Concepts A driving interest in this project is how aptly the form and content merge. Odd contrasts and ambiguities in kinesthetic experiences (walking, pathmaking, interactivity) and lyrical, visual techniques (mapping, montages, animation, longtakes) open issues otherwise delimited by hardened political rhetoric. Users may follow a primary path that presents selections of materials in ways one might experience in watching a documentary film. However, the cinemascapes offer viewers something that a linear documentary cannot: choices. The format has a loose analogy with film editing; laying clips along a terrain is not unlike the process of creating a timeline only here the timeline is visible to viewers. Further, the clusters of materials that are collected en route are not unlike those one might have collected in bins, only now the bins contain more than just footage. While supporting materials are commonly included as separate tracks on DVDs, the alternative routes through the materials are fully integrated into the viewing experience, allowing users the flexibility to expand or limit the narrative, to choose among expository and poetic approaches to the documentary’s primary topic and its offshoots. The footage that went into the video clips is also included in its original form, and long takes of interviews supplement the edited sound bites. Issues and concepts involved in making this project are broached the edited books Switching Codes Thinking Through Digital Technology In The Humanities And Arts (Chicago) and in various online journals including Hyperrhiz, Vol6. |
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