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Assignment 3: Development (2/4)

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Week 6 has thankfully seen us take a solid step forward in the development of our project. On Monday, our group got San as a fourth member, as he wasn’t yet in a group. The timing of this was a gift because neither Antonia nor Jackson could make it to this class. So while initially, I was facing the prospect of not finding a solid idea to later in the week (when our group would be all together again), I instead got another group member to discuss ideas with, who importantly had a fresh perspective.

I spoke to San about our last class, and how Hannah had described the project as making something for the internet from something that is already fragmented (e.g. a diary). More so, it will be a project that deepens and diversifies the perspective on a theme, emotion or sentiment- not a project with a linear narrative.

San and I quickly came up with a vox-pop based idea, with small interview fragments that focus on one question. This is the pitch we wrote to get feedback from other groups:

Our team intends to explore relationships between multiple standalone answers of a simple yet open question; what does travel mean to you? It is a question that is open enough to offer unique and engaging answers, even to those who have not necessarily traveled overseas. Through listening to our participants’ answers we will transcribe, tag and categorise them based on common themes and shared experiences. Using this small sample we can begin to visualise how these stories parallel or contrast, and with more data, we could explore the frequency of certain experiences, for example. To our viewers we intend to present each fragment as an audio interview paired with any pieces of media they captured while on their travels (photos, videos, social media posts etc.). As a common theme comes up in their answer viewers will have the option to view another fragment that shares that theme. Allowing them the agency to explore the themes or elements that they find most intriguing — this both introduces interactivity and non-linearity in a meaningful way in the piece.

On Thursday, when our whole group was together for the first time, our idea evolved to what it is now. Using the same aforementioned form of an audio interview paired with a still image, tagging the interviews with themes, and allowing the user to explore themes in a non-linear, interactive way, we changed the question to “What was the worst thing that has happened to you while travelling” (or along those lines). We felt that this would provide a broader range of responses.

Our project came into shape the most after Hannah spoke to us about Korsakow. It was difficult for me to imagine much beyond the content of our project before this (i.e. I had no idea what it would look like). It seems like Korsakow is a step in the right direction in terms of the interdisciplinary approach (of Engineering and Art- spoke about in this article), in which we must “merge art and science, storytelling and software” to create engaging, technologically-enabled experiences that invoke human culture.

I must admit, I didn’t love the few Korsakow projects I experienced. Talk With Your Hands Like an Ellis Island Mutt contained interesting insights about migration and national identity, but the lack of context confused me and I wasn’t drawn into the experience. While The Whole Picture was more enjoyable, I still felt a lack of connection with the project.

Of course, our project is quite similar to Are You Happy and Cowbird. Different in the fact that in Cowbird you are explicitly searching for a theme (rather than navigating through themes without knowing) and in that there are no tags or themes in Are You Happy. However, like in Are You Happy there is a pre-determined, uniform prompt that people will respond to, ultimately “revealing particularity… but also [gathering] certain universal response”, as discussed in “We’re Happy and We Know it”.

I am interested to see how we will go using Korsakow. I am still somewhat confused with how it all works, but looking forward to learning more and ultimately getting a grasp of new software.

Assignment 3: Development (1/4)

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Thursday the 5th of April- back at uni after the mid-sem break and getting ready to dive into the next assignment. I couldn’t make it to the last class and so part of today’s class was focused on getting the group-less people (me) into groups. While I’m sure my group will function really well together, I do find it a pity that I didn’t get to form a group through brainstorming like the rest of the class (my fault for not being in class though). Anyway, Hannah divvied us up by what stage of project work we enjoyed or disliked the most. I said I’d be happy to do anything- partially because I am indecisive and partially because I do enjoy almost every part of project work.

I was put into a group with Antonia & Jackson. Antonia likes production, Jackson likes post-production- and I like planning and reflection, and so on. Our time together on this day reminded me there is a stage of production that I don’t like- the initial search for an idea. I’ve always found open-ended assignments with no topic restrictions/guidelines to be very tricky initially, as there is a vague, uncertain search for an idea. So often, all ideas become slippery in your hands- impossible to hold down, explain, pinpoint and develop. Or, you realise they’re just not what you need. Anyway, we cycled through a few ideas.

One was initially a loose idea of making a documentary about an underground group in Melbourne. Unfortunately, this was about as far as this one went. Jackson mentioned the street artist (not group) Sunfigo, While I liked the idea, underground groups/artists are underground for a reason. I don’t think it would be very achievable to find and contact any group, let alone be allowed to interview them and craft a documentary, in a few short weeks. I do like the concept though.

We talked about a few other content ideas, including shedding the light of the effect of a recent Melbourne hail storm that wrote off people’s cars and damaged car dealership stock. Again, an interesting idea but I was worried about the point of it. Hannah has spoken about not worrying about having a ‘point’ or meaning of your work, but I think I need to have some understanding of why we have chosen any specific topic, in order to dedicate myself to it.

We’ve decided to dedicate the weekend to brainstorming a topic, and hopefully, we will feel more confident by Monday. Then hopefully the content will inform the deisgn/form.

Steph Milsom came in for the rest of the class, showing us her diary film and her books of personal data. The books to me were mindblowing! Just the idea of your internet presence and your whole digital identity (or “digital footprints“), represented in all of these novel-sized books. I don’t know if its the contradiction between internet and book, or the fact that you forget how many crumbs we leave behind us on our path through the internet, but the books were really fascinating.

It reminded me of an article I read recently, in which the author speaks of a friend who was embarrassed about an interview she has completed (with the author) that was published online a year earlier. She found it hard to identify with this “version” of herself, represented on the ‘net,  but ultimately recognised that it’s a flagpole in a time of her life that would have otherwise passed her by unnoticed. I empathised with this sentiment, as when we looked at some of our Facebook information that we had entered into our profiles years ago, I thought, “this isn’t me!” To be fair, I think a lot of it wasn’t even ‘me’ back then. I know this is a digression from the data side of things, but it’s just an interesting note on how our trail of internet data (both explicit- photos, likes, posts, and hidden- the searches, numbers, history) tells us a story of an evolved self.

Assignment Two: Reflection

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Our project work responds to multiple characteristics of online screen making. The first being interactive. It is interactive as it relies on the user to participate to advance the narrative, by choosing from multiple options that are presented to them. Secondly, it is non-linear. However, through reflection, I have decided a much more appropriate term is multi-linear. The definition of non-linear is “Not arranged in a straight line”, or “Not sequential or straightforward.” The truth is, our project is made up of multiple straight lines, that are actually sequential. There are multiple narratives that can be achieved, and hence there is a degree of linearity to the project. The project is also multi-faceted– it contains text, videos (that are embedded from YouTube), pictures, and links to external websites. It takes from different sources and collects them onto one platform.

Through conducting this test, I learnt that making truly interactive online media (where the user has some degree of control in the narrative) isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. This is due to multiple things- firstly, because of the idea that you can not make any old story interactive, nor should you. While all social media is interactive, this is a different kind of interactive than I have been focusing on in my development posts, as there is no central project or work that is interactive, rather everyone just interacts with each other. There should be a reason for a project to be interactive. It can be simple, but interactivity shouldn’t be pointless.

I also learnt that interactive media isn’t necessarily simple to make. I’m fairly confident this is just because we made our project ‘manually’ so to speak, rather than using software (like Twine) that is purpose-built for making interactive stories. We went through a painful process of collecting and presenting our project on a WordPress blog.

First, we had to decide how to present our project. We could have done it on YouTube (as our main content is video), with the user linking from video to video. That posed problems though, as we wanted to include other media types that we couldn’t on YouTube. Also, we wanted a specific home for our project, where all the pathways could be easily stored and accessed. Next, we decided on a blog. This is where we started hitting technological problems that had no easy way out. I’ll spare the specifics, but it was a fiddly process of making new blogs, trying different websites, having to work out how to make new pages on blogs, so on and so forth. We had to take videos on our phones, send them to the computer to upload onto YouTube and then embed them into the WordPress posts. It just took a lot longer and was more complex than we had initially expected.

As I have already briefly mentioned, the process of making this project has caused me to reflect on the different types of ‘interactive’ media. I have spoken previously about my concept of the no limits/extremely limited interaction spectrum of media, and through making, I have decided to elaborate on this. It may be a separate spectrum, but there is also an element of how much you give to the project by interacting with it. Are you adding to or expanding the project by participating? Or is it giving you more than you are giving it? An example of the former would be the Are You Happy project that anyone can interact with or actually add to. Our project is an example of the latter- users are not adding value to the work by experiencing it.

Another question that I have been dwelling on throughout our class discussions and the making of my project is, are non-linear and interactive co-dependent? I feel like a lot of theoretical discussions both online and within our class, tend to pair them as if they can’t be separate. There are books that are non-linear but certainly aren’t interactive, and games that are interactive but are completely linear. Maybe people are just speaking loosely and refer to both when either is mentioned, but I think it’s important to consider each of their unique meanings and impacts.

My main desire moving forward is to create something (or at least conceptualise it) that has actual value, that uses creativity and meaning mixed with the tools of the internet to come up with something genuinely enjoyable.

 

Assignment Two: Development (4/4)

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Today I experienced the online, interactive, fiction work called Will Not Let Me Go.

It was the first project of the kind I experienced (that I can think of )- it was entirely story based, whereas most other interactive fiction media that I think of falls into the ‘open world’ category I discussed earlier, where a central narrative is lacking. It chronicled the musings and experiences of a man- Fred, with Alzheimer’s, and you (the player, or interactor) control his decisions and movements as if you are him. It is heartbreaking. The ‘game’ was made on Twine, online software for non-linear storytelling that I had never heard of but am so happy to have discovered. It is a ‘Choose your own adventure’ of sorts, but it feels wrong calling it that. You are lead through situations and make the consequent choices that Fred has to make.

The best way to describe it further is to quote a reviewer, Catacalypto- “Its mix of narrative voice and mechanics that support its story is exactly what I love in narrative design. From the opening indication that the story will remember your place, which fades out until only “remember” lingers, it’s a thoughtful and sometimes painful exploration of Alzheimer’s and dementia.” The way the words are presented and the way they disappear work in conjunction with the unreliable narrator to emphasise the sense of disorientation Alzheimer’s causes.  It’s a very effective piece of work.

In terms of the principles of New Media that I have discussed most in the past- Modularity and Variability, it is both of these, but just to a degree. While there are separate components of the project, they all need to be experienced within the project. They do not exist outside of the project. Furthermore, while there is variation in the options you may take and the consequent narrative you may form, there is a very strong and consistent theme communicated through the project that won’t really change between users.

It is similar to Jess and my project as it is a branching narrative, giving readers/users multiple options, which will then lead them to another scenario and another option and so forth. However, it is much more seamless. Jess and I are building ours on a blog- which, as a small-scale project is definitely okay, but it would be beautiful if it was built on Twine, which does not require any new tabs or pages refreshing. It all happens on the same webpage, allowing the narrative to be smooth and flowing. Having said that, I don’t know if Twine supports the videos, pictures, and links that we are putting in our blog narrative. Something to think about, at least.

Something I’d like to find or see more of is interactive narrative in video format, rather than just games or the heavily wordy experience of Will Not Let Me Go. On the New York University blog, Future of New Media (that I mentioned previously), there is an interesting article about interactive web video, and it touches on how they are different from interactive games. The author, Supreet Mahanti, explains how the main difference between interactive web video and games is that games still follow a linear narrative from the player’s perspective- they are still headed in the one direction. He stipulates that with the aid of hyperlinking, you can choose your own ending, giving “god-like control” to the viewer. I think it would be awesome to be able to watch a film and choose what direction it goes in. Of course, it’s very untraditional, but surely it would help so many people who complain about the endings of films? It would allow viewers to pick a storyline that resonates with them more than “slaving” over a narrative which they aren’t engaged in. 

Who knows? Maybe the Choose Your Own Adventure (that I seem to be obsessed with) will venture into movies.

 

Assignment Two: Development (3/4)

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Starting week four in Thinking In Fragments, we discussed Manovich’s principles of new media. I enjoyed this section of chapter one of The Language of New Media more than I did the first section. Of course, these principles can be seen in most if not all of the online media we consume, so it was consequently much easier content to get through than the history of media and media types. I say this with a great understanding that we must be familiar with the history of media as it has lead us to where we are today- everything in our lives (including media platforms and artifacts) is a product of what has come before.

The principles that I find to be most explicit in our consumption of new media are the qualities of Modular and Variable. These can be easily seen in most media content- we consume separate pieces of online media such as website pages, YouTube videos, Facebook photos, that exist both as individual items but also within a greater spectrum of content- a single recipe on a cooking blog, one YouTube video that is part of a series, and a Facebook photo that is in an album. But what pieces we consume are entirely different to others- everyone’s online experience is subjective and individual. I really like the idea that movement online is often multi-linear- there is not necessarily a beginning/middle/end, that people are just navigating their own unique path through the internet. To bring it back to the metaphor that we used in week one, of a massive web or tangled ball of string (something I mentioned briefly in my blog post, although I considered it more of an abyss)- it is like each individual web user is tugging at a loose end of the string, constantly pulling, and grasping new strings through knots and tangles.

Another conclusion that we came to in class is that for content to have the ability to be variable, it must first be modular. Modular content is the predecessor to variable experiences.

So, how do these principles relate to our current project?

As it is a ‘new media’ project, it is inherently numerical. It is modular in the sense that there are separate videos, pages, pictures and so on that can exist separately to the greater project. However, I question if we have somewhat failed on modularity as not each component of our project could be consumed as it’s own entity- some only make sense in the scheme of the project, but they are all accessible without experiencing the whole project. It is certainly variable, after all, it is not a linear/one-route-for-all project. It is not so variable that there are endless journeys through the project- there is only eight final destinations, but it is variable enough that people are having a unique experience.

In terms of content for our choose your own adventure, we have decided to go for somewhere between fiction and non-fiction. It is going to be an adventure around RMIT- giving the user the option of studying, meeting a friend, going to the library, going to a class etc, and showing them where to go and giving them extra information on services and areas. There won’t be infinite continuations but there will be enough that it’s worthwhile making it interactive.

In terms of deciding on content, I found this quote on the Future of New Media blog very interesting- “I wouldn’t take a regular, normal linear story and try to “interactivize” it. That won’t work.” This is to say, content needs to be specifically made for being interactive. We can’t make something interactive just for the sake of it, nor can we force interaction where it doesn’t belong.

Finally, I have been thinking more about the different styles of interaction within online content. This is something I touched on at the end of my first development post. I have deciphered in my mind two (of many, I’m sure) main categories of interaction. There is interaction without limits, and there is interaction with limits. Or more realistically, there is a spectrum, ranging between no limits and almost entirely limited. For example, Deprogrammed lies closer to the almost entirely limited end of the spectrum. You can only move forward and look around. You have barely any options. Our project will be somewhat less limited- there are options (but not that many) but you can also leave a comment on the blog and interact with the project that way if you wish. Projects that have no limit on interaction are definitely harder to think of because they’re harder to make. Something like The Sims lies on the open world, no limit to interaction end of the spectrum.

Anyway, we’re at the tail end of our project now. It seems thinking of the concept was one of the more difficult parts of completing the project, should be simple from here on out.

Assignment Two: (Development) 2/4

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Straight off the heels of our discussion about the qualities of our chosen non-fiction project, Jess and I discussed what kind of project we would make for the production part of Assignment 2. It was honestly very difficult at first because we had no clue of which direction to head in. We needed a push, a starting idea, something to help us realise or find a good idea.

Luckily, it came to us not long after. Hannah mentioned that we don’t need to think of and execute a highly technical project and that we could just present the fragments of the project onto our blogs. We started thinking about what is non-linear and could be presented in fragments- obviously this is one of the main questions of this studio, but it still helped push us in the right direction. Almost immediately I thought of Choose Your Own Adventure books. Non-linear, interactive storytelling before the internet existed (or before how it existed as we know it now).

I recall such books from my childhood. Sure enough, when I got home I found Cool School: You Make It Happen by John Marsden (the off-brand Choose Your Own Adventure), nestled on the family bookshelf in between Shakespeare and Roald Dahl.  First published in 1995, it allowed the reader to make the decisions as if they were the protagonist, enabling them to end up at however many different endings.

So, we have decided to produce a Choose Your Own Adventure book for the internet. It will be non-linear and interactive as two main qualities but in reality, it will cover many of the formal qualities that we have previously discussed. It will be multi-faceted- including both video, pictures and text, and episodic, just to name a few. The user will be taken through a narrative that they choose, by following a string of hyperlinks. They will watch a video and have to make a decision- choosing link A will lead them on one path and link B in an entirely different direction. At this point, the interactive element will be similar to the Docubase projects- the user will get more out of interacting with the project than the project will. Meaning the user will not add anything to the project, but the fact that it is interactive will be the whole reason the user will choose to experience it.

Our next step is to choose whether the project will be fiction or non-fiction. While we are more traversed with non-fiction interactive projects, it seems more simple to do a fiction story as it can be simple and we don’t have to plan too much (despite what I said last time about all the planning involved with fiction). However, we still have a lot of consideration to do. I’m curious as to what counts as interactive non-fiction and non-linear media. Do silly Buzzfeed quizzes about What type of garlic bread you are count? They lie somewhere between non-fiction and fiction, not creating a totally new reality but not really reflecting the one we actually experience.

Upon some simple research (this information specifically came from another academic blog from halfway across the world) into fiction non-linear storytelling, we found that interactive fiction can divide into ‘branching’ and open world’. Branching involves the user choosing from multiple options, leading to more choices and eventually one of several (or many) endings. Open world allows more freedom, allowing users to experience more perspectives of the world in their own order.  Obviously, our project falls into the ‘branching’ category.

I am looking forward to experiencing an interactive fiction project to compare it to those I experienced on docu-base, and seeing how it can help us with our own project.

 

Assignment Two: (Development) 1/4

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Kicking off week 3 of Thinking In Fragments, we had four people present their chosen MIT Docubase project and we had a discussion about each of their qualities.

All four projects had an interactive element, and the class discussion that evolved from these projects lead us to the question of, how does the element of interaction add meaning to the online documentary? Is it necessary?

In the case of the documentary mainly focusing on the Dutch undertaker, the interactive element of being able to switch between video tracks didn’t seem to make the experience any more meaningful. Upon further research, I found that this project was actually part of a much larger and expansive project detailing the impacts of Dutch colonialism. In the scheme of the larger documentary, this smaller project not only makes more sense but packs more punch. However, I believe that if it’s likely that people will access the project as an isolated documentary, there needs to be more context and more of a reason for people to interact with it.

We also asked the question of why is there more interactive non-fiction work online than there is fiction? Generally, non-fiction is easier to make in a non-linear and interactive format because the production does not need to be so meticulously planned and executed like the production of a fiction work often does. Non-fiction does not live in a carefully crafted and rigid world like fiction does. Non-fiction is more flexible and allows for more variance of form.

Jess and I discussed the different MIT Docubase projects that we had experienced. My chosen project was Deprogrammed, an interactive online documentary that is based on the spoken testimonies of three former cult and extremist group followers- an ex-jihadist, ex skin-head, and a former member of the Unification Church. It mainly covered why they joined, how it promised them power and an identity, and what they have done since leaving the cults/extremist groups. The user navigates a deserted landscape, with only the option to go forward and to look around. While the user is walking the voices of the three are heard, speaking of their experiences. You can also easily access a transcript of what they are saying, which is a lot longer than what is included in the documentary itself. There is also a history of the “brainwashing” and deprogramming, and a trailer of a feature-length documentary about deprogramming.

Jess’ chosen project was Highrise: Out My Window, an exhibition of people’s lives and homes inside high rises all over the world. The user can select a window from a highrise and is then given the chance to explore the home and its inhabitants through a 360 image. There is also extra content specifically about the inhabitants if you choose to view it.

We discussed and compared each of the projects qualities, ultimately leading us to the discovery that they were quite similar in many ways.

They are both interactive (user-controlled), immersive (sound and video, and you can control where you ‘look’ in the world), non-linear, multi-faceted (both include pictures, video, and text), and non-fiction. Deprogrammed worked as an interactive project because it emphasized the inescapable nature of the cult, ultimately making it a more immersive experience for the user. Out My Window was a non-linear project because the stories it told were separate stories, linked by the theme of the building but remained as separate parts that have no linear connection.

For both of these projects, the interactive element does not rely on the exchange of information or on the participation of the user- the ability to interact is inherently necessary for the project, but individual users interacting with the project do not contribute to the project.

 

 

 

Assignment 1: Reflection

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The practical test that I did with my partner Jess was a short, half-hour long video that chronicled thirty minutes of me using my phone, from within the phone. In other words, it was a screen recording of the different things I did and how I wasted my time on my phone. The main characteristic that we were responding to was the unregulated nature of online screen production, as I talked about in my development blog post.

Our test responds to this characteristic as it demonstrates that you can publish anything you want on the internet. While a screen capture may be insightful or educational, the one we made wasn’t particularly, or at least that wasn’t the intention. It was 29 minutes and 15 seconds of a vague pointlessness. However, that didn’t stop us making it and dropping into the void of the internet.

It also responded to the “unregulated” characteristic as it highlighted the variety of things I could do on my phone, but more importantly on the internet, through my phone. Messaging friends, searching the internet, playing games, taking photos, publishing my photos. This further demonstrates how many different technologies the internet has given birth to, and helps us imagine what could be to come. So maybe we could say that our video or short film wasn’t totally pointless, but it definitely wasn’t of a high quality.

In terms of what I learnt about online screen production, I learnt about a whole new way of making! The screen capture is totally exclusive to the screen world and is so embedded in modernity that it can’t really be separated from the internet either. Our experiment reminded me of something I’ve been seeing on Facebook lately- stories told completely through text (as if you were one of the texters). While the stories themselves are basic, it’s an incredibly innovative way to tell a story and it made me think about the other possibilities of telling stories through screen capture, beyond just texting. What’s to say you couldn’t make a feature-length film from the perspective of a phone screen?

Making this also really expanded in my mind the idea of publishing pointless content, either as an experiment or because, well, why not? A live stream of a watch ticking. A video of a blank canvas. A timelapse of my dog sleeping. It can be done, so easily. It would be interesting to gauge people’s reactions to pointless content if it was coming up in their news feeds.

My question moving forward is how can we make something that is expanding the possibilities of the internet, but something that isn’t pointless? I want to think about innovation and creation in a time where anything is possible.