How can social media be used to produce an interactive documentary?
An interactive web documentary on ephemeral human interventions in public space.
IN SITU by Antonie Viviani
Devised, artistic interventions are performed in highly urbanized surroundings throughout European cities. IN SITU, available on the Arte (Association Relative à la Télévision Européenne) website, can be viewed as a 90 minute linear film or in chapters as well as having participatory applications for users to upload video & photos via a mobile app.
A blog offers further interactivity by allowing others to comment on content.
It uses social media such as Twitter & Facebook to promote and facilitate interactivity.
What is being analysed here is how people use and connnect with a public space. By recording this, those not present at these interventions or meditations experience a sense of inclusion. Often crowd reactions are featured to frame the web viewers’ expectations. In Situ is primarily, what Kate Nash (2012) calls a ‘categorical documentary’ that “consists of a list of elements, but more often, the list is united in some way such as by theme, subject or location.” (Nash 2012, p.205) Similiar to interactive web documentaries like Highrise, viewers may dip in and out from various videos.
Artists, architects and alike provided content (performance) to form the basis of the webdoc with the director recording this with the brief of an intervention in a urban space. The idea was original conceived by Aurelie Florent and others were brought in to add the interactive elements to the film. Fostering a community through social media, the project has since built on the original idea where still or moving images have been linked to their geographical location. Like a snapshot of someone’s backyard, the online viewer is invited to discover something new or make a connection with others. The intervention need not be a dynamic expression but could be street art that occupies a public space or even the shadow of a plane, cutting across the landscape. This adaptation has allowed the project to continue and grow with the participatory task asked of the user being both simple and engaging. The technology and skillset needed to interact with the project allows a larger number of people to join in.
The user experience is a pleasurable one, at times hypnotic and beautiful. However, there are chapters of the film that are quite passive. Artists move about spaces where either the camera drifts or perhaps it follows? Where it really takes off is when an interactive element is quietly introduced. A prompt informs the viewer to click on the head of travellers on the Metro to hear their thoughts. By moving your mouse over another video, you choose to be closer to passersby or the man they are watching, who is magically suspended in the air.
Social media tools such as Facebook have been used to continue the project. Photos and videos are shared via the In Situ Map by users and visitors, fostering a participatory community as well as adding to the content to be viewed.
The Facebook page has sporadic entries from 2011 and the blog seems underutilized. However the map has numerous posts and is quite easy to navigate.
Some examples:
Soft Landing
Gorilla Lighting
While new user content continues to be added to the site, it is infrequent and is mostly photos. There is an interesting assessment here, from Sandra Gaudenzi who teaches at the London College of Media.
It is interesting how the content included through the map application has adapted to include more users. The original film had a defined parameter of human intervention in public spaces. What has happened since is greater than that, an intervention of space through non-organic actors. But what it does do is broaden the sense of space and how it is populated. This project has further life to it and much more to say.
References:
Nash K (2012) Modes of interactivity: analysing the webdoc, Media, Culture and Society 34(2): 195-210.
chrisgorley 