Category: Creative Practice & Strategy

If you haven’t already seen this, check out Assistant Professor Michael Wesch’s video on how digital text has changed everything…Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us

 

At MIPTV’s event at Cannes this year there is another BBC event: “Content 360 Cross Media Festival”.

A true accelerator of tomorrow’s content at MIPTV featuring MILIA 2007! Content 360 brings to Cannes the most creative ideas in exploiting the potential of digital platforms through an international pitching competition, a series of cutting-edge conferences, as well as a Content 360 pavilion and networking events

Basically, producers get the chance to pitch ideas to the BBC. This year they’ve got other sponsored calls too, which is great to see. Looking over the calls, however, it is clear that there is still so much…confusion…over what “cross-media” is. The pitching competition is described as calling for “creative ideas in exploiting the potential of digital platforms”. Doesn’t that make the pitching competition one about the digital realm, not 360? OgilvyOne Worldwide call for pitches for “Cross-Media Brand Marketing”. But what they are looking for is “an innovative idea to present American Express credit card products in a digital world.” What about non-digital mediums? So, does this mean that OgilvyOne Worldwide sees “cross-media branding” as moving a brand from traditional mediums to a digital ones? Then the Korean Broadcasting Commission calls for “Cross-Platform Formats”. They want made-for-mobile content…that can be used for internet, cable TV, IPTV, VOD! Hmm, so KBC sees “cross-platform formats” as content that can be repurposed over multiple mediums.

I understand that “cross-media” has different meanings. That is one reason why I use it, to be inclusive rather than exclusive of all the options available to producers. But holding industry events that claim to be “360” and “cross-media” and so on (many of which I’ve discussed on this blog) and then not discuss new ways to engage multiple platforms is a waste. I understand that there are different needs out there, but I’m passionate about cross-media and I hate to see bad advice. So, if you’re unsure what are the narrative options in the age of cross-media production, may I suggest the following:

• Repurposing: same content reproduced in different mediums
• Adaptation: same story reproduced in different genres/formats
• Transmedia serial: cliff-hanger episodes over media platforms
• Transmedia series: self-contained episodes over media platforms
• Polymorphic form: single story fragmented over multiple media platforms

In the meantime, go tell the BBC et al your ace cross-media ideas, submissions close Feb 9: http://www.miptv.com/content360

 

_Leonardo Electronic Almanac Discussion (LEAD): Vol 14 No 8_ Wild Nature and the Digital Life Special Issue, guest edited by Dene Grigar and Sue Thomas

:: Live chat with artist/writer Jeremy Hight and architect/theorist Peter Hasdell

:: Chat date: Thursday, February 1.

:: 2 pm West Coast US / 5 pm East Coast USA / 10pm UK / 9am Feb 2nd Aus

Author Biographies

Jeremy Hight is a locative media and new media artist/writer/ theorist. He collaborated on the early locative narrative project “34 north 118 west”. His essay “Narrative Archaeology” is studied in several universities as a resource on locative narrative and space. He collaborated most recently on the landscape data edited project Carrizo Parkfield Diaries. The diaries are archived in the Whitney Museum Artport. He recently co-curated the online new media exhibition Binary Katwalk . He is working on two large-scale locative media projects that look to push into new areas both in physical space and in functionality. He currently has a project shortlisted for possible development with the European Space Agency and as a form of locative narrative utilizing the European Space Station and points above the earth. Hight is currently editing a book of essays on locative media. Hight holds Masters in Fine Arts (writing, theory, art) from the Critical Studies/Writing program at Cal Arts, and a B.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. He teaches Visual Communication and English at Los Angeles Mission College.

Peter Hasdell is an architect and academic. He studied film theory and computer engineering before graduating in architecture from University of Sydney. Post-graduate studies completed at the Architectural Association (London), Ph.D in process in Stockholm. He has worked as an architect and artist on both theoretical and actual projects in a number of countries for 16 years. He has taught architecture, design and technology in Europe and North America, and has held positions at the Bartlett School London (UCL), The Berlage Institute in Amsterdam and at KTH Architecture School in Stockholm. His academic work has included research, lecturing and teaching at various institutions in different countries at undergraduate level, postgraduate level and post professional level. In Stockholm he was recently Associate Professor/programme founder/ director of the innovative research studio Architecture and Urban Research Laboratory investigating the mediated city, urban scale metabolic systems and artificial ecologies. He is currently Professor of Architectural Technology at the University of Manitoba. His research work presently investigates metabolic systems and interactive technologies with a focus on ‘artificial ecologies’ and issues of sustainability. He has been a member of various research institutes including Chora Institute of Urbanism and Architecture in London.

:: How to participate in the live chat?

Live chats will use the Writing and the Digital Life Discussion Room.

To access the WDL discussion room, it is necessary to subscribe to the list, by chosing “Join WRITING-AND-THE-DIGITAL-LIFE”

If the online interface does not start, it is necessary to download and install the most recent Java version

I found the WDL link to the discussion forum didn’t work. So I just logged in and went to the WDL page and found it from there. I also added the time and day for those in Australia. I look forward to this one! There are others too, some great ones I’ve missed and others upcoming that I will miss to. But the discussion about notions of distributed narrative should be interesting.