Christy Dena

Henrik Örnebring, who is at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, and is an ARG researcher that I covered in the 2006 IGDA ARG SIG Whitepaper (see this pub page), has published his essay on the ARGs created for the US TV show Alias. The essay, ‘Alternate Reality Gaming and Convergence Culture’ is in vol 10, no 4 of the International Journal of Cultural Studies. Here is the abstract:

Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are a form of internet-based mystery game in which participants are immersed in a fictional world and engage in collective problem-solving. This article studies three ARGs connected to the TV series Alias (ABC, 2001—6), two of them launched by the network ABC as part of the marketing of the TV series, the third produced by fans. Previous research on ARGs has not sufficiently problematized the fact that many ARGs are marketing tools. While ARGs can be analysed as part of a wider context of convergence culture and fan culture, such an analysis must take into account the underlying commercial logic of popular culture production. Despite the differences found between industry-produced and fan-produced ARGs, they still share a framework of consumption that conforms to corporate goals of marketing and brand-building as well as fan audiences’ goals of pleasurable interaction with fictional worlds.

Congrats Henrik.

Check it out [and hurry, because if you don't have institutional access to Sage, you can currently download for free until 30th Nov]

Mark Coleran creates fictional interfaces for film and TV. He has a great showreel online. Adverlab also linked to Michael Schmitz’s academic paper on Human Computer Interaction in Science Fiction Movies, and Jakob Nielson’s Usability in Movies Bloopers.

[image from Mark Coleran's website]

Mark Marino, my lovely colleague at WriterResponseTheory.org, has started a website championing ‘Critical Code Studies’. It is a ‘forum for resources, discussion, and demonstrations of the interpretation of computer code’. This may be a surprise to some, but for many years artists, programmers and researchers of both stripes, have been researching (among other things) the poetics of code, the ideology of code and the impact of code on digital artworks. Mark has now brought many ideas together on this new site.

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Check out www.CriticalCodeStudies.com

A new blog has started, with a journalism lens:

Crossmediablog.com is an initiative of the School of Journalism, a division of the Hogeschool Utrecht in the Netherlands. Under supervision of crossmedia professor John Driedonks we will cover the ‘2007 Crossmedia Storrytelling Conference’ in Mechelen in a crossmedia way. Our reports will be a functional combination of, print, audio, photo and video.

Although it seems they are viewing ‘crossmedia’ as ‘multimedia’ or multiple media modes, rather than platforms, they may…however…discover some interesting stuff.

Check it out

As I’ve said before, I’ll be participating on the ‘Cyber-Born Film’ panel at Megan Spencer’s Destination Film Festival (DestFest). It will be launched this weekend and Megan has provided a humorous but true point-of-difference post about the festival:

Big Brand Film Festival: “I’m going to focus on features and government funded films as if no other films are made in Australia (or that other films made in Australia don’t really count).

DestFest: “I won’t”.

BBFF: “I’m going to hold a panel about how to compete with your fellow filmmakers for government funding this round”.

DF: “I won’t”.

BBFF: “I’m going to hold a pitching competition so you can win an opportunity to make a film”.

DF: “I won’t”.

BBFF: “I’m going to spend thousands of dollars flying an American into Australia to tell you how to write the perfect script”.

DF: “I won’t”.

DF: “I’m going to encourage culture instead of industry, community instead of competition, artistic inventiveness instead of commercial compromise, and passion instead of toeing the party line. I’m going to ask filmmakers and film artists to take centre stage regardless of whether or not you’ve heard of them, whether they’ve been to Film School, been tagged as “the next big thing”, won an AFI award or received any government funding”.

BBFF: “Um…”

Though I don’t think ‘culture’ and ‘industry’ are two opposites, the sentiment of preferencing what is needed rather than perpetrating the standard line is much needed.

Just discovered this new blog by Mark Iddon, who describes himself as a ‘multiplatform developer’ who has been working in the TV industry for 7 years (cool):

I’m currently a Multiplatform developer in the UK TV industry and have previously worked as a producer/developer in mainly children’s TV working in the UK and Canada.

He describes his blog as follows:

Welcome to my blog. THE blog when it comes to my Multiplatform shenanigans.

“What is Multiplatform?” You may ask. Good question. I work in the TV broadcast industry in the UK as a developer working with TV, Online, Mobile and Radio… Hence the ‘Multiplatform’ bit. In the ever changing world of TV production things have had to broaden out so that ‘content’ reigns supreme and the platforms for which it is made are becoming as diverse as Kylie’s hot pant collection.

The purpose of this blog is to bring together things of interest to those I work with and those who are interested in the exciting goings on in the world of multiplatform production. I hope to post interesting sites and news I have found alongside any insights that I gain in my day-to-day existence as a developer.

Great stuff Mark, I look forward to lurking on your blog.

• Check it out

I’ve moved my ARG Stats page from my old CME blog to here, and added stats for World Without Oil and Heroes Evolutions. I really need more for Heroes, US stats for The Lost Experience and any info you can offer for NiN’s Year Zero. Let me know!

• Check it out

That wasn’t fair of me. I shouldn’t of given you the impression that this post will be a serious treatment of measuring impact. But since you’re here, I thought you may enjoy this PhD Comic by Jorge Cham published on 12th Nov 07:

Just had the launch this morning of the documentary ‘While You Weren’t Watching’ by Mitchell Communications Group. I was on the panel with Mark McCrindle and Tim Flattery — two top notch experts. We spoke about the use of new and traditional media platforms; measuring engagement and the importance of innovation & risk; emotive, experiential marketing; how people of all ages are using lots of different media and so on. It was a great chat and I look forward to following up some talks.

Some of the projects we discussed:

• Red Bull’s Air Race
• McDonald’s McCafe
• McKinney Silver’s Art of the Heist for AudiA3 USA (see my stats page for more info)
• Coca-Cola’s Happiness Factory
• Nike Plus
• Yahoo!7’s PS Trixi (Hoodlum Digital Entertainment)

The documentary is available for free online, along with other extra research tidbits. I’m in the documentary, sprouting stuff…but I kept some of my main research findings for the launch this morning. Please note that the doco is aimed at clients that are really unaware of many changes…so if the ideas seem obvious to you that is why!

• Check out While You Weren’t Watching [Full doco here]

Picture: photo of Mark McCrindle and I.

Yes, sometime next year my dissertation will mutate me into a superbeing with special powers such as laser eyes, just like Olly:

[Thanks Chris :)]