I’ve spoken with some theatre directors about using the web and communities to draw patrons into their productions but it has fallen on deaf ears. So, I was pleased to see a not-for-profit company making an effort for the production of ‘Coast of Uptopia’. The website, includes pictures and videos — just the sort of media that many need for making a decision about whether to attend.
Check it out: http://www.coastofutopia.com/
Penguin Australia have launched a new book for the 13+ market: Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight. Written by Nick Earls and Rebecca Sparrow, the story is described as follows:
Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight is two weeks in the life of Joel Hedges and Cat Davis. Joel would prefer to get through his final year of high school without Cat Davis or his mother’s faux Spanish boyfriend and just hang-out with his best-friend Luke. Cat Davis has an annoying best-friend, and even more annoying little brother, and a deep abiding hatred of Joel Hedges.
Due to an unfortunate incident involving a leaking pen and suspected outbreak of Bird Flu, Joel and Cat are forced to sit next to each other in Extension English. To make matters worse, and to their mutual horror, they are paired together for a tandem story writing assignment. [source]
The story is delivered rotating between the POVs of the characters Joel and Cat and is linked by their tandem storytelling assignment; the writers, Nick and Rebecca, also wrote the story in a tandem storytelling style and the readers can also participate in the tandem storyelling assignment by submitting story threads on the website or SMS. The website was produced by IshMedia, which includes Kylie Robertson — the legend behind online & mobile interactive narrative works such as Jupiter Green (that I analysed for a journal), Girl Friday and Rock Chickz .
As I’ve said before, it is these sort of intimate and parallel media experiences that will increase over the next few years and will explore the potential of polymorphic narrative.
Check it out: http://www.joelandcat.com
For the past year or so these hard-working and clever individuals have been working towards their Masters at MIT’s Comparative Media Studies Department. They’ve been developing their theories on TV, videogames, digital media, animation, museums, transmedia and convergence and now they’re online:
IVAN ASKWITH
TV 2.0: Turning Television into an Engagement Medium
ALEC AUSTIN
Expectations Across Entertainment MediaLISA BIDLINGMEYER
Agent + Image: How the Television Image Destabilizes Identity in TV Spy SeriesKRISTINA DRZAIC
Oh No I’m Toast! Mastering Videogame Secrets in Theory and PracticeAMANDA FINKELBERG
Models and Simulations: Digital Cartography in the Networked EnvironmentSAM FORD
As the World Turns in a Convergence EnvironmentNEAL GRIGSBY
Ceaseless Becoming: Narratives of Adolescence Across MediaRENA HE HUANG
Journey to the East: the (Re)Make of Chinese AnimationGEOFFREY LONG
Transmedia Storytelling: Business, Aesthetics and Production at the Jim Henson CompanyPETER RAUCH
Playing with Good and Evil: Videogames and Moral PhilosophyDAN ROY
Mastery and the Mobile Future of Massively Multiplayer GamesKAREN VERSCHOOREN
.art: situating internet art in the modern museum
Check them out: http://cms.mit.edu/research/theses.php