In this chapter I address the co-creative dimension of two interactive documentary projects – Que... more In this chapter I address the co-creative dimension of two interactive documentary projects – Question Bridge and Quipu. I examine the cultural precursors and contexts that inspired their divergent co-creative approaches. I consider how the producers perform as facilitators, asking how co-creation is invited and structured? How is the project agenda set, and what is the participants’ agency? Both projects stage processes of dialogue among communities, between participants and with audiences. My interest is in how the communicative structures of the projects are produced. The first example - Question Bridge: Black Males (Johnson et al 2012) - engages those who take part in processes of dialogue and self-reflection in order to disrupt a problem of image and self-image with deep historical roots and dire contemporary consequences. The second - The Quipu Project (Court et al 2014) - provides a media platform through which witness testimony can be recorded, gathered and heard in order to support an activist movement in a struggle for legal redress that has been going on for twenty years. In both projects, the participants are the subjects of the respective struggles, and the producers devise strategies which cede significant editorial control to them. Crucially, in order to bridge the participation gap, both projects stage face-to-face as well as digital engagement. De Michiel and Zimmermann have developed the persuasive concept of ‘Open Space Documentary’ to reflect this generation of collaborative, iterative, often open-ended work. This body of work, they argue, replaces documentary rhetoric with, ‘a politics of convenings’ (De Michiel and Zimmermann 2013: 365). Following Castells’ argument (2009) that communications networks constitute contemporary public space, such convenings can make a significant contribution to contemporary politics. Whereas documentary rhetoric might intervene within the public sphere, interactive documentary can be a platform for a convening through which an audience becomes a public - a group conscious of itself and its shared sense of purpose. The projects I discuss are fundamentally works of convening in which documentary as representation gives way to documentary as a process of staging multiple interactions and engagements - between participants and with viewers/users. These projects suggest how co-creative interactive documentary can play a role in change making in our increasingly unequal and precarious economic and ecological times.
Abstract: The Are you happy? Project is the first output of the Collaborative Docs practice-based... more Abstract: The Are you happy? Project is the first output of the Collaborative Docs practice-based Research Fellowship. The Are you happy? Project is situated in the context of participatory media and is concerned with how documentary practice can take advantage ...
The blog reflects the Collaborative Docs practice-based AHRC Research Fellowship in Creative &... more The blog reflects the Collaborative Docs practice-based AHRC Research Fellowship in Creative & Performing Arts. The research looks at the intersection between documentary and the Social, Semantic and Open Web. It investigates through action research the role of the producer as context provider, catalyst, curator in documentary projects. It considers the social, political and creative potential of participatory and collaborative forms. It draws on documentary, cultural and 'new' media studies. The blog is also a repository for a growing collection of interviews with key practitioners in the file. The term 'Collab' is drawn from You Tube and refers to the joint productions that people started creating on that platform in 2007. (See blog interview with Collab pioneer 'Mad V'.)
Surveying the contemporary nonfiction work being developed within the framework of VR, an opposit... more Surveying the contemporary nonfiction work being developed within the framework of VR, an opposition emerges between the promise of VR as escape from materiality and a promise of corporeal engagement. In this article, I consider how this opposition between embodiment and disembodiment manifests in some recent projects. By grounding my analysis through reference to the imaginary of the pioneers of 2nd wave VR, I explore how VR nonfiction reflects divergent currents, engaging “technologies of seeing” with a lineage going back to the Renaissance while introducing novel “technologies of corporeality” and ask what is at stake for documentary epistemology in these developments. This new field where VR and non-fiction intersect demands analysis and theorisation, yet it presents a variety of challenges for documentary scholars. As an emergent medium in a process of rapid development, with producers experimenting with diverse platforms, divergent affordances and vocabularies, VR invites multiple avenues of enquiry. Scholarship on VR nonfiction is only just beginning, although critical work prompted by second wave VR in contexts including art history, cultural studies and feminist studies, provides a significant resource. At the same time, the forms of experiential engagement involved in VR challenge analytical tools of visual culture. Acknowledging this wider context, this article seeks to provide an initial mapping of the landscape of nonfiction VR through the ways these works engage the body. In addressing this arena of work, I also signal the need for the development of more agile critical frameworks for the analysis and critique of these technologically mediated encounters, ones that are equally responsive to textual effects and immersive engagement.
In this half-day workshop, we will explore the ethics of Virtual Reality (VR) through conversatio... more In this half-day workshop, we will explore the ethics of Virtual Reality (VR) through conversations framed around design fictions. Affordable head-mounted displays (HMDs) and accessible VR content are now within reach of large audiences, yet many of VR's most urgent challenges remain under-explored. In addition to the many known unknowns (e.g. how do we manage sensory conflicts and spatial limitations in VR?), there are many more unknown unknowns (e.g. what kinds of psychological, social and cultural impact will VR provoke?). By bringing together diverse scenarios from workshop participants, and bespoke design fictions created specifically to explore the ethics of VR, we will facilitate a rich discussion that will inform the development of three high-fidelity design fictions that will be used to explore the ethics of VR in future workshops, including one in Bristol, UK in November 2019, part of the Virtual Realities Immersive Documentary Encounters project.
The blog reflects the Collaborative Docs practice-based AHRC Research Fellowship in Creative & Pe... more The blog reflects the Collaborative Docs practice-based AHRC Research Fellowship in Creative & Performing Arts. The research looks at the intersection between documentary and the Social, Semantic and Open Web. It investigates through action research the role of the producer as context provider, catalyst, curator in documentary projects. It considers the social, political and creative potential of participatory and collaborative forms. It draws on documentary, cultural and 'new' media studies. The blog is also a repository for a growing collection of interviews with key practitioners in the file. The term 'Collab' is drawn from You Tube and refers to the joint productions that people started creating on that platform in 2007. (See blog interview with Collab pioneer 'Mad V'.)
Consumer VR headsets (e.g. Oculus Go) have brought VR nonfiction within reach of at home audience... more Consumer VR headsets (e.g. Oculus Go) have brought VR nonfiction within reach of at home audiences. However, despite increases in VR hardware sales and enthusiasm for the platform among niche audiences at festivals, mainstream audience interest in VRNF is not yet proven. This is despite a growing body of critically acclaimed VRNF, some of which is freely available to consumers. In seeking to understand a lack of engagement with VRNF by mainstream audiences, we need to be aware of challenges relating to the discovery of content and bear in mind the cost, inaccessibility and known limitations of consumer VR technology. However, we also need to set these issues within the context of the wider relationships between technology, society and the media, which have influenced the uptake of new media technologies in the past. To address this work, this paper provides accounts by members of the public of their responses to VRNF as experienced within their households. We present an empirical study-one of the first of its kind-exploring these questions through qualitative research facilitating diverse households to experience VRNF at home, over several months. We find considerable enthusiasm for VR as a platform for nonfiction, but we also find this enthusiasm tempered by ethical concerns relating to both the platform and the content, and a pervasive tension between the platform and the home setting. Reflecting on our findings, we suggest that VRNF currently fails to meet any 'supervening social necessity' (Winston, 1997) that would pave the way for widespread domestic uptake, and we reflect on future directions for VR in the home.
Surveying the contemporary nonfiction work being developed within the framework of VR, an opposit... more Surveying the contemporary nonfiction work being developed within the framework of VR, an opposition emerges between the promise of VR as escape from materiality and a promise of corporeal engagement. In this article, I consider how this opposition between embodiment and disembodiment manifests in some recent projects. By grounding my analysis through reference to the imaginary of the pioneers of 2nd wave VR, I explore how VR nonfiction reflects divergent currents, engaging “technologies of seeing” with a lineage going back to the Renaissance while introducing novel “technologies of corporeality” and ask what is at stake for documentary epistemology in these developments. This new field where VR and non-fiction intersect demands analysis and theorisation, yet it presents a variety of challenges for documentary scholars. As an emergent medium in a process of rapid development, with producers experimenting with diverse platforms, divergent affordances and vocabularies, VR invites mult...
In this chapter I address the co-creative dimension of two interactive documentary projects – Que... more In this chapter I address the co-creative dimension of two interactive documentary projects – Question Bridge and Quipu. I examine the cultural precursors and contexts that inspired their divergent co-creative approaches. I consider how the producers perform as facilitators, asking how co-creation is invited and structured? How is the project agenda set, and what is the participants’ agency? Both projects stage processes of dialogue among communities, between participants and with audiences. My interest is in how the communicative structures of the projects are produced. The first example - Question Bridge: Black Males (Johnson et al 2012) - engages those who take part in processes of dialogue and self-reflection in order to disrupt a problem of image and self-image with deep historical roots and dire contemporary consequences. The second - The Quipu Project (Court et al 2014) - provides a media platform through which witness testimony can be recorded, gathered and heard in order to support an activist movement in a struggle for legal redress that has been going on for twenty years. In both projects, the participants are the subjects of the respective struggles, and the producers devise strategies which cede significant editorial control to them. Crucially, in order to bridge the participation gap, both projects stage face-to-face as well as digital engagement. De Michiel and Zimmermann have developed the persuasive concept of ‘Open Space Documentary’ to reflect this generation of collaborative, iterative, often open-ended work. This body of work, they argue, replaces documentary rhetoric with, ‘a politics of convenings’ (De Michiel and Zimmermann 2013: 365). Following Castells’ argument (2009) that communications networks constitute contemporary public space, such convenings can make a significant contribution to contemporary politics. Whereas documentary rhetoric might intervene within the public sphere, interactive documentary can be a platform for a convening through which an audience becomes a public - a group conscious of itself and its shared sense of purpose. The projects I discuss are fundamentally works of convening in which documentary as representation gives way to documentary as a process of staging multiple interactions and engagements - between participants and with viewers/users. These projects suggest how co-creative interactive documentary can play a role in change making in our increasingly unequal and precarious economic and ecological times.
In this chapter I address the co-creative dimension of two interactive documentary projects – Que... more In this chapter I address the co-creative dimension of two interactive documentary projects – Question Bridge and Quipu. I examine the cultural precursors and contexts that inspired their divergent co-creative approaches. I consider how the producers perform as facilitators, asking how co-creation is invited and structured? How is the project agenda set, and what is the participants’ agency? Both projects stage processes of dialogue among communities, between participants and with audiences. My interest is in how the communicative structures of the projects are produced. The first example - Question Bridge: Black Males (Johnson et al 2012) - engages those who take part in processes of dialogue and self-reflection in order to disrupt a problem of image and self-image with deep historical roots and dire contemporary consequences. The second - The Quipu Project (Court et al 2014) - provides a media platform through which witness testimony can be recorded, gathered and heard in order to support an activist movement in a struggle for legal redress that has been going on for twenty years. In both projects, the participants are the subjects of the respective struggles, and the producers devise strategies which cede significant editorial control to them. Crucially, in order to bridge the participation gap, both projects stage face-to-face as well as digital engagement. De Michiel and Zimmermann have developed the persuasive concept of ‘Open Space Documentary’ to reflect this generation of collaborative, iterative, often open-ended work. This body of work, they argue, replaces documentary rhetoric with, ‘a politics of convenings’ (De Michiel and Zimmermann 2013: 365). Following Castells’ argument (2009) that communications networks constitute contemporary public space, such convenings can make a significant contribution to contemporary politics. Whereas documentary rhetoric might intervene within the public sphere, interactive documentary can be a platform for a convening through which an audience becomes a public - a group conscious of itself and its shared sense of purpose. The projects I discuss are fundamentally works of convening in which documentary as representation gives way to documentary as a process of staging multiple interactions and engagements - between participants and with viewers/users. These projects suggest how co-creative interactive documentary can play a role in change making in our increasingly unequal and precarious economic and ecological times.
Abstract: The Are you happy? Project is the first output of the Collaborative Docs practice-based... more Abstract: The Are you happy? Project is the first output of the Collaborative Docs practice-based Research Fellowship. The Are you happy? Project is situated in the context of participatory media and is concerned with how documentary practice can take advantage ...
The blog reflects the Collaborative Docs practice-based AHRC Research Fellowship in Creative &... more The blog reflects the Collaborative Docs practice-based AHRC Research Fellowship in Creative & Performing Arts. The research looks at the intersection between documentary and the Social, Semantic and Open Web. It investigates through action research the role of the producer as context provider, catalyst, curator in documentary projects. It considers the social, political and creative potential of participatory and collaborative forms. It draws on documentary, cultural and 'new' media studies. The blog is also a repository for a growing collection of interviews with key practitioners in the file. The term 'Collab' is drawn from You Tube and refers to the joint productions that people started creating on that platform in 2007. (See blog interview with Collab pioneer 'Mad V'.)
Surveying the contemporary nonfiction work being developed within the framework of VR, an opposit... more Surveying the contemporary nonfiction work being developed within the framework of VR, an opposition emerges between the promise of VR as escape from materiality and a promise of corporeal engagement. In this article, I consider how this opposition between embodiment and disembodiment manifests in some recent projects. By grounding my analysis through reference to the imaginary of the pioneers of 2nd wave VR, I explore how VR nonfiction reflects divergent currents, engaging “technologies of seeing” with a lineage going back to the Renaissance while introducing novel “technologies of corporeality” and ask what is at stake for documentary epistemology in these developments. This new field where VR and non-fiction intersect demands analysis and theorisation, yet it presents a variety of challenges for documentary scholars. As an emergent medium in a process of rapid development, with producers experimenting with diverse platforms, divergent affordances and vocabularies, VR invites multiple avenues of enquiry. Scholarship on VR nonfiction is only just beginning, although critical work prompted by second wave VR in contexts including art history, cultural studies and feminist studies, provides a significant resource. At the same time, the forms of experiential engagement involved in VR challenge analytical tools of visual culture. Acknowledging this wider context, this article seeks to provide an initial mapping of the landscape of nonfiction VR through the ways these works engage the body. In addressing this arena of work, I also signal the need for the development of more agile critical frameworks for the analysis and critique of these technologically mediated encounters, ones that are equally responsive to textual effects and immersive engagement.
In this half-day workshop, we will explore the ethics of Virtual Reality (VR) through conversatio... more In this half-day workshop, we will explore the ethics of Virtual Reality (VR) through conversations framed around design fictions. Affordable head-mounted displays (HMDs) and accessible VR content are now within reach of large audiences, yet many of VR's most urgent challenges remain under-explored. In addition to the many known unknowns (e.g. how do we manage sensory conflicts and spatial limitations in VR?), there are many more unknown unknowns (e.g. what kinds of psychological, social and cultural impact will VR provoke?). By bringing together diverse scenarios from workshop participants, and bespoke design fictions created specifically to explore the ethics of VR, we will facilitate a rich discussion that will inform the development of three high-fidelity design fictions that will be used to explore the ethics of VR in future workshops, including one in Bristol, UK in November 2019, part of the Virtual Realities Immersive Documentary Encounters project.
The blog reflects the Collaborative Docs practice-based AHRC Research Fellowship in Creative & Pe... more The blog reflects the Collaborative Docs practice-based AHRC Research Fellowship in Creative & Performing Arts. The research looks at the intersection between documentary and the Social, Semantic and Open Web. It investigates through action research the role of the producer as context provider, catalyst, curator in documentary projects. It considers the social, political and creative potential of participatory and collaborative forms. It draws on documentary, cultural and 'new' media studies. The blog is also a repository for a growing collection of interviews with key practitioners in the file. The term 'Collab' is drawn from You Tube and refers to the joint productions that people started creating on that platform in 2007. (See blog interview with Collab pioneer 'Mad V'.)
Consumer VR headsets (e.g. Oculus Go) have brought VR nonfiction within reach of at home audience... more Consumer VR headsets (e.g. Oculus Go) have brought VR nonfiction within reach of at home audiences. However, despite increases in VR hardware sales and enthusiasm for the platform among niche audiences at festivals, mainstream audience interest in VRNF is not yet proven. This is despite a growing body of critically acclaimed VRNF, some of which is freely available to consumers. In seeking to understand a lack of engagement with VRNF by mainstream audiences, we need to be aware of challenges relating to the discovery of content and bear in mind the cost, inaccessibility and known limitations of consumer VR technology. However, we also need to set these issues within the context of the wider relationships between technology, society and the media, which have influenced the uptake of new media technologies in the past. To address this work, this paper provides accounts by members of the public of their responses to VRNF as experienced within their households. We present an empirical study-one of the first of its kind-exploring these questions through qualitative research facilitating diverse households to experience VRNF at home, over several months. We find considerable enthusiasm for VR as a platform for nonfiction, but we also find this enthusiasm tempered by ethical concerns relating to both the platform and the content, and a pervasive tension between the platform and the home setting. Reflecting on our findings, we suggest that VRNF currently fails to meet any 'supervening social necessity' (Winston, 1997) that would pave the way for widespread domestic uptake, and we reflect on future directions for VR in the home.
Surveying the contemporary nonfiction work being developed within the framework of VR, an opposit... more Surveying the contemporary nonfiction work being developed within the framework of VR, an opposition emerges between the promise of VR as escape from materiality and a promise of corporeal engagement. In this article, I consider how this opposition between embodiment and disembodiment manifests in some recent projects. By grounding my analysis through reference to the imaginary of the pioneers of 2nd wave VR, I explore how VR nonfiction reflects divergent currents, engaging “technologies of seeing” with a lineage going back to the Renaissance while introducing novel “technologies of corporeality” and ask what is at stake for documentary epistemology in these developments. This new field where VR and non-fiction intersect demands analysis and theorisation, yet it presents a variety of challenges for documentary scholars. As an emergent medium in a process of rapid development, with producers experimenting with diverse platforms, divergent affordances and vocabularies, VR invites mult...
In this chapter I address the co-creative dimension of two interactive documentary projects – Que... more In this chapter I address the co-creative dimension of two interactive documentary projects – Question Bridge and Quipu. I examine the cultural precursors and contexts that inspired their divergent co-creative approaches. I consider how the producers perform as facilitators, asking how co-creation is invited and structured? How is the project agenda set, and what is the participants’ agency? Both projects stage processes of dialogue among communities, between participants and with audiences. My interest is in how the communicative structures of the projects are produced. The first example - Question Bridge: Black Males (Johnson et al 2012) - engages those who take part in processes of dialogue and self-reflection in order to disrupt a problem of image and self-image with deep historical roots and dire contemporary consequences. The second - The Quipu Project (Court et al 2014) - provides a media platform through which witness testimony can be recorded, gathered and heard in order to support an activist movement in a struggle for legal redress that has been going on for twenty years. In both projects, the participants are the subjects of the respective struggles, and the producers devise strategies which cede significant editorial control to them. Crucially, in order to bridge the participation gap, both projects stage face-to-face as well as digital engagement. De Michiel and Zimmermann have developed the persuasive concept of ‘Open Space Documentary’ to reflect this generation of collaborative, iterative, often open-ended work. This body of work, they argue, replaces documentary rhetoric with, ‘a politics of convenings’ (De Michiel and Zimmermann 2013: 365). Following Castells’ argument (2009) that communications networks constitute contemporary public space, such convenings can make a significant contribution to contemporary politics. Whereas documentary rhetoric might intervene within the public sphere, interactive documentary can be a platform for a convening through which an audience becomes a public - a group conscious of itself and its shared sense of purpose. The projects I discuss are fundamentally works of convening in which documentary as representation gives way to documentary as a process of staging multiple interactions and engagements - between participants and with viewers/users. These projects suggest how co-creative interactive documentary can play a role in change making in our increasingly unequal and precarious economic and ecological times.
Abstract
Thirty years since the term Virtual Reality was coined, developments in hardware and sof... more Abstract Thirty years since the term Virtual Reality was coined, developments in hardware and software have made VR viable as a mass-market consumer proposition. Influenced by pioneering work by the Knight Foundation Fellow, Nonny de la Pena, 2015 saw VR take off as a journalism platform with the New York Times launching its own VR app and distributing Google Cardboard headsets to a million plus subscribers. This interest in immersive journalism is influenced by factors including the drive to reach new and younger audiences and a widespread belief in VR as an “empathy machine” (Chris Milk TED March 2015). This talk will map this emerging landscape and point to some of the creative and ethical challenges that arise where Virtual Reality meets Journalism.
The history of documentary has been one of adaptation and change, as documentarists have taken ad... more The history of documentary has been one of adaptation and change, as documentarists have taken advantage of the affordances of emerging technology for innovation in storytelling about the world around them. In the last decade digital has amplified that process of change – ushering in rapid transformation within production, form, and exhibition. From new commissioning contexts to two-way audience relationships; Mandy Rose will map key features of the landscape that has emerged where documentary meets computerisation. Drawing on examples from Serious Games to Sensory Storytelling and Virtual Reality; she will discuss how digital forms and platforms offer new dimensions to documentary's historic project of describing and critiquing our shared world.
Digital creative technologies, networked and ubiquitous media have produced a new context for doc... more Digital creative technologies, networked and ubiquitous media have produced a new context for documentary, and the potential for an enhanced role in reflecting and critiquing “our shared world” (Nichols). In the last decade participatory practices that were at the margins of 20th documentary have come to the fore, reframing documentary knowledge as embodied, specific, contingent, relational.
In this talk I’ll reflect on these developments through the lens of my own experiences of media participation – in Independent Film in the 1980s, as co-producer of BBC2’s Video Nation project in the 1990s, and in my current role as a practice-based academic researcher. I’ll argue for co-creation as a concept better equipped than participation to render visible mediation – both social and technological – and as a practice able to respond to the “participation gap” (Jenkins). I’ll discuss some contemporary examples of documentary co-creation and consider strategies for negotiating the “extractive logic of the network” (Dovey). With immersion becoming a dominant theme in documentary, and VR about to hit the consumer market, I’ll reflect on the terms of participation within virtual environments depicting non-fiction themes. As we enter the post-web era, the talk will ask where participation is heading now, and what the potential is to shape that journey.
Panelist - with Kat Cizek (NFB), Ethan Zuckerman MIT Center for Civic Media) , Andrew Lowenthal (... more Panelist - with Kat Cizek (NFB), Ethan Zuckerman MIT Center for Civic Media) , Andrew Lowenthal (Engage Media)
Digital has brought disruption to documentary. Radically new forms are emerging requiring new tea... more Digital has brought disruption to documentary. Radically new forms are emerging requiring new teams and skills. The market is changing. The audience is changing. But documentary has been a fluid form – reinvented by generations of producers taking advantage of new technologies and possibilities. So what’s distinctive now? Outlining key features of this moment of transformation, Mandy Rose will suggest that, if we want to know what we should teach now, we need to think less about documentary production, more about the life of a documentary today.
“The ‘Are you happy?’ Project” addresses the creative and aesthetic challenges and possibilities ... more “The ‘Are you happy?’ Project” addresses the creative and aesthetic challenges and possibilities of the newly emerging “networked” documentary. 50 years on from Jean Rouch & Edgar Morin’s seminal 1960 documentary ‘Chronique d’un Ete’, at a new moment of technological change, filmmakers and film enthusiasts around the world have responded to a call to revisit or restage the vox pops sequence from that film.
The latest generation of web technology (HTML5) offers the possibility of live re-contextualisation of documentary material, through mobilising the co-creative potential of human discourse captured in the web (Twitter, Flickr). The ‘Are you happy?’ Project experiments with collaborative practice and with a new visual and informational grammar in response to these affordances, reframing Rouch’s notion of “shared anthropology” in the context of networked culture.
The presentation was accompanied by extracts from “The ‘Are you happy?’ Project” by producer Mandy Rose.
The Lives of Question Bridge – a co-creative transmedia project
Mandy Rose
Inspired by WEB DuB... more The Lives of Question Bridge – a co-creative transmedia project Mandy Rose
Inspired by WEB DuBois concept of double-consciousness among black American men, Question Bridge: Black Males is a transmedia project which sets out to “represent and redefine Black male identity in America”. The participants don’t make the content, but in a profound way they shape the work, and drive the “video mediated megalogue” that the project is staging in galleries, prisons, schools and museums across the US.
Question Bridge launched as a “documentary style art installation” and website in 2012. Produced by artists Chris Johnson, Hank Willis Thomas, Bayete Ross Smith and Kamal Sinclair, the project was created through a form of participatory design in which black American men were invited not to answer but to pose questions of each other. The virtual dialogue that has ensued is reflected online and has provided a catalyst for face-to-face conversations in museums, schools, prisons and galleries across the US. Following a Kickstarter campaign which raised $75K, a second stage project - Question Bridge Interactive - went live in 2014, with new features including an interactive website and mobile app to allow participants to take part remotely. The project now also includes an education curriculum for high school students.
Emerging out of the art world, drawing on practices of documentary, social activism and community media, the project reflects the blurring between genres underway in the context of digital media.
This case study explores Question Bridge as content and catalyst, and as a stage on which participants may become publics. It considers how the project has been reframed in the context of the #blacklivesmatter movement.
Uploads
Papers by Mandy Rose
Thirty years since the term Virtual Reality was coined, developments in hardware and software have made VR viable as a mass-market consumer proposition. Influenced by pioneering work by the Knight Foundation Fellow, Nonny de la Pena, 2015 saw VR take off as a journalism platform with the New York Times launching its own VR app and distributing Google Cardboard headsets to a million plus subscribers. This interest in immersive journalism is influenced by factors including the drive to reach new and younger audiences and a widespread belief in VR as an “empathy machine” (Chris Milk TED March 2015). This talk will map this emerging landscape and point to some of the creative and ethical challenges that arise where Virtual Reality meets Journalism.
In this talk I’ll reflect on these developments through the lens of my own experiences of media participation – in Independent Film in the 1980s, as co-producer of BBC2’s Video Nation project in the 1990s, and in my current role as a practice-based academic researcher. I’ll argue for co-creation as a concept better equipped than participation to render visible mediation – both social and technological – and as a practice able to respond to the “participation gap” (Jenkins). I’ll discuss some contemporary examples of documentary co-creation and consider strategies for negotiating the “extractive logic of the network” (Dovey). With immersion becoming a dominant theme in documentary, and VR about to hit the consumer market, I’ll reflect on the terms of participation within virtual environments depicting non-fiction themes. As we enter the post-web era, the talk will ask where participation is heading now, and what the potential is to shape that journey.
The latest generation of web technology (HTML5) offers the possibility of live re-contextualisation of documentary material, through mobilising the co-creative potential of human discourse captured in the web (Twitter, Flickr). The ‘Are you happy?’ Project experiments with collaborative practice and with a new visual and informational grammar in response to these affordances, reframing Rouch’s notion of “shared anthropology” in the context of networked culture.
The presentation was accompanied by extracts from “The ‘Are you happy?’ Project” by producer Mandy Rose.
Mandy Rose
Inspired by WEB DuBois concept of double-consciousness among black American men, Question Bridge: Black Males is a transmedia project which sets out to “represent and redefine Black male identity in America”. The participants don’t make the content, but in a profound way they shape the work, and drive the “video mediated megalogue” that the project is staging in galleries, prisons, schools and museums across the US.
Question Bridge launched as a “documentary style art installation” and website in 2012. Produced by artists Chris Johnson, Hank Willis Thomas, Bayete Ross Smith and Kamal Sinclair, the project was created through a form of participatory design in which black American men were invited not to answer but to pose questions of each other. The virtual dialogue that has ensued is reflected online and has provided a catalyst for face-to-face conversations in museums, schools, prisons and galleries across the US. Following a Kickstarter campaign which raised $75K, a second stage project - Question Bridge Interactive - went live in 2014, with new features including an interactive website and mobile app to allow participants to take part remotely. The project now also includes an education curriculum for high school students.
Emerging out of the art world, drawing on practices of documentary, social activism and community media, the project reflects the blurring between genres underway in the context of digital media.
This case study explores Question Bridge as content and catalyst, and as a stage on which participants may become publics. It considers how the project has been reframed in the context of the #blacklivesmatter movement.