The First Day was Super
Oh how I remember that (real) first day I discovered my superpower. I say ‘real’ because, well, I experience every day as if it is the first day I discover my superpower. That is the down side — the catch — to my superpower. I’m well aware of this now though, and so I leave a note for myself, explaining how I’ve discovered this before. I detail how I shouldn’t call my parents, friends, workmates, no one. They are so sick of me ringing them. They’re happy for me and proud of the good I do with my power, but getting breathless phone calls and frantic visits from me every morning was too much.

I’ve tried many ways to break the news to myself. It is all about timing and easing myself into the truth. Early on I tried leaving a note on my bedside table, an audio message on my alarm, and even a poster on my roof. But that just ruined it for me. I would only have a few seconds of yelling ‘woohoo!’ before I felt like a fool. There is nothing worse than realising you’ve suddenly got a power that can help solve problems for people, solve crime, only to find the solution has already been discovered, by you. For a long time I spent each day depressed, jealous of the morning I first discovered it, and sometimes even resentful of having this superpower with such a stupid catch. But I eventually left a note on my bedroom door. That works, but I have to make sure there are no communication devices in the room, and that I gently explain the situation to myself.

It took many drafts to get that note right. It had to be short enough to ensure I would read it immediately and not throw the envelope to the ground in my race to get out the door. I also wanted to take the time to congratulate myself, and share in my jubilation for a few moments more. As you can see, I’m more at home with the downside of my superpower. But it took many sessions at Superpowers Anonymous to come to terms with it. What good is having super photographic memory when every night you forget you have it? Yes, my fellow superheroes have had many laughs at my expense. You can imagine the names I get, and the jokes.

But hey, I appreciate you giving people with superpowers the chance to share our stories. Writing the experience of my first day has helped me. I didn’t have the confidence to submit my story in the first round because I wasn’t sure how people would respond. But I can laugh about it now. So give me your best taunts if you like. It would be good to hear a new one. Oh, and if by chance you receive multiple submissions from me about my first day, please break the news to me gently.

In 2004 (six years ago!), I started a blog on cross-media entertainment. It was a time when cross-media was well known in the marketing industries (integrated marketing practices being the ancestor of such endeavours). I worked hard to share what I was discovering about the area, as it emerged with force in franchises, independent arts, publishing, and around the world. I did hundreds of talks and articles and blog posts, worked 7 days a week, 10 hours a day. Hard yards.

But I had a personal mission. I took on the PhD because I wanted to know everything I could about the area (not just what I was limited to with my own creative explorations), I also wanted to discipline my mind to focus on one project long-term, and thought academia may be a good back-up career. Ha!

I saw a PhD as different to all other types of schooling. In my research-based approach, this meant I didn’t go to classes or had to recapitulate what I was taught. A PhD is meant to be about contributing original thought. But then something happened in my final few months of writing my PhD. I realised that I couldn’t write whatever I wanted. I was being assessed. I had to write a thesis that showed I can research, engage in critical thought, and execute a rigorous argument. These skills are not the faint-hearted (many think being an academic means just referring to theories — which is incorrect).

So, I took out much of what I wanted to talk about, things which I was passionate about but which I couldn’t execute as yet in the manner needed for a thesis to be assessed on. I consoled myself by promising that after I submitted it, I could write about whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted.

But the state of postponing myself has lingered. It has lingered because although I’ve now finished it (I’m just waiting on the examiner reports and then I will put it online), I’m not in a position to do what I want to. That is, I’m not rolling in the cash I need to create the big projects I want too. I have the time now, but not the resources.

I panicked. Although I believe great things can happen, I realised that I couldn’t bank on what might happen, I had to act. What to do therefore? I’ve been offered some amazing jobs in industry and academia. Jobs that would give me lots of money, have me working with amazing people on large-scale projects worldwide. But I don’t want to go straight into being an employee. That is part of the reason for the PhD, it was part of a long-term plan to be my own boss. And the most important thing…I would be postponing doing my own creative projects for another couple of years.

So, I then thought about the business ideas I have. Beyond the transmedia consulting and public speaking that I continue to do, I have ideas for producing online services that can help the transmedia ecology and hopefully bring me a consistent income beyond my consulting. This income I use to produce my own creative projects. I just need to create these services and then I’ll be able to do the projects I want to do.

I crashed. I cannot keep putting myself off. Time is ticking and I haven’t done any of things I wanted to do in my life yet. I have things I want to say. Personal visions, ways of seeing the world I want to bring into reality. When will it be okay to do so? How many consulting jobs must I do before I have enough of a reputation and money to do what I want to do? How long do I have to “position” myself to appeal to people who will pay for my services, before I can just be me?

Then I saw this quote. It is by artist Jonathan Harris who has some insights online from a talk he gave:

You will become known for doing what you do. This may sound obvious, but it is a useful thing to realize. Many people seem to think they must endure a “rite of passage” which, once passed, will allow them to do the kind of work they want to do. Then they end up disappointed that this day never comes. Find a way to do the work you want to do, even if it means working nights and weekends. Once you’ve done a handful of excellent things in a given way, you will become known as the person who does excellent things in that given way. And that’s the person you want to be, because then people will hire you to be that person.

Of course. It helps to be reminded of such things. And so now my heart is at rest. I will continue to explore my services and do my consulting (which I love) because they are expressions of me. But I’m not going to wait any longer to get the money I need to create the projects I want to do. I’ll use whatever media I have available to me and write anyway. If it means I have many unproduced scripts sitting on my desk when I die, so be it. At least I would of brought them into the world, one blueprint at a time. From training wheels to blueprints, sounds like a plan of action.

Thank you training wheels, for taking me this far. It is now time for me to live on my own.

Photo of my late mum and I

I’m now in the USA to celebrate Xmas with family in Philly, then have two conferences I’m participating in, as well as lots of catch-ups with awesome people.

On Tuesday 29th December I’m on a panel at the Modern Language Association Convention being held at the Philadelphia Marriot. For those unfamiliar with the event, it is BIG in the traditional academic world. The panel is put together by Marc Ruppel, a theorist who has been researching what is now known as ‘transmedia storytelling’ but which Marc (like me) studied long before it was well-known. I’m really looking forward to meeting Marc and Burcu in person for the first time.

Re)Framing Transmedial Narratives (7:15–8:30 p.m., Congress A, Loews, Presiding: Marc Ruppel, Univ. of Maryland, College Park)

1. “From Narrative, Game, and Media Studies to Transmodiology,” Christy Dena, Univ. of Sydney
2. “To See a Universe in the Spaces In Between: Migratory Cues and New Narrative Ontologies,” Marc Ruppel
3. “Works as Sites of Struggle: Negotiating Narrative in Cross-Media Artifacts,” Burcu S. Bakioglu, Indiana Univ., Bloomington

Our submission abstracts are:

Marc Ruppel, University of Maryland College Park
To See a Universe in the Spaces In-Between: Migratory Cues and New Narrative Ontologies

As narrative continues to move beyond mono-medial storyworlds and into massive, multiply-mediated, multiply-authored fictional universes, literary structures have begun to form which attempt to link together these disparate clusters of media when their material properties do not allow for such networked operations.  Drawing upon narratology, network theory, cognitive science and user-interface design, this paper will examine what I call migratory cues, signs present in universes that work to connect the content of one media channel with that of another. Functioning much like a hyperlink metaphorized through different media, migratory cues can take the form of virtually anything, from objects to events to shared locations, or as external markers such as logos and website URLs. By locating and investigating the properties of migratory cues, we can not only witness the means through which new networks of narrative information are rapidly coalescing, but also the remarkable flexibility of narrative itself as a technology of media convergence.

Burcu S. Bakioglu, University of Indiana
Works as Sites of Struggle: Negotiating Narrative in Cross Media Works

This paper interrogates the divergent ways the materiality of the medium of cross media works affect the process of meaning-making and investigates how it influences the production of works. Works become sites of struggle because the stories that they narrate are in a state of constant negotiation between its producers/creators, the medium of the work, and the communities that these works mobilize. In a work born in media convergence, I argue, story-telling becomes a collaborative, and more important, a participatory process. Using Art of the H3ist, an Alternate Reality Game, this paper investigates the nature of performativity and collaboration in works that extend across various media and develops the model of performative narratives to refer to works that encourage and rely on such activities for the formation of its texts. 

Christy Dena, University of Sydney
From Narrative, Game & Media Studies to Transmodiology

A recognition of the multimodal nature of communication has reinvigorated narrative studies of late. This paper interrogates the methodological ramifications of a multimodal awareness: when observing the role and effects of different modes in a creative work, how can the understandings and insights of game, media and art theory be invoked? How can the understanding of non-narrative and narrative phenomena be recognised and reconfigured in a mode-agnostic approach? This paper presents some methodological frameworks for exploring this approach.

There are lots of great sessions at this event, so I look foward to hearing some interesting talks on gaming, new media narratives and meta discussions on academia in general, and also catching up and meeting colleagues.

I’ll also be at the Microsoft Research Social Computing Symposium.

For the past four years, Microsoft Research (MSR) has sponsored a symposium on social computing that has brought together academic and industry researchers, developers, writers, and influential commentators in order to open new lines of communication among previously disconnected groups. The 2010 symposium will focus on “city as platform”. We will have brief (5-10 minutes) talks by a handful of speakers on each of the topics, followed by related breakout sessions, and lots of time to interact with other attendees.

I was lucky to be flown to the event last year and this year I was invited back because I was on the team that won one of the games last year! Yep, that’s right. I’m not really invited back, just offered a place as a winner. Hehe. Luckily I’m in New York at the time so I’m attending again! It really is a great event that has such a great selection of people attend. I hold this event up as one of my favourites I’ve ever been to and so I’m really looking forward to it.

Other than that I’ll be catching up with many awesome people in Philly and New York. Can’t wait.

Hope you’re all having a great holidays. More soon.

Well, it has been a long time between posts and so you’re all probably wondering what is going on. As you know, I’ve been working on getting my PhD finished. I’ve had a few things delay its completion and so it isn’t done yet. But since I’ve been a hermit for so long, and have missed out on so many events, birthdays, launches, going-away parties and so on, I thought it best I crawl out of my cave and engage with the world again anyway.

I’m back to working too. I’m consulting with a few clients at the moment and am booking presentations. I’ve promised to keep people posted on where I’ll be when, so here is a run down of what I’ve been doing and trips I’ve confirmed:

• I did a talk a couple of days ago for the Historic Houses Trust for an event run by dLux Media Arts on ‘Mobile Histories’. Richard Fox presented on his serious game ‘Razorhurst’, a locative mobile game that uses photos and footage from the Justice and Police Museum. David Cranswick presented on the work dLux does with mobile gaming and what technologies they use (such as mscape). I presented on ‘ACTUAL WORLD FICTION’ – how the actual world is integrated into a fictional world in pervasive, ubiquitous and alternate reality games etc.
• Next public event I’ll be at is Power to the Pixel, London Film Festival. Wohoo! I gave the keynote last year so I’m thrilled to be asked back again to be a part of the conference and workshops. This year I’ll be doing a follow-up to my intro talk last year. I’ll give a quick run down ‘LESSONS LEARNED’ in Cross-Media. I’ll also be chairing a panel on ‘EXTENDING THE EXPERIENCE’ with three great cross-media folks (in alphabetical order): David Varela of nDreams, Steve Peters of No Mimes Media and Martin Elriccson of The company P. I’ll also be running a workshop of ‘CREATING CROSS-MEDIA NATIVE’ projects. I won’t have much time before and after the event so I hope you can make there and I hope you come up and say hi!
• The next confirmed public presentation after that is the Modern Language Association Convention in Philadelphia on December 29th. The panel is run by Marc Ruppel and will include Burcu Bakioğlu (aka ‘Pale Fire’). The panel is called ‘(Re)Framing Transmedial Narratives’ and I’ll be talking about ‘TRANSMODAL’ theory. It will should be a rip-roaring academic discussion about the area so I really hope to see familiar faces there to join in! I’ll be staying on the East coast of the US from late December until sometime in January. There are plenty of folks I’d love to catch up with while I’m there! So, please do ping me if you’re keen.
• The next confirmed public event will be at Cartoons on the Bay - the International Television Animation Festival held in Italy in April 2010. I’m excited about this too! Not only is animation in my heart (my first professional job in the ‘industry’ was working as a Producer in a fully-digital production studio managing 2D & 3D animation), but it really is on my radar in terms of my own projects in the future, and in terms of cross-media aesthetics in general. Indeed, Cartoons has a cross-media award in their Pulcinella Awards. I really look foward to being at this event, meeting Max Giovagnoli finally, and of course…hanging out in Italy! Let me know if you’ll be around then.

There are other events, but they are unconfirmed or not for the public. I’m just letting you know about these international gigs so we can arrange to meet! It helps me know ahead of time so flight bookings etc can be made accordingly.

As for why I’m still working on the PhD. Well, it is a few things.

1. Since I started my research the area has become well-known. However, despite its pervasiveness, there still hasn’t been lengthy work done to distinguish the area from existing research areas. So, rather than talk about the stuff I find an issue for me now, I had to go back and argue just what I think this phenomenon is and how it differs from existing theories.
2. I’m encompassing a range of practices in mass entertainment and independent arts. That means I need to apply a range of different methodologies as you can’t apply research questions from one to the other easily.
3. Related to the previous point is my multi-disciplinary approach. I’m utilising media, narrative, game studies and semiotics to help illuminate the nature of the phenomenon. Each of these disciplines have their own research questions. I started by writing a thesis that put the phenomenon first, but that doesn’t work. In order to write a PhD that will be examined, I have to design the argument according to certain research questions.
4. Because I’m referring to a range of theories from different disciplines I cannot assume any shared knowledge at all. This means I need to preface every theorist, explain the context of every theory, and I cannot employ allusion at all.
5. My mother passed away unexpectedly just before Xmas. This means feeling a lot of grief and loss (I loved her very much, she was my best friend and my only parent growing up). But it also means I feel my own mortality. How does this relate to the thesis? Well, what if my thesis is the last big thing I contribute to this world? What if I die suddenly? I had to let go of these ideas and not try to communicate all that I want to say now. Instead, I had to write with the assumption that I will have time to develop my ideas…

I’m not sure if these points illuminate my process at all, but it is true for me. I must say I’m very close. I’m currently finishing my conclusion, refining my chapters and going through my references with a fine-tooth comb. But since I’m working again it’ll be another few weeks. Nearly, nearly there.

Anyway, just thought I’d touch base with you all. I look forward to seeing some of you at events and will continue chatting with you online.

Australian new media arts organisation dLux Media Arts was one of my sponsors for the trip, and so I’ve published my report on their site: http://bit.ly/fId0H 

Enjoy!

Second Nature: The International Journal of Creative Media is a new open access, peer-reviewed online journal that explores the distinctive particulars of and interconnections between textual, visual, aural and interactive creative research and practices.

It welcomes contributions from across the field of creative media including creative writers, media and art historians, media practitioners and fine artists, performers, architects and architectural theorists and historians, curators, museum professionals, scientists, cultural and media theorists, archivists, technologists, software developers, educationalists, philosophers and any others who have a stake in the understanding and future developments of creative media. Second Nature publishes research papers, articles, and creative projects.

The first issue is themed ‘Role Models’, which editor (the wonderful) Shiralee Saul explains:

The theme of this issue, “Role Models”, is intended to be as multifaceted as the journal itself. What, it asks, is academic research’s, and creative media generally, relationship with the past? What is our ‘proper’ role as academics? And what models should we be providing, and critiquing, for our students? How can we facilitate their entry into an increasingly rapidly changing industrial and cultural landscape?

Check it out!

Dena, C. (2008) ‘Emerging Participatory Culture Practices: Player-Created Tiers in Alternate Reality Games’, Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze (Eds) special issue on ‘Convergence Culture’ in Convergence Journal: International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Vol 14, No 1, pp: 41-57.

This article introduces an emerging form of participatory culture, one that is not a modification or elaboration of a primary producer’s content. Instead, this article details how the artifacts created to ‘play’ a primary producer’s content have become the primary work for massive global audiences. This phenomenon is observed in the genre of alternate reality games (ARGs) and is illustrated through a theory of ‘tiering’. Tiers provide separate content to different audiences. ARG designers tier their projects, targeting different players with different content. ARG  player production then creates another tier for non-playing audiences. To explicate this point, the features that provoke player-production – producer-tiering, ARG aesthetics and transmedia fragmentation – are interrogated, alongside the character of the subsequent player-production. Finally, I explore the aspects of the player-created tiers that attract massive audiences, and then posit what these observations may indicate about contemporary art forms and society in general.

Since this paper was restricted by copyright for a year (which provoked a controversy), I created a website to augment the paper. Many people thought the website provided all the content that was in the essay, but that is not the case. The website provided another point of entry for those who couldn’t access the essay, and provided more depth for those that could. Now this can be made clear because the paper is out of copyright. Yay!

• PDF of the paper
• Online Augmentation Website

Dena, C. (2007) ‘The Future of Digital Media Culture is All in Your Head: An Argument for the Age of Integrating Media’, Proceedings of perthDAC 2007: the 7th Digital Arts and Culture Conference, Perth, Curtin University of Technology, 116-125.

Although research into digital media culture assists greatly in understanding new technologies, its influences and affects, to continue to do so in isolation of other media shows little regard for the reality of its role and use. ‘Old’ or ‘traditional’ media such as dusty books and smudged newspapers, consensus television, linear films and radio are also part of the daily medial diet of humans. Indeed, this paper argues that an emerging cultural approach is the integration of all media and that this will continue in the near- to long-term future. We are no longer in a Digital Age, we are instead in an Age of Integration. This argument is explored through providing examples of extant integration practices and outlining economic and cognitive influences. Finally, these influences and existing practices are utilized as insights into potential future cultural practices.

This paper has now been published in a special issue of Leonardo/ISAST: ’Social Media: Narrative and Literacy in Digital Culture’.

• LEA Special Issue from perthDAC

The citation for this issue is: Dena, C. (2009) ‘The Future of Digital Media Culture is All in Your Head: An Argument for the Age of Integrating Media’, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Leonardo On-Line (LEA Special Issue from perthDAC: Social Media: Narrative and Literacy in Digital Culture) [Online] Available at: http://www.leonardo.info/LEA/PerthDAC/PerthDAC.html

I hope you find these papers interesting! Indeed, check out the other great papers in the LEA issue. As always, please feel free to send me your thoughts via comments or email.

For a few years I’ve been working with the Australian Literature Board on their Story of the Future project. The project (a big hat tip to Josie Emery for creating the program) involved touring Australia running sessions on how digital technologies can be utilised for storytelling, for marketing your stories and running your writing business. The project has now ended, but the project manager, the always-a-delight Therese Fingleton, didn’t want it to end without sharing some of the things we’ve been doing. So, The Writer’s Guide to Making a Digital Living was born. Myself and the fantastic Jennifer Wilson were commissioned to co-write the guide, which has a lot of (hopefully) interesting stuff in there for writers. It is aimed at writers at various stages of their career, who work in a variety of artforms (screenwriting, game writing, poets, novelists, ewriters), and addresses writers worldwide, whilst also featuring some great Australian talent.

I wrote the sections on the craft of new writing forms, professional development, concept development, marketing and distribution. But on top of the Guide, which is available online and in PDF form, I’ve also created (with the wonderful design of the Lycette Bros.) a chart of the New Writing Universe to give a glimpse at the vast range of emerging writing forms out there (there is much more than writing a shooter game!). Enough of me, as a start, check out the very tongue-in-cheek promotional video we’ve created (mainly the work of the wonderful Lycette Bros. and Therese Fingleton):

Check it out at: www.australiacouncil.gov.au/writersguide

Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

The London Film Festival conference I participated in, Power to the Pixel, (see my last post) is still cranking out material and attracting press. Recently, I was quoted in The Guardian and an interview with me has been published at the PttP site. Both of these are really cool, but there are a couple of little things I’d like to clear up…

The Guardian piece quotes me referring to a ‘Project Universe’. While I’d love to take credit for that, it is actually Lance Weiler who came up with that term. I really like it…not just because of the ‘universe‘ theme, but because it is mode-neutral. I don’t like using terms such as ’storyworld’ or ‘gameworld’ because cross/trans-media projects involve both narrative AND game elements. ‘Project Universe’ is also practice/industry-neutral, in that it can refer to franchises OR small-scale independent projects. I’m a sucker for inclusive terminology.

The interview is posted on the Power to the Pixel site and is written by Nikki Nimme. Nikki did a great job mashing up my email and in-person interviews and main speech at the conference. There are some little things, though, which didn’t quite make it or got a mixed up: I’m currently doing doctoral research, not post doc research; I prefer working with clients at the concept stage rather than coming in later in the project; the changes to distribution I mention are only SOME, not all!; as technology improves, it is entertainment that utilises pervasive/networked/augmented technologies more that will come to the fore, as well as simultaneous media usage (prequels etc are already happening!).

Anyway, these links have been added to my press page. I hope you get something out of them.

POWER TO THE PIXEL is a not-for-profit company that provides the independent film community with the latest in depth information and knowledge about new opportunities available in the transforming digital media landscape.

I did the opening talk on the conference day, ran a workshop and participated in the special Think Tank. It was an amazing event in which I got to finally meet many people for the first time, people I have watched, conversed with online, and even worked with remotely. Liz Rosenthal did a fantastic job with the event. The sessions were webcast on the main site and at Screen International. They had over 10,000 people watch the webcasts, which is very cool. There are LOTS of interesting talks there about distribution, branding, crowdsourcing and finance there. But I’ve also embedded here and at UC101, the videos and ppts of my talk and workshop on ‘Films in the Age of Cross-Media Production’ and my workshop on ‘Writing Across Media’ respectively.

I also did a post UC101 about Immersive Entertainment and Marketing PLACES I’d like to visit…

Oh, I have also started a personal podcast. It is where I share my personal thoughts about who I am and life in general. No cross/trans/multi-platform/media-storytelling/entertainment.