Australian new media arts organisation dLux Media Arts was one of my sponsors for the trip, and so I’ve published my report on their site: http://bit.ly/fId0H 

Enjoy!

Second Nature: The International Journal of Creative Media is a new open access, peer-reviewed online journal that explores the distinctive particulars of and interconnections between textual, visual, aural and interactive creative research and practices.

It welcomes contributions from across the field of creative media including creative writers, media and art historians, media practitioners and fine artists, performers, architects and architectural theorists and historians, curators, museum professionals, scientists, cultural and media theorists, archivists, technologists, software developers, educationalists, philosophers and any others who have a stake in the understanding and future developments of creative media. Second Nature publishes research papers, articles, and creative projects.

The first issue is themed ‘Role Models’, which editor (the wonderful) Shiralee Saul explains:

The theme of this issue, “Role Models”, is intended to be as multifaceted as the journal itself. What, it asks, is academic research’s, and creative media generally, relationship with the past? What is our ‘proper’ role as academics? And what models should we be providing, and critiquing, for our students? How can we facilitate their entry into an increasingly rapidly changing industrial and cultural landscape?

Check it out!

Dena, C. (2008) ‘Emerging Participatory Culture Practices: Player-Created Tiers in Alternate Reality Games’, Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze (Eds) special issue on ‘Convergence Culture’ in Convergence Journal: International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Vol 14, No 1, pp: 41-57.

This article introduces an emerging form of participatory culture, one that is not a modification or elaboration of a primary producer’s content. Instead, this article details how the artifacts created to ‘play’ a primary producer’s content have become the primary work for massive global audiences. This phenomenon is observed in the genre of alternate reality games (ARGs) and is illustrated through a theory of ‘tiering’. Tiers provide separate content to different audiences. ARG designers tier their projects, targeting different players with different content. ARG  player production then creates another tier for non-playing audiences. To explicate this point, the features that provoke player-production – producer-tiering, ARG aesthetics and transmedia fragmentation – are interrogated, alongside the character of the subsequent player-production. Finally, I explore the aspects of the player-created tiers that attract massive audiences, and then posit what these observations may indicate about contemporary art forms and society in general.

Since this paper was restricted by copyright for a year (which provoked a controversy), I created a website to augment the paper. Many people thought the website provided all the content that was in the essay, but that is not the case. The website provided another point of entry for those who couldn’t access the essay, and provided more depth for those that could. Now this can be made clear because the paper is out of copyright. Yay!

• PDF of the paper
• Online Augmentation Website

Dena, C. (2007) ‘The Future of Digital Media Culture is All in Your Head: An Argument for the Age of Integrating Media’, Proceedings of perthDAC 2007: the 7th Digital Arts and Culture Conference, Perth, Curtin University of Technology, 116-125.

Although research into digital media culture assists greatly in understanding new technologies, its influences and affects, to continue to do so in isolation of other media shows little regard for the reality of its role and use. ‘Old’ or ‘traditional’ media such as dusty books and smudged newspapers, consensus television, linear films and radio are also part of the daily medial diet of humans. Indeed, this paper argues that an emerging cultural approach is the integration of all media and that this will continue in the near- to long-term future. We are no longer in a Digital Age, we are instead in an Age of Integration. This argument is explored through providing examples of extant integration practices and outlining economic and cognitive influences. Finally, these influences and existing practices are utilized as insights into potential future cultural practices.

This paper has now been published in a special issue of Leonardo/ISAST: ’Social Media: Narrative and Literacy in Digital Culture’.

• LEA Special Issue from perthDAC

The citation for this issue is: Dena, C. (2009) ‘The Future of Digital Media Culture is All in Your Head: An Argument for the Age of Integrating Media’, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Leonardo On-Line (LEA Special Issue from perthDAC: Social Media: Narrative and Literacy in Digital Culture) [Online] Available at: http://www.leonardo.info/LEA/PerthDAC/PerthDAC.html

I hope you find these papers interesting! Indeed, check out the other great papers in the LEA issue. As always, please feel free to send me your thoughts via comments or email.

The data is not comprehensive, but I hope that you will all ping me with corrections and additions. What I find really exciting about this data is it makes it clear that ARGs have a global reach and there is the opportunity for truly cross-cultural, indeed truly global, ARGs.

• ARGs Around the World Part One: player countries, multi-country design, localized ARGs
• ARGs Around the World Part Two: non-English-language ARGs, ARG communities

Enjoy!

Photo credit: ‘Globe Hands SM’ by Noticelj

I’ve been seeing a lot of negative ‘FAIL’ rhetoric lately in social media about social media campaigns, or anything really. Many of the negatives are from social media commentators, but also come from a wider range of sources. Indeed, it is all too easy (and sometimes fun) to join the chorus. But what concerns me about this rampant (well it is for me at the moment) behaviour is what these people are missing. When one thinks in terms of success or fail as a simplistic binary opposition, then the opportunity to find gems, to discover the mechanics of a complex system, is lost. What do I mean?

Well, for a long time I’ve studied as many aspects of cross-media as I can. I’ve spent years reading, watching, playing and analysing theories, projects, processes and people. I’ve spent time with the inspired and banal in academia, mainstream media, marketing, independent arts and gaming. I’ve got flack from artists who consider me naive or selling my soul because I study and work with marketers; been encouraged by mainstream media folk to not spend so much time with independent arts and anything that doesn’t guarantee large incomes; have had it insinuated that by spending time in the corporate world I’m not a true academic, and have had it insinuated by practitioners that by spending time in academia I’m not a true artist. Aren’t I the rebel eh? To be fair, these are distant, small, rare voices that underlie people’s thinking, than anything said directly to me. And there are many that appreciate my diverse mix. But I have had to defend/or explain what I do in almost every environment I’ve been in.

What’s my point? My point is that I don’t segregate my life and my interests and my mind the same way others do.  I see value is lots of (seemingly unlikely) places. This spills over into the way I observe and analyse things. I do look at crappy projects (let’s face it, there are more of them than there are of the sublime). But if I look at a project that isn’t working I don’t fob it off as a failure. Really. I don’t. Even if it isn’t working, my mind is still interested in it. Why? Because more often than not I see one or two things that do work. Not because I’m trying to find something good in the bad, but because I see things that can work independent of the entire execution. For me then, what is interesting is trying to figure out what other parts stuffed it up.

You see, a project can have some top notch strategy and execution in there, alongside the terrible. You may think this a strange thing. But I’ve seen it. There can be some great thinking informing an approach, that is then thwarted by execution (duh). Or there can be a good technology or aspect to a project executed, that is dulled or even reversed with a weak pairing. By observing how people make good strategies crumble — what element they forgot, what element they had too much of, and what combination of elements didn’t work  – I gain an understanding of what exactly the core design principle is, and how it needs to be executed within a delicate creative ecology. All of this is missed when you just stamp a big FAIL on a project that doesn’t seem to work.

I should end here. But I won’t. I’ll now ask why? Why is it that people analyse things so differently? Perhaps this approach requires different cognitive wiring. I’ll wack out some neuropsychology here to explain the pondering. In the 1990s, psychiatrist Eugene G. d’Aquili and radiologist and religion researcher Andrew Newberg investigated the behaviour of the brain during a religious experience (nuns praying, monks chanting and so on). In overly simplistic terms, they sought to discover more about how the brain shapes *reality*. During this research they developed a theory of ‘cognitive operators’ that ‘comprise the most basic functions of the mind’ (1999, 51).  These primary cognitive operators  (there may be more) ‘allow the mind to think, feel, experience, order, and interpret the universe’ (51), and they are:

1. The holistic operator: “allows us to view reality as a whole or as a gestalt” (52)
2. The reductionist operator: “allows us to look at the whole picture and break it down into an analysis of individual parts” (52)
3. The causal operator: “permits reality to be viewed in terms of causal sequences” (53)
4. The abstractive operator: “permits the formation of general concepts from the perception of individual facts” (54)
5. The binary operator: “allows us to extract meaning from the external world by ordering abstract elements into dyads. A dyad is a group of two elements that are opposed to each other in their meaning. Therefore, dyads include good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice, happy and sad, and heaven and hell…each opposite, in some ways, derives its meaning from its contrast with the other opposite” (55)
6. The quantitative operator: “permits the abstraction of quantity from the perception of various elements” (55)
7. The emotional value operator: “permits us to assign a particular emotional value to various elements of perception and cognition” (56)

Now, I’m no neuropsychologist, but it seems that for many in the social media world and beyond, the binary operator is…operating overtime! FAIL or FTW?! Is this because the recognition of, and involvement in, any *new* media involves seeing the opposite of what already exists? It should come as no surprise that a person (me) concerned with cross-media (how individual media plaforms work together) would be balancing the holistic and reductionist operators more than anything else.

I’m always keen on balance though, and so I’ll take two lessons from this personal pondering: there are benefits to seeing the parts separate from the whole (and how the parts work together in a whole), but there are also benefits to acknowledging something has failed…because it makes the wins easier to recognise.

There’s gold in them thar FAILS.

Source: D’Aquili, E. G. and A. B. Newberg (1999) The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience. Minneapolis, MN, Fortress Press.

Photo ‘A Quiet Search in Paradise’ by moonjazz on flickr

For a few years I’ve been working with the Australian Literature Board on their Story of the Future project. The project (a big hat tip to Josie Emery for creating the program) involved touring Australia running sessions on how digital technologies can be utilised for storytelling, for marketing your stories and running your writing business. The project has now ended, but the project manager, the always-a-delight Therese Fingleton, didn’t want it to end without sharing some of the things we’ve been doing. So, The Writer’s Guide to Making a Digital Living was born. Myself and the fantastic Jennifer Wilson were commissioned to co-write the guide, which has a lot of (hopefully) interesting stuff in there for writers. It is aimed at writers at various stages of their career, who work in a variety of artforms (screenwriting, game writing, poets, novelists, ewriters), and addresses writers worldwide, whilst also featuring some great Australian talent.

I wrote the sections on the craft of new writing forms, professional development, concept development, marketing and distribution. But on top of the Guide, which is available online and in PDF form, I’ve also created (with the wonderful design of the Lycette Bros.) a chart of the New Writing Universe to give a glimpse at the vast range of emerging writing forms out there (there is much more than writing a shooter game!). Enough of me, as a start, check out the very tongue-in-cheek promotional video we’ve created (mainly the work of the wonderful Lycette Bros. and Therese Fingleton):

Check it out at: www.australiacouncil.gov.au/writersguide

Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

The London Film Festival conference I participated in, Power to the Pixel, (see my last post) is still cranking out material and attracting press. Recently, I was quoted in The Guardian and an interview with me has been published at the PttP site. Both of these are really cool, but there are a couple of little things I’d like to clear up…

The Guardian piece quotes me referring to a ‘Project Universe’. While I’d love to take credit for that, it is actually Lance Weiler who came up with that term. I really like it…not just because of the ‘universe‘ theme, but because it is mode-neutral. I don’t like using terms such as ’storyworld’ or ‘gameworld’ because cross/trans-media projects involve both narrative AND game elements. ‘Project Universe’ is also practice/industry-neutral, in that it can refer to franchises OR small-scale independent projects. I’m a sucker for inclusive terminology.

The interview is posted on the Power to the Pixel site and is written by Nikki Nimme. Nikki did a great job mashing up my email and in-person interviews and main speech at the conference. There are some little things, though, which didn’t quite make it or got a mixed up: I’m currently doing doctoral research, not post doc research; I prefer working with clients at the concept stage rather than coming in later in the project; the changes to distribution I mention are only SOME, not all!; as technology improves, it is entertainment that utilises pervasive/networked/augmented technologies more that will come to the fore, as well as simultaneous media usage (prequels etc are already happening!).

Anyway, these links have been added to my press page. I hope you get something out of them.

POWER TO THE PIXEL is a not-for-profit company that provides the independent film community with the latest in depth information and knowledge about new opportunities available in the transforming digital media landscape.

I did the opening talk on the conference day, ran a workshop and participated in the special Think Tank. It was an amazing event in which I got to finally meet many people for the first time, people I have watched, conversed with online, and even worked with remotely. Liz Rosenthal did a fantastic job with the event. The sessions were webcast on the main site and at Screen International. They had over 10,000 people watch the webcasts, which is very cool. There are LOTS of interesting talks there about distribution, branding, crowdsourcing and finance there. But I’ve also embedded here and at UC101, the videos and ppts of my talk and workshop on ‘Films in the Age of Cross-Media Production’ and my workshop on ‘Writing Across Media’ respectively.

I also did a post UC101 about Immersive Entertainment and Marketing PLACES I’d like to visit…

Oh, I have also started a personal podcast. It is where I share my personal thoughts about who I am and life in general. No cross/trans/multi-platform/media-storytelling/entertainment.

POWER TO THE PIXEL is a not-for-profit company that provides the independent film community with the latest in depth information and knowledge about new opportunities available in the transforming digital media landscape.

I did the opening talk on the conference day, ran a workshop on the workshop day and participated in the Think Tank they ran. It was an amazing event in which I got to finally meet many people for the first time, people I have watched, conversed with online, and even worked with remotely. Liz did a fantastic job with the event. The sessions were webcast on the main site and at Screen International. They had over 10,000 people watch the webcasts, which is very cool. Well, now the videos are slowly being released online. All the conference day talks are now on the video page on the main site, but not the workshops. They are available elsewhere at Blip.tv or YouTube. There are LOTS of interesting talks there about distribution, branding, crowdsourcing and finance there. But for here I’ve embeded the videos and ppts of my talk and workshop on ‘Films in the Age of Cross-Media Production’ and my workshop on ‘Writing Across Media’ respectively. Enjoy!

BMW Event and Delivery Center

Now this may seem like a weird item to include in such a list, but I have my reasons. A few years ago, BMW commissioned this Event and Delivery Center to create an experience of picking-up your new car like no other. Here are some the objectives published a few years before it was built:

The BMW Group is planning to build a centre for brand experience and vehicle delivery. Customers from all over the world will be invited to take possession of their new BMW automobile personally and enjoy an unforgettable live experience of the BMW brand in an atmosphere of exclusivity. (BMW AG, Brandscaping, 30)

The BMW Event and Delivery Center is designed to stage the handover of the new vehicle to the customer as an unforgettable event. [...] To fascinate visitors requires more than just high-quality functionalism — it calls for an astounding sequence of spatial experiences, creating a theatre for the dramatization of customer service. To trigger excitement, curiousty must first be aroused: a sense that there is something to be discovered, that you are entering unexplored territory. Visitors must be amazed — before the familiar miracles of the BMW brand convey message of reliability. (Zaha Hadid, 3rd Prize, Brandscaping, 44)

I just love the whole idea of going to a big event, even if it is for a car. Gee, if I bought a BMW (wouldn’t mind one actually), I’d make the trip to have this delivery event too!. Though, when we get back to the big picture. Why aren’t delivery wards in hospitals given so much attention? Is there any miracle greater than the birth of a human being? Hmmm. In the meantime, I reckon this delivery center would be fun!

• BMW Welt

Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion

I haven’t experienced this theme ride (I’ve watched videos of it though — FYI: you can buy DVDs of all the rides everywhere in the world), but all the reports I’ve read by theme park designers is that this is one of the most respected. In terms of theme park design, every aspect of the experience, the staff, thrills, narrative and so on are all well put together.

• Haunted Mansion webpage

Universal Studios’ T2 2-D: Battle Across Time

The Terminator ride at Universal Studios is on my to-do list for a few reasons. The main one being that it is the third part of the Terminator narrative! This experience was directed by James Cameron, features Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong and Robert Patrick. It is, and I have many quotes from Cameron and others, the story that Cameron would of told if he did the third Terminator film. This ride isn’t an adaptation of the Terminator 2 story, it tells the story after it. It is the ending of the Terminator series. Arck, there is so much I could say about this (and I do in my thesis). And hey, if you really wanted to know what happens the video of the 3D sequences are on the web. But for now, I’m keen to experience this live — the shebang (preshow, specially-designed seating and 3D sequences, actors and so on).

• T2 3-D Orlando Resort
• T2 3-D Hollywood
• T2 3-D Tokyo

The Museum of Jurassic Technology

Gosh. I went to this museum with my mate Mark Marino last year when I visited California. I had no idea what I was in for. It was amazing. If ever you want to understand the experience that some people associate with ‘alternate reality games’ (well, the early ones), then this is the place for you. It seems like any museum. A museum of weird objects, but a museum nevertheless. But then a rising uneasiness grips you. You can no-longer tell what is real and what is fake. To really set the scene, here is a quote from Wikipedia:

The museum claims to have a “specialized repository of relics and artifacts from the Lower Jurassic, with an emphasis on those that demonstrate unusual or curious technological qualities.” This explains the museum’s name and also suggests its puzzling nature, since the Lower Jurassic ended more than 150 million years before the appearance of hominoids and in particular before anything that could be called technology (see geologic time scale). (Wikipedia)

I spent hours and hours there and still did not see everything. It is quite deceptive. You think you’ve seen every room but then you find another small corridor, and yet another and another. A real rabbit warren. I also have the DVD documentary and catalogue — which are works of fantastic fiction in themselves.

• Museum of Jurassic Technology 

Ghibli Museum

I’m a fan of Studio Ghibli and their beautiful animated films as I’m sure many of you are. But did you know they’ve also created a museum? The Executive Director of the Museum, Hayao Miyazaki, has published the design philosophy for the museum, part of which is here:

I kind of museum I want to make!:

A museum that is interesting and which relaxes the soul
A museum where much can be discovered
A museum based on a clear and consistent philosophy
A museum where those seeking enjoyment can enjoy, those seeking to ponder can ponder, and those seeking to feel can feel
A museum that makes you feel more enriched when you leave than when you entered! (source)

• Ghibli Museum

DanCoyote’s ZeroG SkyDancers

DanCoyote is a creator in the online virtual world Second Life. One of his works is the immensely popular (and hard to get the chance to experience) ZeroG SkyDancers. I know I included only real life places and events in my initial description, but I think this qualifies as an ‘experience’. It is described at the NMC as follows: 

Second Life’s history making, critically acclaimed world performance group, the ZeroG SkyDancers is a new form of ensemble performance that uses the airspace of this virtual world, resulting in a cross between water ballet and aerial acrobatics, in ways that would not be possible in the physical world. Wearing spectacular, flowing costumes called cascades – that are many times larger than their avatars – the SkyDancers move through space, and become part of the stage themselves. Altering and evolving, their flight triggers audio samples, which provide a unique layer to the original musical score commissioned for the production.  (source)

• DanCoyote page on ZeroG SkyDancers

Now, these are certainly not the only places one can include in this wacky category I’ve created. There are others that are yet to jump back to my memory. I’d love to hear of any you have experienced, or would like to experience.

References

Riewoldt, O., Ed. (2002) Brandscaping: Worlds of Experience in Retail Design = Erlebnisdesign für Einkaufswelten. Basel ; Boston, MA, Birkhauser-Publishers for Architecture.