The Story, 2011.
Pulling together some thoughts from The Story conference, 18th February 2011 www.thestory.org.uk
- The strange luxury of travelling from Sheffield to London for these events is that you're afforded a nicely relaxed start to the day. Ambling across the country on the train and wondering what you may discover over the course of the day.I was most excited that it was a 'Conway Hall Event'. These events, as started by Russell Davies, are a lo-fi single-theme conference that serves to explore one-person's favourite delicious links, or blogroll. They're not about business connections or garbage neologisms, it's about sharing thoughts.Toby's Playful helped broaden the horizon from Russell's Interesting and now Matt Locke has brought this approach to 'The Story' and storytelling.
- We were a touch late, as it was a tiny bit cheaper to get a slightly later train.Unfortunately, we missed the Ministry of Stories' presentation, but it seems like a decent thing to support. Even if it's baffling that they do get support.
Ministry of StoriesMinistry of Stories is a non-profit creative writing centre in East London that helps children and young people to develop their writing.- Taking our seats in the Gods, Matt Adams from Blast Theory talked us through the processes involved in developing Ivy4Eva.I had signed up to Ivy4Eva when it was live, and hadn't really enjoyed it. Adams showed some good looking bar charts and displayed some of the narrative/human interactions which were very impressive, if a little concerning at times.Adams gave a very interesting run-through of the various complex issues facing the production. The first one, and this wasn't the last time this question was raised, was whether it should be a game or a story.The second was how a broadcast narrative could develop real engagement from its audience, and what to do if it did.The answer to the latter was to create story trees, with narrative 'stubs' — key moments in the story, where a reader's response resulted in further interaction.
- The stubs, however, are just means of furthering conversation and harvesting more dialogue from participants.The narrative is frustratingly linear. Similar to the recent PS3 game Heavy Rain, the illusion of agency is there, but its impact is minimal. Mass Effect/2's decision trees have real impact on narrative outcomes.Still, it was very interesting and lots of things are stuck in my mind about building intimacy and distance when trying to engage an audience with automated/Chinese Room interactions.
- Blast Theory | Ivy4EvrIvy has left home because Lilsis has done the dirty on her and she’s no longer sure who her friends are. For a week she’ll tell you **everything** but can she trust you and what will you tell her? Ivy4Evr uses SMS to go places that other dramas can’t go - onto your phone and into your pocket. Ivy wriggles into your life, sending you messages on the way to school, college or last thing at night. Ivy’s life is parallel to yours: she sends boozy updates late on Saturday night and sarcastic chat on a boring Sunday afternoon. And...
- Adam Curtis took to the stage to deliver a challenging and enlivening polemic. His central point was that we are too busy creating whimsy to take note of The Big Story — that we are naïve in thinking online is any different to any other part of society.The dominant ideology is being demonstrated by our online behaviour, i.e. all we know is our own experience and our friends.
- Online is as much a society as anywhere else, and the work/art we are creating on it reflect the ruling power. Curtis suggested that our art now will be considered in much the same way that socialist realism reflected Stalin's Soviet rule.
- It was a wonderfully paranoid rant, part Matrix/blue pill and part call to action.What particularly stuck with me was the truth that it is little bits of digital stuff being engaged with that results in an "emotional realism".Given some of the things I'm reading/involved with, this phrase stuck out massively:
- Karl James kicked off the post-tea break session. He's a facilitator, really. He does some wonderful things in schools and society, teaching and learning around disadvantaged or disconnected communities. Especially amongst children.His main thing is to have the strength to shut up.
- It's that easy. If you ask a question, and leave a long enough pause, people will open up and share their feelings/thoughts with you.He made me think about a couple of films that meant a lot to me a while ago: Ingmar Bergman's Persona and The Silence. Both films centre around leaving those gaps, and the stories that come out of them.Persona in particular. It features two characters in a remote cabin with each other; one woman refusing to speak, the other the nurse charged with looking after her. Over the course of the film, the nurse shares all her uncomfortable, unhappy, painful memories with the silent patient.It's a brilliant film, and deeply moving.
- Cornelia Parker was a bit of a strange one for me. Having spoken to Andrew on the train down, I wasn't sure what to expect. I do not have the critical language to really understand sculpture, but am fairly comfortable with the kind of installation work Parker makes: found, or destroyed, objects.
