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Corona Haikus: A Case Study of Interactive Factual Narrative that Uses Reflexive and Evolutive Agency as a Strategy for Deep Personal and Community Change
No full textWhen I moved from linear documentary production to the newly emerging field of interactive storytelling in the early 2000, I was excited by the potentialities of the Web, especially the possibility of co-creation in factual storytelling. Looking back, I can clearly see that what attracted me was the exploration of how factual narratives could make use of two affordances that are unique to digital media: user agency and interactivity. More than twenty years later, I am still experimenting with ways to use interactivity to facilitate co-creation of reality and move away from simple representation in documentary making (Gaudenzi 2013).
In this paper, I will use the Corona Haikus project (2020), to question the current understanding of user agency in participatory interactive narratives. I have chosen such project because I have personally been involved in it as a co-author, but also as a participant, and therefore I have both co-designed its user’s agency, and experienced it as a user. I will argue that agency in interactive documentary (i-doc) should be considered as a space of user empowerment that does not always have to affect the interactive narrative itself, because it can also be placed outside of the narrated story. The Corona Haikus example will be used to demonstrate that, in participatory narratives, deep individual and societal impact can be designed by mixing different types of mini-agencies and by orchestrating them as a journey of empowerment that is gradual and evolutive. Reflexive and evolutive agencies will be defined and presented as new ways to approach impact design in interactive narratives
Mimesis Through Violent Movement: The Affective Allure of Horror in Spectatorial Engagement
No full textDocumentary and fictional presentations of reality, or reality as we make sense of it, express great potential for film scholars and theorists to consider how horror facilitates dialogue regarding commentary on social change and the bodily experience of the spectator. Horror encourages the viewer to be moved when observing violent motion on screen. Engaging in film studies, this paper speculates on the ways in which a viewer is moved by the horror genre. While film scholar Jane Gaines offers commentary on documentaries, I suggest that we apply the framework of “political mimesis” to speculative fiction such as science fiction or horror. In interpreting filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein’s language, devices, and cinematic techniques, I draw from Gaines’ coinage of “political mimesis” to suggest that, by witnessing and engaging with violence depicted in film, – not only through the lens of documentary – spectators choose to react and thus, to act, moved on a physical and emotional level. Political mimesis reveals how the body might become “politicized.” In this feat, the body marks the beginning of such politicization as documentary provokes the viewer to engage with the content or overall message (Gaines 1999, 90). What of the message disseminated in horror with its cult classics?
First, I interpret Sergei Eisenstein’s sense of movement through the scholarship of Luka Arsenjuk in Movement, Action, Image, Montage: Sergei Eisenstein and the Cinema in Crisis; thereafter, I draw from Gaines’ “political mimesis” to suggest that the violence depicted within horror films moves viewers to think, to reflect, and to act in some way that sometimes results in a political hindsight. Pairing Gaines with Eisenstein allows for engagement with other film genres beyond the constraint of historical narratives and the documentary. Upon conducting a close reading of these works, I analyze and assess the parallels between the two to segue into a discussion on the criticism and reception of horror by integrating the work of Linda Williams in “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess” to discuss what follows in the aftermath of spectatorial engagement and response. This paper incorporates qualitative research on a theoretical scale, by examining Eisenstein’s October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928) and later involving the horror film, Daybreakers (2009) as a case study to claim that the viewer\u27s body experiences movement in a myriad of ways when witnessing the grotesque, violent scenes in a fictional capacity. On the notion of bodily experience, the Eisensteinian ‘figure-in-crisis’ now manifests as the spectator in crisis. Such a film moves the viewer, either physically or emotionally, to engage – a mimesis occurs wherein the viewer mimics the bodies on screen, compelled to react. Movement is not only seen but felt in the experience of witnessing horror. In political mimesis, the body-in-film inspires audience reception as the viewer experiences an emotional response, no longer situated in the once passive role of witness when a documentary concludes. Similarly, horror objectifies the body to mobilize pain in the experience of watching
Mina #Ecosmartphone Films 2021
No full textMINA - Mobile Innovation Network and Association is the longest-running film festival in the Southern Hemisphere dedicated to mobile & smartphone filmmaking with a focus on moving-image arts, documentary, community-engaged film productions, experimental films and emerging film production forms and formats, such as MoJo, drone videos, AR and Mobile Cinematic VR.
The tenth edition of MINA is presenting a special program titled #EcoSmartphoneFilms, a showcase of contemporary mobile film production about environmental protection and ecology in all its aspects. It is an eclectic collection of short international environmentally themed films from all over the world made on smartphones, pocket cameras, laptops and Instagram.
The films show the planet’s beauty as well as the various local, regional and global environmental challenges we are facing. By using a variety of creative solutions that illustrate the power of mobile film, they help to raise awareness about environmental topics from around the globe and make us aware of the role mobile media can play in this.
In the spirit of Margaret Mead’s statement that we should “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world” with this special #EcoSmartphoneFilms program we hope to inspire a deeper critical understanding of ecological issues and strengthen our commitment as both filmmakers and curators to inspire future generations to go mobile and stay sustainable.
Save Me (UK) Michael CoppolaShot on iPhone 11 Pro Max
SAVE ME is an experimental sci-fi drama short film about the fragmentation of the human psyche, manmade planetary destruction and the possible end of the subjective and objective world, told through the experiences of a lost girl stranded on a deserted beach, accompanied by an epic orchestral score and futuristic sound design with the use of CGI.
Iumbar Project - The First One (Australia) Martin K. Koszolko Shot on iPad Pro
This music video documents human intervention into environment. The footage shows the fate of trees and other plants disposed of by human inhabitants of the land. This short film raises questions about our relationship with the natural environment and highlights the beauty of the shapes and forms of trees. This beauty is evident even if the plants have been cut down and are no longer alive.
The Almeda Fire (USA) David Scott LeibowitzShot on iPhone 11 Pro
My Mobile movies took a swift turn from art to ENG when the Almeda fire swept through this part of the Rogue Valley.
After The Flood (USA) Alexandra GuillossouShot on iPhone XR
An observational piece on two seemingly dissimilar St. Louis events that took place in June 2019. Man and nature can be equally explosive and yet only one has the option of choice.
Tree Time (USA) Alexandra Lerman Shot on iPhone 7 & iPhone X
Tree Time imagines a relationship between nature and technology unmediated by human presence. The video was shot in the Amazon rainforest with a drone enacting a disembodied point of view that floats through the densely compressed forest canopy, taking off, hovering above the ground, and occasionally returning to it.
Kaminda (NL) David van DeldenShot on iPhone X & iPhone 11 Pro
A visual poem of a 3-year-old boy\u27s journey of self-discovery. Kaminda revisits David’s childhood adventures narrated by a young voice in spoken words written by Juan- Carlos Goilo. From the dry northern plains to the atmospheric damp caves, Kaminda takes you through the rustic landscapes of Curaçao with stunningly captured scenes. Hear the primitive sounds of Curaçao\u27s "Muzik di Zumbi" accompanied by scenes shot underwater, on land and in the air.
Little Beings (Mexico) DiAminda Ordaz
Shot on iPhone 8
I tended my senses and they were there,I stopped to contemplate and they were there, I opened my eyes and they were there,I woke up and they were there,I paid attention and they were there.So I wanted to take off my sandals,as not to hurt them with my walk
Polyvocality in Interactive Documentary: Collective Reading and Listening
No full textListening has always been undervalued as a mode of participation both inside and outside Media Studies (Fiumara 1995, Lacey 2013, Lipari 2014). Applying definitions of listening from philosophy, feminist political theory, media studies, and documentary studies to software studies, this paper identifies problematic practices and provides redefinitions and reframes: Listening only qualifies as listening when the listening itself has an effect or changes the listener, in the moment or later.
As examples of a device of meaningful listening that might be helpful in software design, the very medium used for interactive media, the paper examines two documentary case studies: Lana Lin’s The Cancer Journals Revisited (2018) and Irene Lusztig’s Yours In Sisterhood (2018). Both filmmakers invited volunteers to read aloud on camera; in the case of Lin, the twenty-seven writers, artists, activists, health care advocates, and current and former patients she invited read Black lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde’s classic 1980 memoir of her breast cancer experience. And in the case of Lusztig, she recruited participants in 32 different US states to read aloud and respond to a selection of letters to the editors at Ms. Magazine from the 70s covering issues of divorce, abortion, rape, discrimination, among many other feminist issues of the day. Both filmmakers also made it clear that they had invited these readings and exposed in multiple ways the mechanics of these readings. The paper argues that both reading aloud and the exposition of the request to read, as a device in the documentaries, is a form of listening and analyzes this through a framework of listening as a participatory process. The paper also identifies the paradiscourses of both projects and the relationships that the respective filmmakers hope to develop with their readers and viewers. Both projects embody a kind of participatory listening that suggests a much-needed antidote to the overlooked practice in software design that assumes listening cannot be participatory
Pleasure, Polyphony, and Networking in Agents of Ishq: A Case Study
No full textContemporary media ecologies offer online interactive practices opportunities to focus on social engagement with users by increasingly operating in collaborative and co-creative modes of production and circulation. This article focuses on an online multimedia bilingual (Hindi and English) project in the Indian context Agents of Ishq (2016) conceptualized by the documentary practitioner and artist, Paromita Vohra. In a country where the dominant narratives in mainstream media have primarily centred around sexual violence, the interactive audio-visual website features creative graphics, audio podcasts, first-person accounts with creative illustrations, Bollywood memes, GIFs-driven stories, photo essays, mixed media art, videos, poetry, prose around the themes of sex, love, choice, desire, gender, and freedom. The interface invites the user to explore, open up and listen to conversations around sex education, histories of desire, pleasure, sexual experiences, social and legal discussions on conscious agency and intimacy. The database-driven project draws on Indian popular culture, art and socio-cultural context to promote amongst its users and audience the ability to listen to and respect others’ complex lived sexualities. Vohra’s work acts as a context provider to the varied intimate and personal voices, authors, collective and performative, artistic forms engaging with each other towards a common objective of opening enabling, inclusive conversations between young Indians around diverse sexual cultures which are not solely instructive and normative. The non-linear echoes of these discussions can also be heard (and continue) over social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter. The project also intervenes in the real world through workshops on gender, sexuality and consent with different practitioners (researchers, doctors, educators, students) and organizations. Drawing on Wiehl’s proposal of Interventionist Networking Methodology, the article analyzes how the interactive project features a multiplicity of forms, representation and circulation which encompass personal accounts by the users, strategies of the practitioner and her collaborators, and challenges of engaging the target audience who belong to a multitude of heterogeneous cultural backgrounds and socio-economic classes. The digital world has offered people the chance and various ways to privately connect outside their immediate social spheres, in a way the everyday life may not. However, it has also gradually changed from a space of experimentation and plays to a space that reflects the normativity and pressures of the offline world. The article also calls attention to the dynamism between digital and physical spaces through this case study. It suggests how the polyphonic attributes of online interactive media can tap into it – creating art that respects the individuality of the human experience while acknowledging the multiple ways it may articulate itself.  
An Interactive Territorial Study on Urban Spaces: Case Study - Leeds
No full textOur latest interactive factual work aims to analyze the wider concept of \u27walls\u27, their materiality and role within an urban ecology. The city of Leeds and its socio-anthropological issues is our case study. Leeds is a large urban conglomerate in the North of England that for historical, socio-political and cultural reasons, embodies several aspects of English national contemporary development, such as: economic growth, constant reshaping, mono-ethnic areas, class-divide, inequality etc.
The term \u27walls\u27 is often used to define a large variety of artefacts and spaces that create, and embody some sort of boundaries. These artefacts often include fences, embankments, roads, gated communities - all structures that divide or limit spaces.
In a psychogeographical gesture, this interactive portrait of Leeds will help to reflect on the extent to which these artefacts could hamper some trajectories and facilitate others, as boundaries often become territories themselves. The main aim of this paper is to show how our interactive documentary, through the use of creative practices, could be identify as a territorial study of urban barriers that investigates the convergence of the cultural, the performative and the socio-political.
In order to visually represent the above, we are currently using Korsakow as a method of interdisciplinary research and the final output will include a variety of different media: video clips, sound recordings, photographs etc. Furthermore, the process of filming and collecting material is based on the idea of wandering around the city of Leeds and capturing the essence of the idea of ‘Dérive’ within the thematic concept of ‘walls and borders’. Built around Debord’s idea of experimental behavior (1956), Dérive is an unplanned journey through an urban landscape in which participants let themselves be drawn by the terrain and the encounters they make during the whole process.
Our main research question can be identified as: Can digital, non-linear interactive audio-visual forms be developed as a method for understanding the challenges of living within ‘urban walls and boundaries’? We believe that the originality of the project mainly resides in the mix methods research approach, which leads and guides the creative practice process
Un/interactive Fish in Posthuman Ethical Design: A Human-Nonhuman Relationship Through the Lens of Taoist-Posthumanism
No full textIn the posthuman era, what counts as ethical has dispersed and re-distributed to a nonhuman-centered network that includes nonhuman species and nonliving matter. This paper serves as a resistance and a possible way out against traditional human-pet ownership in therapeutic robot development. The paper consists of research and project-based speculative design that aims to recalibrate human relationships with others through the public interactive project Not-my-fish. In the project Not-my-fish, the others include fish, digital fish, and computers. The project is developed in a healthcare facility setting to offer an alternative healthcare modality with un-interactive interaction and flow as core concepts. The overarching research question is: what would a human-nonhuman relationship look like through the lens of Taoist-posthumanism, and how do we design such a relationship? More practically, how to create a mutually beneficial interactive system with limited human-initiated interaction in human-computer interaction? Firstly, I draw on Posthumanism, Taoism, and Contractualism as theoretical frameworks to form the foundation regarding the human-fish relationship. Second, I analyze and transcribe the theories into the project Not-my-fish in terms of un-interactive interaction. Third, I apply the concept of flow as design guidelines and feature four aspects of the flow in the human-fish interaction: ecological flow (the physical surroundings of the human-fish interaction), sensory flow (the physical senses and perception of humans and fish), social flow (the shared and unique social behavior of humans and fish), and data flow (the system’s memory load and data lifecycle). Fourth, I discuss how the participating parties, such as human individuals, computer-simulated fish, and institutional partners, could mutually benefit from this partnership. The project Not-my-fish rearticulates the relationship between humans and fish and humans and computers. It views the human-fish relationships from posthuman and Taoist perspectives to detach the idea of human-nonhuman ownership and promote reciprocity and equilibrium. Nevertheless, some challenges are presented for human partners and design aspects regarding the transition from human-centered to posthuman interactive media. However, this paper demonstrates a practical way for human society to develop a posthuman design in public interactives and serve the public good at the same time
Reflections on racism from living dietetics history: An interview with Dr. Evelyn Ford Crayton, the First African American President of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
No full textMigrants’ wellbeing and use of information and communication technologies.
No full textThe number of migrants is increasing worldwide coupled with an ever-expanding entrenchment of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the fabric of daily life. There has been little attention in the health disciplines to the unique ways migrants adopt and are influenced by ICTs across multiple local and transnational social spaces. This scoping review explores the current evidence on migrants’ ICT-mediated transnational social activities and related influences on wellbeing. The review was conducted using Arksey and O\u27Malley’s (2005) methodological framework and a total of 37 articles were included for the final study. Key findings highlight barriers and facilitators of ICT use in transnational contexts, types of ICT-mediated transnational social activities; and reported influences on migrants’ wellbeing. Migrants’ ICT use facilitates reciprocal channels of social support and continuation of valued social roles. Social role disruption, unequal exchange of social support, and mismatch between migrants’ expectations around ICT use and that of left-behind communities are some of the negative processes with psychological, social, and emotional consequences identified in the review. Main review conclusions emphasize the need to further explore the quality and intensity of ICT-mediated social influences on migrants’ wellbeing and to incorporate a transnational lens in the design of digital learning interventions targeting vulnerable migrant populations
Illuminating five possible dimensions of self-care during the COVID-19 pandemic
No full textIntroduction: Self-care is about taking care of yourself. It is a proactive action involving steps to develop, protect, maintain and improve health, wellbeing or wellness. Self-care can be seen as a repertoire of practices – different things you do that help you care for you, no matter how small. It is an act of treating yourself like you would a close friend. The importance of valuing self-care has not changed in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, in fact more awareness and appreciation for what one can do to empower yourself may indeed be valued more.
Methods: In this paper, I draw on data from 53 participants aged over 18 years who responded to an online qualitative questionnaire between the months of May to June in 2020. Poetry derived from all the participants has been generated to both represent their voice and to provide a provocation that ignites our heart and mind to consider what is good in life.
Results: To further conceptualise self-care, five possible dimensions of self-care (mindfulness, self-compassion, habits, time and agency) are suggested and the aspects within these dimensions are described juxtaposed with poetic representation that illuminates practices and mindsets engaged with during a pandemic.
Conclusions: When thinking about self-care across five possible dimensions, this framework becomes useful for capturing a holistic and authentic view of both proactive actions and the variety of practices that can be engaged with. Empowerment is possible in partnership with self-compassion and awareness, where a self-kindness supports proactive decisions to be made on a daily basis that support wellbeing. Central is that no matter one’s situation, difficulty and suffering during a pandemic, gratitude and awareness for oneself is possible.