The Forking Paths: an interactive cinema experience

The project The Forking Paths aims to create a set of interactive cinematographic narratives, within an applied research that seeks to transfer the spectator from an extradiegetic level to an intradiegetic level, creating a metalepsis. The intention is, above all, to analyze the possibilities of the spectator’s identification as the main character, by the manipulation of the idea of time in Cinema. We aim to reach this proposal through the use of specific narrative resources, as well as through the possibility of choice between alternative image flows. The project The forking paths is intended to be available in different media and supports suchas the Internet, touch sensitive screen devices and conventional cinemas.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Young connected migrants and non-normative European family life: exploring affective human rightclaims of young e-diasporas

In the face of the contemporary so-called “European refugee crisis,”’ the dichotomies of bodies that are naturalized into technology usage and the bodies that remain alienated from it betray the geographic, racial, and gendered discriminations that digital technologies, despite their claims at neutrality and flatness, continue to espouse. This article argues that “young electronic diasporas” (ye-diasporas) (Donà, 2014) present us with an unique view on how Europe is reimagined from below, as people stake out a living across geographies. The main premise is that young connected migrants’ crossborder practices shows they ‘do family’ in a way that does not align with the universal European, normative expectations of European family life. The author draws on three symptomatic accounts of young connected migrants that are variably situated geo-politically: 1) Moroccan-Dutch youth in the Netherlands; 2) stranded Somalis awaiting family reunification in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and, 3) working, middle, and upper-class young people of various ethnic and class backgrounds living in London. Narratives shared by members of all three groups indicate meta-categories of the ‘migrant,’ ‘user,’ and ‘e-diaspora’ urgently need to be de-flattened. To do this de-flattening work, new links between migrant studies, feminist and postcolonial theory and digital cultures are forged. In an era of increasing digital connectivity and mobility, transnational families are far from deterritorialized – boundaries and insurmountable distances are often forcibly and painfully felt

Postphenomenological performance in interactive narrative

This paper addresses the performance of bodies through a postphenomenological framework developed by Don Ihde. Through his theory, I will argue how performance is central to the stories of two recent interactive artworks: Dennis Del Favero’s Scenario (2011) and Blast Theory’s A Machine to See With (2010). Both artworks are distinct interactive narratives that utilize the human body in different ways. In each experience, it is essential for the user’s body to perform with a technology in order to move the story through a sequence of events. In doing so the user as a performing body co-authors the story by interfacing with a technology in a specific way. My readings of the artworks are based on interviews that I have conducted with each of the artists. I pair these accounts with Ihdeian analysis to explain how different types of technologies and different uses of a technology break down into different human-technology relationships. I use these relationships to show how the story in each artwork is mobilized through the body of the participant as a postphenomenological performance

Ambient media culture: What needs to be discussed when defining ambient media from a media cultural viewpoint?

Ambient media is a new form of media, which deals with media objects that mediate information throughout the natural environment of people. In ambient media environments, the media becomes part of daily life activities and environments - similar to location based services, where the physical world has a virtual digital overlay providing digital services for the consumer on a specific location. As any new media environment, also ambient media environments enable a new form and way of communication and impact on human culture. This article should provide a first starting point for discussing the wide topic of ambient media, and introduce aspects that relate to the development of an ambient media culture. The article shows different notions and discussions from a media cultural perspective, that impacts on ambient media environments. It compiles the results of the discussions that took place during the 2 nd meeting of the Nordic network "The Culture of Ubiquitous Information" in Helsinki on the 19th January 2011. It shall lead to an initial discussion of this aspect and provide new ways of thinking how ubiquitous computation will impact human culture and which impact theories of Martin Heidegger or Katherine Hayles have in this context. Copyright © 2012, IGI Global