (Bourdaa 2014).

References:

Aaron, S 2017, Advantages and Challenges in the Business of Transmedia Storytelling, viewd 29 May, <https://asmith50.wordpress.com>.

Bourdaa, M 2014, ‘This is not marketing. This is HBO: Branding HBO with transmedia storytelling’, Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network, vol. 7, no. 1.

Jenkins, H 2009, Transmedia storytelling, Volume.

Yang, B & Zisiadis, M 2014, Transmedia marketing: strengthening multiplatform user participation through storytelling.

The participatory art means the artwork that involves many participants. Claire Bishop (2012) briefly defines the general characteristics of participatory art is the artist is the collaborator and planner of the situation rather than the sole producer of an object, there will be some uninterrupted or long-term projects turn audiences from viewers into collaborators. Grant Kester (2004) does not focus on the ‘participation’. He divided it into ‘dialogical’ and ‘collaborative’ art.

Participatory art is an art form which emphasises audience involvement and interaction. The ‘Infinite Mirror Rooms’ created by Yayoi Kusama is a typical example which ‘using mirrors, she transformed the intense repetition of her earlier paintings and works on paper into a perceptual experience’ (). She turned the space that only existed in people’s imagination into reality through endless reflection. The audience had an unprecedented spiritual experience that evoked their most profound and vibrant memory. The artistic conception was completed in this kind of participatory experience.

With the development of the WEB 2.0, it is common to have the two-way communication online, and any interaction can be seen as generalized participation. The participation in the documentary can be defined as the interactive documentary that the audience change the modes of presentation and content by editing an existing movie or uploading a new one. It emphasises the ability of the audience to participate in the production process directly. For example, in the interactive documentary <18 Days in Egypt>, the viewer can upload videos they have taken with mobile phones or the other types of equipment to the website as a part of the whole project.

I believe there will be more new forms of participatory documentary, and the range of issues it can explore will be more extensive. The participatory documentary could use richer art resources to make the audience to participate the discussion easily and actively.

References:

Bishop, C 2012, Artificial hells: Participatory art and the politics of spectatorship, Verso Books.

Kester, Grant H 2004, Conversation Pieces : Community and Communication in Modern Art, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirror Room, viewed 19 April 2018 <https://hirshhorn.si.edu/kusama/infinity-rooms/>.

Last week, our group did the presentation about ‘Interactive and immersive narrative’, we focused on the relationship between the space and the immersive interactive narrative, and gave some example projects that exist in spaces beyond the internet or small screen.

Immersive narratives use situations, characters, atmosphere, plots, and rhythm designs to engage the audience in the story. As dining said ‘Immersive storytelling is a medium of expression that permits the participant to witness an enhanced sensation of “being there” in the narrative story. Immersive storytelling is not a new form of narrative expression. Rather immersive stories have existed throughout history, with their presence in theatrical production, literature, interactive web-based narratives, and within gaming'(Dining 2017).

There is an immersive theatre example called “sleep no more’ which is the most successful immersive theatre. It adapted from Shakespeare’s <Macbeth>. “It breaks the fourth wall, this wall is what traditionally separates the viewer from the audience both physically and verbally’ (Bucher 2017, p. 81). The audience put on the mask and follow the actors they are interested in, and they can choose the perspective and order of the story. They will forget the real world through props, music, and smells. Also, they will be a part of the theatre. The actors will interact with the audience. For example, Lady Macbeth will ask the audience to wear the necklace for her.

With the development of the internet, people have explored many different spaces of ‘interaction’.

GPS, WIFI and the mobile equipment connected the video and the realistic place to create a mixed media space. For example, the project about the development of Los Angeles called <34 North 118 West>. The audience walks on the streets of LA holding the Mobile devices like tablet or GPS device, and they can listen to the history and watch the Historical video of a building or a street when they are at a specific location. So this project Combine the reality with the virtual to make the audience experience the past and now of the same place.

The interactive and immersive narrative provides us many possibilities to break the limitation of time and space.

But at the same time, the tutor gave us some useful feedback to make us think about the relationship between the immersive narrative especially VR set and emotional connection. Does VR evoke empathy? There is a VR project example called <Notes on Blindness> which is let people experience the feeling of blind people in our presentation. But can people feel the exact feeling through VR? How long will the empathy last? This question is complex and discussable.

Furthermore, will the development of virtual reality and immersive technology bring the significant negative for human society? People always talk about the advance of the new technology, but the technology could influence the social connection in real life. Image when people are addicted to the virtual world and do not want to build the connection in reality. Also, the immersive space become more and more real, the negative effect on children maybe becomes increasingly clear, like the violent game will blur the boundary between reality and virtual and affect children’s mental state.

Reference list:

Bucher, J 2017, ‘Storytelling for Virtual Reality: Methods and Principles for Crafting Immersive Narratives’, Taylor & Francis.

Dining, A 2017, ‘A User Study of Story Presence in an Immersive Narrative Experience tested with Variant Levels of Immersion’, In SMPTE 2017 Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, pp. 1-12.

ARTE Creative (2016, Apr 20). Notes on Blindness – Into Darkness [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9yIofiLa24&feature=youtu.be

Month: April 2018

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