Well, not quite ‘death’ but an indefinite hiatus. I’m powering down this blog for a few reasons, one of which is my desire to finish my PhD. I’ve tried for the last year and a half to do PhD writing and work and this blog, but found the mindsets are somewhat incompatable. I’ve decided therefore to close this blog down. I don’t know if I’ll bring it up again and if I do when, or whether I’ll start another one. But I do know that I have thoroughly enjoyed blogging here these past few years. I have especially enjoyed meeting many of you because of the blog, and seeing ‘cross-media’ (etc) projects become ubiquitous. Thankfully, the area has alot more people looking at it now, from alot of different perspectives. Here are some blogs that will keep you informed:

• Networked Performance: research blog that posts about emerging network-enabled practice;
• You can read and listen to news about alternate reality games and just about any online extension of a film, TV or book property on the ARGNet blog and ARG Netcast (podcast);
• Henry Jenkins personal blog and the Convergence Culture Consortium blog has lots of goodies from a media studies perspective about ‘transmedia storytelling’ and ‘convergence culture’ in general;
• DeMontfort University share their investigations into what they term ’Transliteracy’ at their PART blog;
• Jeff Gomez, the CEO of Starlight Runner and longtime practitioner of ‘trans-media’ projects, is now blogging regularly about his insights and experience over at the Producers Guild of America blog;
• Monique de Haas blogs about ‘crossmedia communication’ occasionally;
• Tony Walsh posts semi-regularly on alternate reality games;
• Valentina Rao blogs about crossmedia games and anything related to that at Games Across Media, and will hopefully be starting her PhD on the subject soon;
• Johnathan Gray, Derek Johnson and Ivan Askwith are blogging about everything around TV and film at The Extratextuals;
• Crossmedia Dialog is a group blog that post regularly on crossmedia in Amsterdam and worldwide;
• Faris Yakob, Adam Crowe blog about ‘transmedia planning’ and other changes to the marketing industry;
• Jak Boumans posts every single day about stuff happening in the Netherlands and worldwide at Buziaulane; 
• Max Giovognoli runs everything to do with cross-media in Italy;
• MobileCrossMedia is a blog that looks at the different ways mobile phones can network with different devices and the real world;
• If you don’t already get it, the Convergence Newsletter has regular interesting newsletters about convergence in journalism and has been my favourite newsletter for the past few years;

I don’t plan to be blogging here about events or publications I’m involved in, instead I’ll pop them on my bio site. But for now, here are some events I’m involved with, in the not-too-distant-future:

• I’ll be on the ‘expert panel’ with Mark McCrindle and Tim Flattery at Mitchell Communications Group ’s launch of ‘While You Weren’t Watching’, a documentary on changes to branded entertainment etc in which I was interviewed. The launch is private but the documentary will be put online I believe in Nov; 
• I have my own panel on ‘Designing, Experiencing and Analysing Games in the Age of Integration’, and I am a panelist in Darren Toft’s panel on ‘What Happened to New Media Art?’ at the Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment in Dec;
• I’ll be on the panel on ‘Cyber-Born Film’ at Megan Spencer’s Destination Festival (or DestFest) in Dec;
• In Jan 08, I’ll be a guest lecturer again for Sue Thomas and Kate Pullinger’s Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media, De Montfort University, UK;
• In Feb 08, my essay on ‘Tiering in Alternate Reality Games’ will be published in the special issue of Convergence edited by Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze.

For now though, I will continue to be online in a different way. I’ve started a podcast, a podcast where I’ll interview talented people working in this area. My ‘birth’ podcast is a bit awkward, but the second is a great one: an interview with Stitch Media’s Evan Jones. At the site, I also provide sneak preview information about Stitch Media’s latest project.

That is it for me here, thankyou all for sharing this time with me. I’ll see you on the other side of my PhD.

Check it out: www.ChristyDena.com  

Check it out: www.UniverseCreation101.com

This is a cross-cultural, critical history of social life on the Internet. It captures technical, cultural, and political events that influenced the evolution of computer-assisted person-to-person communication via the net. Acknowledging the role of grassroots movements, this history does not solely focus on mainstream culture with all its mergers, acquisitions, sales and markets, and the (mostly male) geeks, engineers, scientists, and garage entrepreneurs who implemented their dreams in hardware and software. It does trace the changing nature of labor and typologies of those who create value online as much as it searches for changing approaches toward control, privacy, and intellectual property. This history shows strategies for direct social change based on the technologies and practices, which already exist.

Emphasizing the role of women whenever possible, this history shows that the interests of those who used the Net as social platform shaped it in the interplay of military, scientific, entrepreneurial, activist, artistic, and altruistic agendas. The evolution of the Social Web was driven by fear, desire (to be with others), and fandom. By no means exclusively an American story, it shows instances in which users succeeded when striving for open access, jointly negotiating with corporate platform-providers.

Check it out: http://www.collectivate.net/journalisms/2007/9/26/a-history-of-the-social-web.html

The logics of convergence culture are quickly becoming ubiquitous within the media world. Audiences are being encouraged to participate in a wider range of sites. Transmedia principles are being adopted by content producers in a broad range of fields. ‘Engagement’ is being discussed as crucial to measurements of success. Futures of Entertainment 2 brings together key industry players who are shaping these new directions in our culture with academics exploring their implications. This year’s conference will consider developments in advertising, cult media, metrics, measurement, and accounting for audiences, cultural labor and audience relations, and mobile platform development.

Sessions and speakers include:

Mobile Media: Marc Davis, Yahoo!; Bob Schukai, Turner Broadcasting; Francesco Cara, Nokia

Metrics and Measurement: Bruce Leichtman, Leichtman Research Group; Stacey Lynn Schulman, HI: Human Insight; and Maury Giles, GSD&M Idea City

Fan Labor: Mark Deuze, Indiana University; Catherine Tosenberger, University of Florida; Jordan Greenhall, DivX; Elizabeth Osder, Buzznet; Raph Koster, Areae Inc.

Advertising and Convergence Culture: Mike Rubenstein, The Barbarian Group; Baba Shetty, Hill/Holliday; Tina Wells, Buzz Marketing Group; Faris Yakob, Naked Communications; Bill Fox, Fidelity Investments

Cult Media: Danny Bilson, transmedia creator; Jeff Gomez, Starlight Runner; Jesse Alexander, Heroes; and Gordon Tichell, Walden Media

Opening Remarks by Henry Jenkins, MIT; Joshua Green, MIT; Jonathan Gray, Fordham University; Lee Harrington, Miami University; and Jason Mittell, Middlebury College

Check it out

We are witnessing the birth of a new generation, described not so much by their age, as by their actions in the world. They are using the freedoms of the new economy to develop a set of behavioral strategies: Digital Aboriginal.

This new generation is driven, yet they rarely plan. They function equally well in the accelerated Net time of the high-tech world and in the empty spaces that tend to provoke synchronicities. Although brilliant strategists, they often chart their courses based on pure instinct. They are highly individualized, yet depend on deeply tribal ways of birthing ideas. In the guise of looking for killer applications and the next technical edge, they are leading a revolution. They are operating from clear and coherent models of success and leadership, which are at the heart of this book.

They are forging new business scenarios based on their insatiable creative spirit. They are driving new values in the workplace from their relentless commitment to reshape the future with greater meaning. (2002, ix)

This year I had the priviledge of being an unorganiser for both the BarCampSydneys. The second one we held on Saturday 25th August and once again I walked away so excited, keen and inspired!! Last time I posted about how the event was a conference for initiates, and one observation about BarCamp I made then was:

Rather than have a small group of programming-committee-appointed experts to deliver to a large audience, a small of group self-appointed experts share with each other. Because anyone can present or talk or workshop in any manner they desire and anytime, BarCamp attracts more experts. Events that say they will provide the experts attract more people who are not experts. Events that encourage anyone to come and emphasis that everyone is important, attract more experts…

This time I’d like to explore this further, under the governing logic of: the power of unconditional participation. The ‘unconditional’ nature of BarCamps is a rockin’ key trait. Unlike most events:

• Anyone can attend: no-one has to pay or be accepted after an application;
• Anyone can present: no-one has to be selected or peer-reviewed;
• Everyone is treated equally: no-one is paid or given VIP treatment.

These may seem like simple characteristics but they have a far-reaching impact. In the two BarCampSydney events I’ve unorganised & participated in, I always walk away feeling so motivated, so excited, so full of excitement about my future and I feel fulfilled and regenerated. This feeling is not specific to the unorganiser experience: many people I’ve spoken to have walked away feeling this way.

Now, although I walk away with valuable information and key insights, it is not, I believe, the knowledge I walk away with that affects me the most. Instead, it is the BarCamp spirit. It is the spirit of unconditional participation: where all are given to without vetting, without the requirement for having to earned or paid for it. How can you walk away from that feeling anything but worthy and valuable yourself? You don’t have to prove anything, just be present. It is those sort of psychological designs, paradigmatic approaches to knowledge production, that will affect the workplace, indeed society in general, to a greater degree and quicker than any furniture or forum construction. 

The events are unconditional in the sense that industry leaders provided top-notch advice to everyone, to every question, without hesitation, for free. No question was considered stupid. Everyone had equal access to advice. Now this is VERY different to industry conferences, labs and residentials. I’ll speak about entertainment events because that is my area. As an organiser, mentor, MC, moderator, keynoter, panelist, presenter and attendee of many entertainment events I have to say that the quality, relevancy and diversity of information passed on in the single day at BarCampSydney surpassed all of those I have been present and watched from afar. The only event which comes close (in my admittedly limited opinion) is TED. OK, perhaps not exactly. But that is what it FELT like. As Nick Hodge said in the Tangler discussion:

The VC/Startup stuff was the shiznit this year. Like getting $100,000 of free consulting. 

Here are the industry leaders that put on their best tribal elder hat for the day:

• Ben Duncan, founder of Calacode and AtMail
• Mike Cannon-Brookes, founder of Atlassian
• Dean McEvoy, founder of Booking Angel
• Martin Wells, founder of Tangler
• Nick Gonios, founder of 3eep

And ‘Mark’ I think it was (someone tell me!) who started a session on the non-tech aspect of a start-up: how to get a business going if you’re not a techie. I loved that he did this because although I’m tech-friendly, I’m not a code expert. I come up with ideas all the time but do not have the skill to implement them. It was great to hear about how someone was addressing this. This, for me, is a really important aspect of the BCS experience: that pretty much every stage and personal angle of creating a business is covered. That happens because people feel, no matter what stage they’re at or how much they know, they get up there and start a conversation.

Another approach I found interesting is the notion of intrapreneurs. Yep, you read that right. Intrapeneurs are those rockin people inside a company created by an entrepreneur that keep the inventions coming. Coined by Gifford Pinchot, intrapreneurs create within the company instead of creating another company.  It would of been great to hear Elias Bizianne’s talk on this subject but I missed it. Here is a music video that explains some of the ideas:

Another book that comes to mind (though I have not read it yet) is Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever:

Think video games are kids’ stuff? Think again. Provocative new data show that video games have created a new generation of employees and executives–bigger than the baby boom–that will dramatically transform the workplace. And according to strategists John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade, managers who understand and harness this generation’s distinct attributes can leap far ahead of their competition. Got Game shows how growing up immersed in video games has profoundly shaped the attitudes and abilities of this new generation. Though little-noticed, these 90 million rising professionals, through sheer numbers, will inevitably dominate business–and are already changing the rules. Although many of these changes are positive–such as more open communication and creative problem solving–they have caused a generation gap that frustrates gamers and the boomers who manage them. Got Game identifies the distinct values and traits that define the gamer generation–from an increased appetite for risk to unexpected leadership skills–and reveals management techniques today’s leaders can use to bridge the generation gap and unleash gamers’ hidden potential.

But beyond the benefits for those working in industry, it is exactly these sort of approaches to sharing information, encouraging self-motivated creation and heterarchical environments that are yearned for by academics. For many years I’ve been saying that I want to be an independent researcher like Marie-Laure Ryan. It is only now that I’m at the final stages of my PhD and have to think about what to do next that the reality of that is hitting home. But I’m not the only one. After pervasive game designer and researcher Jane McGonigal finished her PhD, she went to the Institute for the Future – a place where she can balance both design and research with a cycling range of clients. And now, Danah Boyd has said that she will not go straight into an academic post. I’m the same. I want freedom…freedom that most academic institutions and corporations cannot offer. Which makes complete sense actually. Freedom isn’t given.

This is a blog about the media. However, with other blogs on television, film, and the media in general, we wanted to carve out a specific niche. So our blog will focus primarily on the extratextuals that surround the media. By this, we mean everything but the show itself: previews, merchandising, industry buzz, branding, interviews, posters, spatial context, temporal context, related websites, ARGs, spinoffs, spoilers, schedules, bonus materials, transmedia extras, games, YouTube clips, etc. But we’re interested in these things not to be arcane or eccentric; rather, we believe that the extratextuals often make the show what it is. Hence this blog is about the mediation of media.

I want to note Ivan Askwith (with no slight intended to Johnathan or Derek!) is a recent graduate of the Comparative Media Studies programme at MIT, mostly known to readers of this blog through the Convergence Culture Consortium. As I posted before, his thesis online, but he is now lead strategist (coolness) at Big Spaceship (double coolness). Big Spaceship is behind great projects such as The Ultimate Search for Bourne with Google, diegetic websites such as Oceanic-Air for Lost and immersive websites such as those for the films Stranger Than Fiction, Silent Hill, 30 Days of Nights  (that is in the ilk I cover in my article on Filmmakers that Think Outside the Film) and games such as the 30 Days of Night Multiplayer Game.

Askwith posted about a great panel he participated in for the Producers Guild of America:

CREATING BLOCKBUSTER WORLDS: TRANSMEDIA DEVELOPMENT & PRODUCTION

Wednesday, September 26 (6:30PM – 9PM)

As exemplified by TV series such as Lost and Heroes , video games such as Halo and the work of creators such as JJ Abrams, Joss Whedon, Zach Snyder and Kevin Smith, storytelling has made a quantum leap in the 21st century. Development and production of a single rich narrative across multiple media platforms is the next exciting challenge being faced by producers in the digital age. Right now, major studios, advertising agencies, video game publishers and dozens of Fortune 500 companies are incubating concepts and developing intellectual properties capable of both enthralling and interacting with audiences who will enjoy them on their TV sets, computer screens, game consoles, as well as in the form of theatrical films, graphic novels and toys. There are only a handful of producers with extensive experience in the lucrative field of trans-media storytelling and production, and the PGA will be bringing them to you in this exciting seminar.

Producers who attend this seminar will become familiar with the following:

• The definition, history and near-future of trans-media storytelling, development and production
• Success stories and notorious trans-media failures
• Creative and technical elements that form successful trans-media franchises
• What (and who) you need to know to understand the ambition and scope of trans-media production
• The conceptual building blocks for successful trans-media development and implementation
• Facing the challenges of working with large conglomerates
• Rollout strategies
• The role of product placement, sponsors and promotions
• What goes into developing a trans-media deal
• Examples, illustrations and models

Check out: The ExtraTextuals

The full paper is online [PDF] and detail about the book this paper is a part of.

The Digital Arts & Culture (DAC) conference was the first conference to attract and present the work of researchers, practitioners and artists working within the field of digital arts, cultures, aesthetics and design. It still attracts papers from a variety of disciplines, and from researchers and artists alike.

The conferences are held every two years (though there is discussion of changing to an annual event). Here is a listing from the main conference site:

• DAC 2007 (Perth, Western Australia, Australia)
• DAC 2005 (IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark)
• DAC 2003 (RMIT, Melbourne, Australia)
• DAC 2001 (Brown University, Providence, US)
• DAC 2000 (University of Bergen, Norway)
• DAC 1999 (Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, US)
• DAC 1998 (University of Bergen, Norway)

DiGRA, the Digital Games Research Association, was also born out of DAC. Many attendees of perthDAC 2007 are now in Tokyo for DiGRA 2007 and some are at the Australian Blogging Conference.

perthDAC was wonderfully organised by Andrew Hutchinson and was held inconjunction with BEAP — the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth (the 2004 event I attended and reviewed for Realtime).  The BEAP element was great because we were treated to visits to openings and exhibitions. I’ll refer to some works alongside papers in this general overview of themes which arose for me. This approach augments Axel Bruns’s posts which provide a detailed overview of the individual presentations and also Tama Leaver’s personal report. But now, to my impressions:

Framing Nature

Many papers and artworks featured in BEAP showed a trend/prevailing approach of stepping back from entirely human-made creations to ones in which Nature is framed by the artist. The artist becomes more transparent and privileges nature in the work. Jim Bizzocchi discussed and presented his ‘ambient video experiences’ where beautiful scenes of snow-peaked mountains and riverbeds slowly move over time. At the ‘impermanence’ exhibition at the John Curtin Gallery, Lynette Wallworth’s Still: Waiting2 (2006) is an installation with a large screen showing a video of ’an Australian River Gum that is home to a huge number of native Corella birds’ filmed in South Australia. Although the work was ‘interactive’ in that when you entered the space the birds flew away and you had to sit still for the birds to return, the beauty of the work was really (to me) a simulation of what happens in real life, and the beauty of the sunrise and birds. Keith Armstrong discussed ‘grounded media’ which is described in his abstract as:

a form of art practice forcused around the understanding that our ecological crisis is also a cultural crisis, perpetuated by our sense of separation from the material and immaterial ecologies upon which we depend.

Armstrong showed (among other works) ‘Grounded Light’ (2003). The work involved participants walking up a hill, following performer Lisa O’Neill who is adorned with lights and to the sounds of trombonist Ben Marks. The piece finishes at the top of the hill, at night, with a view of the lights on Lisa merging with the lights spotted over the valley. The work aimed to ‘ground’ participants:

We have thrown our civilisation like a picnic blanket over this country, often with little regard for its rocks, sticks & dirt, which seem of little significance or consequence to the way we live our lives. While Indigenous Australians are profoundly connected to that ground our colonial history has been correspondingly un-grounded. (perthDAC 2007 Proceedings, page 25)

In Armstrong’s case, as with the others mentioned, the artwork seems to gently shift our focus back to nature. The point is nature and how we feel about it and the way this is communicated is through making nature the artwork. On a similiar note, were artists that utilised nature in some way but their artwork is in the intervention in nature rather than a highlighting of it. Su Ballard, for instance, referred to Douglas Bagnall’s Cloud Shape Classifier where pictures of clouds are and how people classify them (using Bagnall’s ‘machine’) are the artwork; and Allison Kudla discussed and created works that employ live plants such as her ‘The Search for Luminosity’ (2005-7).

Cruelty to Nature

Allison Kudla ’s ‘The Search for Luminosity’ (2005-7) work was developed from her experimentations with highly-light-sensitive plants. Allison turned a light on to cause the plant to open up, and then promptly turned the light off, over and over again. I, and some others, were surprised at the torture-type approach to working with the plants. There was also a work in Symbiotica’s Still, Living: Verena Kaminiarz’s Ich Vergleiche Mich Zu Dir . In this work, Verena used a particular type of flatworm that can regenerate body tissue. She caused the flatworm to grow another head and then filmed it unsuccessfully trying to swim in both directions endlessly for the rest of its short life. Although she did put up a commemorative gallery of portraits of the flatworms, I found it very sad. She called it ‘tragic realism’. But hey, I don’t like bot abuse either.

Now, I’m sure Allison and Verena didn’t mean any harm (?)…but their works seemed cruel. The problem with such works, indeed with all bioart, is at what point do ethics come into play? When the ethics issue comes in to bioart a whole can of worms (yes) opens: balancing experimentation with the impact of art and science, ethics in science, ethics in art and the differences (if any).

Thinking Beyond Code As We Know It

There were a few talks where a code-centric approach to new media creation and analysis as it has been previously articulated was argued to be insufficient. Jason Lewis, in his talk ‘Writing-Designing-Programming: The NextText Project’ discussed the projects from Obx Labs . In particular, Jason spoke about the fight that creators have with digital tools. Rather than having to plough through different levels of semantic meaning, Obx Labs are working to create tools that allow the artist to work at the level of meaning they want. Two tools will be released next year: Glyphkicker and Mr Softie, which will in the words of Jason in the proceedings:

The vainglorious hope is that these tools will be picked up by others, and both encourage creators to make meaningful work and encourage developers to think twice about how they handle text in their applications. (perthDAC 2007 Proceedings, page 211)

Nick Montfort’s and Ian Bogost’s work on Platform Studies   was presented by Fox Harrell. Montfort’s and Bogost’s argument is that although many researchers are now including code in the analysis of games and culture at large, there is still a massive gap in the understanding of games because of there is little attention to the hardware level. They outlined five levels of digital media studies: reception/operation; interface; form/function; code and platform. It is the latter, particularly the Atari VCS, Multimedia PC and Nintendo Wii, that they interrogated in the paper (and more in their forthcoming book). The only criticism of the proposal was that (at this stage) there was no consideration of the cultural and industrial factors.

Fox Harrell, in his paper ‘Cultural Roots for computing: The Case for African Diasporic Orature and Computational Narrative in the GROIT system’ augmented his technical paper delivered at the last DAC with this cultural studies perspective. His paper is best described from a snippet from his abstract:

Cultural practices and values are implicitly built into all computational systems. However, it is not common to develop systems with explicit critical engagement with, and foundations in, cultural practices and values aside from those traditionally priviledged in discourse surrounding computing practices. I assert that engaging commonly excluded cultural values and practices can potentially spur computational innovation, and can invigorate expressive computational production.’ (perthDAC 2007 Proceedings, page 157)

So too, Simon Penny went one step further and questioned the viability of creating anything on computers as they are now. From his abstract:

Where computational technology are engaged by social and cultural practices, there exists an implicity but fundamental theoretical crisis. An artist, engaging such technologies in the realization of a work, invites the very real possibility that the technology, like the Trojan Horse, introduces values inimical to the basic qualities for which the artist strives. The very process of engaging the technology quite possibily undermines the qualities the work strives for. (perthDAC 2007 Proceedings, page 298)

Both Penny’s and Harrell’s papers resonnated with me. Harrell, because he looks at oral storytelling (orature) and ‘polymorphic poetry’ and Penny because I understand the frustration of working with a system that doesn’t match what I want to create. Although that is a simplification of Penny’s argument, the point still stands. As yet, there is no storytelling/universe creating system that matches the way intuitively would like to do it. I am, however, using what exists in different ways, to create new ways of seeing, which will then facilitate new creations, which will then….

Beyond Digital Media

Many presentations discussed projects that utilise other media besides digital media. The bioart works I mentioned earlier are included, also location-aware spatial audios of Nick Mariette, board games with Stewart Woods and locative media projects with Brian Degger and Mary Flanagan. Mary Flanagan presented on ‘Locating Play and Politics: Real World Games and Political Action’ in which she argued that most locative media projects do not actually use the locations. As she explains in her paper (which is mistakenly not in the proceedings but will be online):

‘The key issue to examine with locative media and pervasive games is that many of these new, mediated experienced refer to and appropriate space while divorcing it from its meaning, history and significance.’

And of course, my presentation…which was a quick snapshot of the range of multi-platform projects emerging in different commercial, non-commercial, mass entertainment, independent gaming and art sectors simultaneously. In my paper I look back to the possible reasons why this happening, what cognitive processes are involved. I’ve called the dual process of abstract unification with material diversity I posit is behind these integrationist practices: mono-polymorphism. In the future, I contend, this will only increase…and so the lens of ‘digital media’ will become less and less prevalent.

The Call for New Methodologies

It was apparent too, in some of the presentations and conversations that new methodologies are yearned for. In order to get new outcomes we need to go back and alter the approaches we use in analysis and creation. For instance, Torill Elvira Mortensen argued in her paper ‘The Real Truth About What Game Researchers Do All Day’, that games studies needs to ask new research questions. She sketched the different directions of games research: immersive school; structuralist school; the contextual school, and everybody else. Some of the problems Torill mentions is the issue of studying games by playing games and how that involvement changes games. This issue is always on my mind too. I often do not blog about particular projects that I am studying because I do not want to influence its development or reception. I am aware that as a public intellectual (may I be so bold as to say that? – leave me to my fantasies!) that my observations change the object of my study. While on the one hand, as a creator and Earth-community-member, I feel it is my delightful duty to share my discoveries and help change things…on the other, as a researcher, I’m aware of the difficulty of studying something that I have helped create. Torill ends her paper saying:

If we have a responsibility as researchers it is to not ignore that which we do not immediately understand. (perthDAC 2007 Proceedings, page 285)

I observed too, that in many papers and the responses that there was a growing urge towards more integrated methodologies…which made me wish I had presented on my theory of transmodiology! But, good to see many yearning for more (that is the nature of true inquiry is it not?).

The Future of Digital Media is…

I’ll end my reflections here, though it should be noted there were many other talks that I found quite interesting, including Axel Brun’s talk on the ‘produsage’ (the patterns he has observed across different social sites resonnate with some of mine. I’ll blog his ppt soon); Tracey Fullerton and Celia Pearce (and Jackie Morie who wasn’t present)’s paper ‘A Game of One’s Own’ (a call for non-male-constructed game spaces); Jichen Zhu’s ‘continuous materiality’ and truna, David Browning & Nicola J Bidwell’s ‘Wanderer Beyond Game Worlds’. But for now, I’ll finish with a quick thought about the theme of the conference. I was quite surprised to find that (out of the presentations I attended) hardly anyone addressed the theme of the conference: ‘The Future of Digital Media’. Therefore, the inference many people made is that the (emerging?) trends discussed will be the future. My only concern with that interpretation is that there is difference between discussing emerging trends and thinking about their role in the future. Extant practices may become prevalent, some may die off, and all will not continue as they are at present. When considering the future, then, one has to understand, in my opinion, the core of the current practices — why is ___ occuring now? what has influenced it’s emergence? where has it come from? what factors will impact it’s development? For me, the point I tried to make in my paper was that in asking for the future of digital media one is artificially framing the future. I understand the question can be countered and explored in ways other than how it was framed. That is what I did. Questions can maintain that thinking…or questions can challenge it. Dissonance is good for growth.

The question remains then. What is the future of digital media? I think the themes I cover in this post point to some possibilities…what are your thoughts?

[reblogged at WRT]

Photo by ?, uploaded by Eric Voight on flickr

This motley crew is the group shot from the First International Conference on Cross-Media Interaction Design held in Sweden in March. Wohoo! It was great meeting lots of people, including my fellow keynoter Liam Bannon. But in particular I was thrilled to meet Monique de Haas and Jak Boumans. In the pic: bottom right in the blue jacket is Monique, behind her is Liam, beside Liam is me, beside me (to the left) is Jak, and below Jak is Charlotte Wiberg who with Mikael Wiberg (the first guy to the left of Charlotte) are the conference organisers. 

Monique and I have been championing cross media for years now. We were discussing this stuff via emails and through our blogs long before it became a pervasive economic imperative. I got to spend lots of time with Monique as I stayed with her in Amsterdam and then Monique, Jak and I gave an impromptu panel session at Noordelijke Hogeschool where I was asked to give a lecture (organised by Eric Voight who is also in the pic). It was a delight meeting Jak – whose years of experience with the area has given him a balanced wisdom and generous spirit.

Photo by a lovely lady from AMP, on Jane’s flickr

This is myself and Jane McGonigal (right). Jane is of course the first major researcher of alternate reality games, she has lots of presentations and articles and a dissertation on the topic. It was especially great chatting with Jane because we got to talk about ARGs but also because she works in industry and academia. It was so good to share stories with someone who understands what it is like.

Photo by Tama Leaver, on flickr

This is Lisbeth Klastrup (left), myself and Jill Walker (right), both of whom I met for the first time at perthDAC 2007. Lisbeth co-wrote a paper with Susana Tosca on ‘Transmedial Worlds: Rethinking Cyberworld Design’, which I have referred to here and in my papers and is in my chapter on World Creation in my thesis. The paper is available for download on Lisbeth’s articles site. Jill has written on ‘distributed narratives’ which I’ve referred to here many times, in many of my presentations and of course is in my thesis too. Check out her dedicated minisite  and here is a snippet:

Distributed narratives don’t bring media together to make a total artwork. Distributed narratives explode the work altogether, sending fragments and shards across media, through the network and sometimes into the physical spaces that we live in. This project explores this new narrative trend, looking at how narrative is spun across the network and into our lives.

Now actually meeting people who share your research interest may not be exciting to you, but to someone who doesn’t get to meet people who work in this emerging area (and so not many looking at it) it is an absolute delight.

Perth DAC: The Future of Digital Media Culture:

The Future of Digital Media Culture
In the early 1990s, the very term digital was new and novel. However, it has taken only fifteen years for e-mail, the Internet, mobile phones, the power of searchable databases, games, film and TV special effects and workplace software tools to become a common and essential part of modern life. Research has not only described the arrival of these new forms, but is increasingly addressing the unexpected social and cultural uses of digital communications and virtual work/play environments.

In the same historically brief time, popular attention has turned to the potentials and problems of the newer new technologies, bio and nano. In addition, the global phenomenon of terrorism, super-epidemics and climate change have developed from distant concerns to everyday realities. Thus the context for digitally mediated processes is also very different.

perthDAC 2007 will explore the complex interaction of human behaviour and new technologies that will be The Future of Digital Media Culture.

I’ll be presenting a paper in which I argue that the future of digital media doesn’t just include digital media.

On Monday 17th, I’ll be presenting on Filmmaking in the Age of Cross-Media Production for the Film and TV Institute.

I look foward to seeing some colleagues and family I haven’t seen in a while, and meeting people for the first time.

SPACE TIME PLAY. COMPUTER GAMES, ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM: THE NEXT LEVEL
Edited by Friedrich von Borries, Steffen P. Walz and Matthias Böttger In cooperation with Drew Davidson, Heather Kelley, Julian Kücklich“Space Time Play” is a journey through the past, present and potential spaces of computer and video games.

Have you ever wondered what’s behind a perfect Tetris-wall?
Have you ever freed a 3D world from terrorists?
Have you ever made polygon friends in networked fantasy realms?
And do you know what happens when these games never end?

The richly illustrated texts in “Space Time Play” cover a wide range of gamespaces: from milestone video and computer games to virtual metropolises to digitally-overlaid physical spaces. As a comprehensive and interdisciplinary compendium, “Space Time Play” explores the architectural history of computer games and the future of ludic space. More than 140 experts from game studies and the game industry, from architecture and urban planning, have contributed essays, game reviews and interviews. The games examined range from commercial products to artistic projects and from scientific experiments to spatial design and planning tools.

“Space Time Play” is not just meant for architects, designers and gamers, but for all those who take an interest in the culture of digital games and the spaces within and modeled after them. Let’s play!

With contributions by Espen Aarseth, Ernest Adams, Richard A. Bartle, Ian Bogost, Iain Borden, Gerhard M. Buurman, Edward Castranova, Kees Christiaanse, James Der Derian, Stephen Graham, Ludger Hovestadt, Henry Jenkins, Jesper Juul, Frank Lantz, Bart Lootsma, Winy Maas, Lev Manovich, Jane McGonigal, Kas Oosterhuis, William J. Mitchell, Howard Rheingold, Katie Salen, Hans-Peter Schwarz, McKenzie Wark, Mark Wigley and many more.

And me!! I feel quite chuffed to be amongst such luminaries! I was asked to give a brief overview of Alternate Reality Games inline with the book’s theme, for the general reader. I wrote it a while ago, when Perplex City was…well…perpetual. On top of the names listed, the book also includes ARG designers Sean Stewart, Steve Peters and Dave Szulborski and tons more people you and I know. The book is out 17th Sept in Europe and in November in the USA. You can preorder at Amazon and check out the table of contents on the site: www.spacetimeplay.org