Final Reflections on 21 Tags!

So now that the 21 Tags are complete, here are my ruminations:

First, a link to the original idea (or I should say, the blog that covered the blossoming of this idea) or here on this blog.

And a link to final executed project demoed in class:

Originally – not that we had collectively agreed yet as a group of nine disparate members, sharing really only membership on Dodging for Columbine, the greatest dodgeball team known to academia – our first ruminations were to venture into Toronto Island and document its deep, dark secrets a la an elaborate geo-caching meets the Blair Witch Project sort of thing. The hook stemmed from a tidbit of history that one of the old lighthouse keepers on the island died/disappeared mysteriously and that the thirteenth step of the lighthouse was now haunted. We cooked up the possible idea that as a group we could find seven-plus stations on the island steeped in dark lore and set up geo-caching video-podding stations. Each member of the group would wear the same outfit and while two others would lure random individuals from the ferry to the seven locations, where they could record their confessions/thoughts/etc. and store it in the “virtual” geo-cached spot as an advanced new media time capsule. Needless to say, without GPS readers and no group accord, the idea died a slow death, and we began to ponder a much more feasible endeavor involving collective intelligence and integrating the now seven very different perspectives of the same geographic space. Our expectations originally were to incorporate as many concepts of new media production practice that we as a group were capable of achieving in a short span of time and in that sense, we were successful.

It is difficult to say how the outcome differs or corresponds to our objectives, because as a team of highly proficient filmmakers, photographers and academics, we were actually highly inexperienced as new media practitioners (in terms of web design, gaming or installation know-how). We did however achieve exactly what we set out to do, once we finally managed to coalesce as a group and understand the essence of merging collective and connected intelligence. We as individual artists discovered a means of presenting our unique perspectives (in the means by which we interpreted the 21 tags as photos and again as captions) while at the same time managing to unite this expressive content in an interface that explores a multi-perspective document of a geographic space without emphasizing individual identity or authorship.

One thing that was critical to the success of 21 Tags was the development of a plan of approach that incorporated a number of concrete ideas (experimental controls) with parameters to ensure that our individual perspectives did not overshadow the anonymity required of the collective project. Mark Laurie wrote and sealed a letter for each team member describing the protocol for the picture-taking day. We all had four hours to explore the island, discover the respective tags and document them with our SLR cameras and notepads (for the captions). Afterwards, we had until evening to transcribe the captions as PhotoShop pictures and the following day to work as a collective team in creating the interface and ironing our the kinks (re: broken links!).

Through 21 Tags I really discovered what collective and connected intelligence really require and what they can offer to documentary practice that limit more top-down approaches (such as film or photography). As an artist, particularly a filmmaker, the instinct is to have a clearly defined outlook or vision and to communicate this vision to a team of trained practitioners as a director or manager. With collective teamwork, however, it is important that all members of the team act as both the queen and the drone (of the hive mind, for lack of a better metaphor). We learned how to create an interface or framework (the 21 different objects to document on the island) that requires the equal contribution of our individual perspectives to strengthen the overall expression of the idea.

If given another chance or more time to develop the core ideas of 21 Tags, I would include the option to view the various perspectives (the photos and captions) of the individual artists as separate narratives. As my intention to document the island as a descriptive, fanciful explorer differs much from the more symbolic or ironic perspectives of my peers, it would be interesting to see this project “reverse engineered” to provide stronger context for the idea.

As a filmmaker who intends, at least for the short term to remain a filmmaker (though I do have very ludological tendencies!), the new media concepts of this course and of this project offer a more thorough extension to view and explore more narrative ideas. If I were, for example, to create a TV documentary that explores the rich historical lore of Toronto Island, new media strategies such as 21 Tags would be excellent supplementary tools for viewers interested in learning more about the idea, or as a marketing strategy to promote the original idea.

Woes of Synthetic Intelligence

As synthetic or artificial intelligence continues to evolve (at an exponential rate), in some ways it has far exceeded human intelligence (particularly in the purely mathematical ability to compute data) but there are still notable setbacks that prevent it from reaching the adaptive, emotional complexity of human intelligence.

As Simon Penny notes in “the Virtualization of Art Practice,” since the early successes of artificial intelligence, computer intelligence could excel at “logically complex but bounded problems such as playing chess” (Penny 1997) but that day-to-day tasks requiring “common sense” were much more difficult to program. Penny believes that abstract logical reasoning was more easily simulated in synthetic intelligence because the discipline of engineering has its roots in such thinking. Of course robotic navigation have since evolved considerably, allowing rudimentary common sense obstacles to be overcome with multiple sensors, remapping technology and collision detection.

The abilities to learn, grow and mature are still in relatively primitive stages in artificial intelligence, where the potential for autopoiesis (the ability for auto-creation, the way biological cells can self-replicate) is still a technologically infantile process. This is possibly because most artificial intelligence is limited by the Top-Down paradigm of thinking, which prevents any computational analysis of the greater picture – most synthetic intelligence makes decisions about certain data but does not extrapolate about the bigger picture. Penny notes that just as biologists move away from reductive and dualistic views of biology, it is discovered that deeply entangled relationships exist that allow large organic molecules such as DNA to reorganize themselves, computer engineers are focusing on more bottom-up research that could lead to true machine autopoiesis (Penny 1997).

The ability to create and innovate art are tasks particularly far from the reach of synthetic intelligence, though there are several programs now that can use complex algorithms to manufacture artificial poetry or music by feeding in multiple examples of “proficient art,” which are reverse engineered to the basic components.

An example of a seemingly simple (but altogether complex) setback includes the linguistic notion of “word sense disambiguation” (WSD), a function useful to search engine scripting. While humans can easily discern the difference between difference ‘senses’ of the same word (i.e. homophones or additional obscure meanings) when given a contextual sentence (i.e. ‘let’s go fishing for bass’ or ‘the bass sound is cacophonous’), it is very difficult to develop algorithms that replicate this human ability in computational linguistics.

Issues of linguistic analysis in synthetic intelligence are also abundantly clear in most word processing grammar checkers, which are so faulty in their ability to identify actual errors (instead addressing stylistic choices like gender word use) that most users will turn off the irritating functions.

Works Cited

Penny, S. (1997). “The Virtualisation of Art Practice: Body Knowledge and the Engineering World View”. CAA Art Journal, Fall 1997.

Can Open-Ended Narrative Work?

An important concern of contemporary user-created narratives is that it has the potential to lose the high stakes, tense conflict and consequent emotional drama of traditional literary, cinematic or even linear gaming narrative.

In the last two decades of videogaming (currently we are in the seventh generation), both traditional, linear narratives and open-ended, user-created narratives have emerged and evolved a great degree. While gaming linear narratives demonstrated the ability to accomplish much of the emotional depth, symbolism and suspense witnessed in cinema or literature as early as the fifth generation (with mature stories in titles such as Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VII and Xenogears gaining notable attention), more open-ended narratives faced a number of challenges in engaging players

Depending on the genre, some titles, including both single player games (ex. Elder Scrolls), or massively, multiplayer online RPGs (ex. World of Warcraft) allow the custom creation of an avatar that oftentimes does not speak or emote with other players or non-player-characters unless the user chooses to. Major plot threads can exist in these games, but these more open-ended games often emphasize multitudes of optional side quests, missions and subplots over one conventional narrative. Depending on the complexity of the interface and the virtual options available, players can do what they want, from farming and harvesting resources to becoming a local hero and building reputation or even to play the badguy, murdering innocent villagers or attacking and killing other players. Some titles, including those in the Grand Theft Auto series balance somewhere in the middle, allowing users to explore an open virtual space (in GTA IV, Liberty City is the spitting image of Manhattan island), completing optional missions, wandering aimlessly and taking advantage of a complex dating system, all without pursuing the optional central narrative, if they so choose to. But options are considerably limited compared to the free-world openness of Second Life or most MMORPGs.

It seems that the more polished, intuitive and innovative the gameplay, the more fixed the narrative is likely to seem. In Second Life, avatars can go anywhere they want, drive vehicles, interact with other intelligent characters or view works of art, created by users. However, the exploration and platforming movement is much more clunky than a linear action-adventure title (i.e. Tomb Raider or Ratchet and Clank); the driving control and collision detection is poor in comparison to a current-generation racing title (Gran Turismo) and the artistry on display pales next to the photorealistic or expressionistic beauty of the graphically advanced vistas seen in genre works. Needless to say, user-created narratives amongst communities of players, however unpredictable, lack the high stakes and drama of conventional narrative.

However as system hardware evolves to allow more seamless, immersive worlds, programmers can navigate the contrived limitations facing user-created narratives (side quests with cliched goals) and open-concept worlds (simplistic, horizontal exploration), where the goal is presumably a virtual world where any choice is possible, and where the outcome or consequences of those choice are as complex, believable and emotionally charged (or potentially even more so) as those made in the real world. The Holodeck on Star Trek seems like the obvious pinnacle of this path, where users can wholly immerse themselves in virtual spaces that simulate visual, aural, tactile sensations, the artificial intelligence mimics human intelligence and narrative stakes are exponentially high because the user is truly embodied in this realm.

Just as traditionally linear adventure titles like Tomb Raider offer the Lara Croft avatar more and more custom abilities and the worlds present multiple means of exploration (instead of one obvious trajectory from A to B), the graphical artistry and gameplay precision of open-ended user-determined narratives are quickly approaching the quality typically only experienced alongside limited narratives.

Embodiment in Horror Videogames

As an example of digital artistic expression and one of the New Media, gaming has demonstrated itself to be particularly effective at nurturing the notion of embodiment. We as users of videogame art are becoming better enabled to engage true emotional response as we control digital avatars in open environments and nonlinear narratives. This has been illustrated particularly well in horror gaming, where users can activate the fight-or-flight response through control of their avatar in games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill or Alone in the Dark. I’ve taken and updated excerpts from a paper I wrote for a conference on videogames and popular culture in Kansas City last October.

Contrary to popular conjecture, videogames do not desensitize us to the experience of fear and terror; rather, they re-sensitize us to it. By placing users in control of a narrative’s protagonist in bleak situations, “survival horror” videogames reengage the primordial fight-or-flight response to fear. Consequently, as decision-making can result in virtual life or death, videogames allow for a more instinctive sensory experience of true terror. Other cultural media, such as literature, film and television, limit the genuine experience of fear and terror by confining the audience experience to passive reaction or intellectualization, thereby preventing any form of reactive decision-making, or agency. In these instances, the fight-or-flight response is obviously pre-chosen by the story’s author for the story’s characters, over whom the viewer has no control, which decreases the fear response, particularly for audiences conditioned to archetypes of suspense designed to hide this fact (desensitization). Active media such as videogames, however, bring users closer to the fundamental connection between fear and survival by placing users within the narrative and demanding instinctive choices that stimulate this fight-or-flight response.

In passive media (literature or film or photography), there is a paradox facing the creation of suspense and fear when viewers become desensitized to this pattern and no longer feel a sense of uncertainty, such as with repeat viewings or predictable or clichéd films. Action or horror videogames, on the other hand, do not suffer from this paradox, because “the player can almost never know the outcome of the game with certainty” (Frome, Smuts, 2004)

It is no secret that videogames stimulate highly emotional responses in gamers. Psychological studies are frequently conducted to illustrate how violent action games “increase aggressive behavior and emotional outbursts” (Kardaras, 2004). Some of these studies tend to focus on the negative implications of games affecting players with boosts in heart rate, blood pressure, adrenaline and testosterone levels. When placed in virtual danger, the mind and body of gamers’ are placed “in the same heightened state as someone in actual physical peril” (Linnea, 2003). If an adventure game can better stimulate feelings of tension, frustration and thrills than equivalent action film or literature, and survival horror titles the corresponding sensations of dread, suspense and terror, is this not an indication of the medium’s efficiency as immersive entertainment?

Even though videogames have yet to reach a point of filmic verisimilitude in the depiction of horrific imagery, by placing viewers in control of the character, he or she becomes directly responsible for this character’s survival, removing the need to willingly suspend disbelief. Such experiences demand such an intense level of focus and concentration that they do not allow for a meta-gaming process of intellectualization, which might lead to desensitization. In contrast, by engaging these intense levels of stress and emotion or the fight-or-flight response typically rarely encountered in the “real world” gamers actually re-sensitize with it and embodiment takes place in the virtual realm.

Works Cited

Frome, Jonathan and Aaron Smuts (2004) “Helpless Spectators: Generating Suspense in Videogames and Film,” Text/Technology 13.1: 13-34.

Linnea, Sharon (2005) “Video Game Values”, BeliefNet.com, http://www.beliefnet.com/story/130/story_13096_2.html, Retrieved June 1, 2007

Kardaras, Eleni (2004). “The Effect of Video Games on the Brain”. Serendip, http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro04/web1/ekardaras.html, Retrieved May 30, 2008

New Media Production

< Note this is transcribed from the TEAM blog docnewmedia.wordpress.com

For our new media group project, we have decided to undertake a distributed, photo-based, online documentary on Toronto Island. We will collect and upload our media (via WI-FI) on Sunday, June 15th, coinciding with the final race in the Cycle Messenger World Championships, to be held on the Island.

Our documentary process will resemble in some ways a “scavenger hunt,” in which each of the project’s seven participants will be assigned a list of “tags” to find and photograph. Each team member will submit a shortlist of tags, and from that list, the final list will be chosen randomly upon arrival at the island, to avoid premeditated photographic strategies and encourage discovery (and interpretation) of the tags within the Island space. Once at the site, each team member will be able to interpret and photograph the tag-words as she or he sees fit, and the photographs will be uploaded in real-time to a social-media site (such as Flickr), such that each “tag” will be displayed as a series/grid of images. Thus, we are taking an unconventional approach to tagging, in that the tags precede the images, and the result should be a kind of typology assembled by several authors, possibly interspersed with seeming non-sequiturs/double-entendres/etc, reflecting the group members’ varying semantic interpretations of the tag words. We would also like to map the images geographically (perhaps using Google Maps – let’s ask Alex) to chart the various trajectories of the group members throughout the site and build an idiosyncratic picture of the site according to the tagging parameters.

We are going to scout the Island and test its WI-FI access tomorrow. (Mark Tollefson is helping us with this). The ferry to Hanlan’s Point leaves at 1 pm; thus, it would be best if group members arrive at the Ferry Docks by about 12:45. Please note: I have a dentist’s appointment in Scarborough tomorrow and may be late in arriving at the Island, but I will call another member to let you know when I will be arriving.

We still have several things to work out in advance. First and foremost is the web interface and uploading procedures – will we use a blog/Google Maps/Flickr/etc, and will we permit photoshopping and/or some kind of assemblage of the like-tagged photos into single, grid-patterned images? – let’s determine this with Alex’s help. Speaking of which, let’s try to meet Alex ASAP, to get her advice and approval. We will decide on a time tomorrow, and then assign someone to write to her.

That is all for now, but please: keep in mind that this is my understanding of the group project as discussed earlier after today’s class, and if I have not articulated something correctly, or if you disagree or have something to add (practical or theoretical), please feel free to post your thoughts on the group blog.

Second Life VS. MMORPGs

Playing Second Life, which is a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), the notion of bringing disparate peoples from anywhere on the planet together in multiple virtual environments (islands as they’re referred to in the game) is limited, in my opinion, by the lack of inherent narrative or goals. While the variety of people tinkering in virtual environments (whether for business or for pleasure) are certainly increasing and targeting less gaming-niche users, the majority of these users still seem to be individuals that are typically less social than their average peers. This poses a problem in Second Life, which as a gaming interface provides no direct benefits to communicating with others within the virtual space.

Many users spend countless hours customizing the appearance, items and behavior (re: scripts) of their avatars, but avoid making meaningful contact with other random users to encourage community and connected intelligence. Through our exploration of several notable locations during our lecture, I only conducted conversations with other classmates and nobody besides other classmates communicated or attempted to communicate with my avatar, despite the fact that I intentionally behaved flamboyantly and activated visually unique scripts (turning my avatar on fire, dancing, muscle beach posing) to stand out. Perhaps it was clear I was a noob (new user) to veteran players, but with no reason to work with other users (no monsters to slay on masse; no potions to collect in faraway realms) with direct benefit, my social interaction in this persistent space was severely limited. One problem I noticed is that it seems some islands are completely empty, while others, including “Hippie Pay,” are full (because you make virtual money simply by being there) and it can be difficult to find other communicative users.  In other MMORPGs, like EverQuest, World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI, however, the games encourage cooperation with other thinking, emoting avatars because working together (connected and collective intelligence) is crucial to accomplishing tasks like the slaying of certain deadly foes (which one or two players could not face on their own) or to voyage into particularly dangerous realms. As such, these games feature the ability to form “parties,” into which you can recruit other real players and the game design feature elaborate means to communicate with other players in the various realms (i.e. servers) that have tagged themselves as looking for parties (which are customizable by party level, party goal and party role [i.e. healer, warrior or sorcerer]). So if you are exploring a desolate portion of the map, you can you the interface to locate other willing player characters. Communities (guilds) are formed of like-minded individuals looking to harvest resources (to make better weapons, armor, items) or simply chat, emote and dance much like one would in Second Life, but with more inherent benefits to doing so. This motivates synchronous communication (the building of a live community of play), where user-created narratives will in fact take place, however drama and stakes-free they may be.

Not only do these goal-oriented MMORPGs have more intuitive means of connecting virtual players and creating a space where user-created narratives are limitless, they reward virtual teamwork and strategy with progress and material benefits (experience points, magic items, new abilities). The benefits to teamwork in Second Life are more abstract (i.e. teaching and learning in virtual classrooms), perhaps reflecting the real world. But considering a large majority of Second Life users are probably not as socially educated as their non-gaming peers, they often seem to behave like they might in the real world: introverted and quietly.

Of course, Second Life does differ from its strictly gaming cousins by offering a virtual space to develop original elements, like artworks and collectable objects, potentially allowing the game world to be used as a simulation space for scientists, academics and the like. And as a simulation space or discussion forum for individuals located throughout the globe, the potential for a persistent virtual space like Second Life to connect users in ways that differ from role-playing games is palpable. I just do not see it quite yet.

Urban Sensing and Big Brother

As sensing technology becomes increasingly advanced, fears of government surveillance and privacy invasion become more and more prevalent, particularly in a post 9/11 culture of relative fear. In “Urban Sensing: Out of the Woods,” Dana Cuff, Mark Hansen and Jerry Kang explore the notion of traditionally scientific data collection moving into the realms of politics, aesthetics and everyday life and some of the interesting ramifications of this shift.

While at this point in time the “full centralization model” scientists enjoy in the field (where they control the placement of various sensors, the data they collect and the ways in which the data is collected) can’t be realistically adapted to the urban environment because scientists lack access to certain properties and they can’t individual eschew privacy rights without breaking the law, the authors believe that this data will become available via devices like the cell phone (Cuff et al, 2007). Already most cell phones are capable of sensing location (as GPS receivers), images/movement (as cameras) and obviously sound. Within years, they could also be programmed to detect atmospheric conditions such as pollution levels as well temperature changes, radiation levels and who knows what else. In the article, Cuff, Hansen and Kang discuss the problems of having various individuals who lack scientific training and objective perspective as the beacons of data collection and that the consequent data could be biased or otherwise flawed. (Cuff et al, 2007)

Perhaps however, at a certain point in the ominous near future, probably after another incident like the WTC attacks again forces the US government to reexamine privacy freedoms and the constitution of surveillance. As we face the sort of singularity (major paradigm shift) that Web 2.0, advancing computer technologies and new media means of expression bring, all it would take is some form of major incident to make these pervasive but optional elements of our lives absolutely mandatory. The technology exists for us all to have chips embedded in our bodies that regulate our heart rates, blood pressure and other biological readings. These chips could also monitor and record our location, our bank and credit accounts, our genetic histories and predispositions towards cancer, homosexuality or even criminal behavior. As part of the paradigm shift, these chips could very well become mandatory implants. Perhaps, depending on the severity of the global incident that prompts this new privacy infringement, certain sensors will remain “optional,” like the monitoring of financial accounts and GPS locations.

Scientists fear that “bad data processing” and the “observer offect” could lead to amateurish data collection via “cheap, unverified, uncalibrated sensors,” with no pretense of neutrality or comprehensiveness (Cuff et al 2007).  If these sensors, whether they be in cell phones, PDAs our embedded in our actual bodies, remain optional, the notion of connected intelligence will become critical and scientists will need to pay special observation to discerning relevant data from “junk data”. However, with the Big Brother effect—a conservative government that enforces the scientific, economic and legal benefits of total surveillance—the paradigm will shift more towards collective intelligence, where the hive-mind is strengthened by mandatory cooperation of the data-collecting drones.

Terrifying sacrifice for human freedom, yes, but big leap forward for digital singularity!

Works Cited

Cuff, D., Hansen, M., Kang, J. (2007). Urban Sensing: Out of the Woods. Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery.  url: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1092932, Retrieved May 28, 2008

New Media = Art ?

A lot is speculated about what the new media image will be capable of from an artistic perspective when certain technologies evolve towards the public spheres (and away from purely scientific application). In “Telepresence Art,” Eduardo Kac discusses that the emphasis of the titular medium will be less on composition or form and more on behavior, choice and action where users are transformed into participants to serve “an active role in shaping their own field of experiences” (Kac 1997). Though the article is dated, it is somewhat surprising that Kac makes little mention of videogames, which, as commercial extensions of “Telepresence Art,” were already beginning to do just that. By 1997, the fifth generation of gaming had already begun (PlayStation era) and groundbreaking titles like Tomb Raider (1996) and Resident Evil (1996) and Super Mario 64 (1996) were changing the way users engaged with the virtual environment. In these early titles, users were controlling avatars in three-dimensional environments for the first time, which although rudimentary, encouraged a very active, decision-making role for participants. These games, among others, revealed a level of engagement far beyond the unidirectional reception of film or television messages of the more passive media.

In Tomb Raider, gamers didn’t just identify with Ms. Lara Croft’s thrilling adventure, as they would a cinematic equivalent; they experienced it first hand. User decisions, skills and controls would determine whether or not this virtual explorer would navigate ancient ruins and survive perilous traps, dangerous climbs or deadly encounters with the monstrous denizens of the virtual world. Instead of idly watching everything take place and at most, potentially identifying with Croft’s plight, the avatar becomes an extension of the user, and the sense of thrill or frustration he or she feels controlling Croft when she survives or perishes a gauntlet of swinging blades and unexpected pitfalls, is a direct result of the user’s decision-making.

The question of art has been a issue for gaming since its inception, but particularly now that the medium is reaching a level of widespread prevalence rivaling even film and television—the Grand Theft Auto series made over $500 Million in its first week of release, for example—it can no longer be attributed as just a frivolous pastime for a niche demographic that doesn’t (or can’t) appreciate higher art. Renowned film critic Roger Ebert has dismissed the medium on countless occasions, stating “art is created by an artist.” (Ebert 2007), that if you can manipulate the narrative, as the gamer can, “you become the artist”. This prevents the game from reaching a status of higher art, presumably because only master artists with finite understanding of the medium in question can produce real art. The example given is a malleable form of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, with an open-ended narrative where a happy ending (however inferior, less deep and less artistic) is possible. The inherent problem here is considering a narrative that exists as high art in one form (literature or theatre) directly translated to another medium.  Narratives written for videogames, whether open-ended and malleable (like those of GTA IV and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and The Elder Scrolls) or deceptively linear (Final Fantasy VII, Shadow of the Colossus or Metal Gear Solid) follow different schema than literature or film, often manipulating cinematic conventions for ironic or atmospheric effect but existing as entirely separate forms to videogames. Ask anyone who played Metal Gear Solid and had to kill female enemy terrorist Sniper Wolf in a climactic snow-capped mountain showdown only to then listen to her moving tale of having been recruited by the terrorist cell when her family was murdered in war-torn Africa, and they’ll probably tell you they felt guilty for their actions, bringing about her tragic death. Making viewers engage emotions like guilt is near impossible in other mediums, because a necessary distance exists between the viewers and the characters experiencing the events. In games however, the avatar is in essence the player, and this connection allows this new medium the possibility of stretching the viewer’s imagination and taking them on emotional journeys not feasible in other media. For this reason, videogames executed properly are the very epitome of “Telepresence art”.

Of course the one unfortunate issue facing games, particularly immersive titles with open-world concepts, photorealistic visuals, real-world physics and verisimilar A.I. require increasingly inaccessible budgets. This means that individual artists are unlikely to have their voice heard (beyond as an extension of the original creator’s intended virtual expressions) and the high-cost ensures most titles are produced to first and foremost turn a profit by pandering to the rules of entertainment. While games constantly engage the adrenaline junkies with fight-or-flight instinctive reactions, other emotions (love, envy or even melancholy) are neglected just as high-drama is with film and movie culture.

Works Cited:

Kac, E. (1993). Telepresence Art. Originally published in English and German in Teleskulptur, Richard Kriesche, Editor (Graz, Austria: Kulturdata, 1993), pp. 48-72.
url: http://www.ekac.org/Telepresence.art._94.html

Ebert, Roger (2007). “Games Vs. Art: Ebert Vs. Barker,” RogerEbert.com.  http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070721/COMMENTARY/70721001
Retrieved May 24, 2008

Documentary Manifesto

A documentary is any piece of creative nonfiction filmmaking created with a primary directive, which could include, but is not limited to, any combination of exposition, education, revelation, investigation, confession, indictment, persuasion, propaganda, entertainment, and, of course, documentation. The documentary must achieve (or attempt to achieve) some level of truth-claim, with a direct connection to the ‘real,’ (Renov, 2004), which is structured with some degree of formal treatment and tone.

1. Documentary is no excuse for low production values:

Since the Zapruder footage of JFK’s assassination inadvertently established a low -grade aesthetic code for actuality footage—that is, overly shaky, out-of-focus, handheld camerawork or captured action without inciting incident or resolution—some of its defining characteristics seem to have blended into certain forms of documentary production (particularly direct cinema and cinema verite) itself (Bruzzi, 2006). While gritty aesthetics can heighten the truth-claim, and the implied connection to the ‘real’ unadulterated actuality footage tends to have, shoddy overall production values simply reveal the documentarian as an untrained amateur, whose perspective on said actuality is easily dismissed. The Zapruder aesthetic, however, can be powerfully manipulated when juxtaposed in a greater context – as archive material in a complex documentary, for example – or as a technique used in Hollywood fiction (violent scenes shot on ‘cell phones,’ home-video footage, etc.) to heighten the degree of verisimilitude.

2.  If your documentary bores the average viewer, it has failed.

Viewability has been a common concern of documentary practice through its history. How does one create an illuminating, intelligent inquiry without alienating the majority of audiences accustomed to film as diversion? In the process of selecting knowledgeable experts for the conduction of insightful interviews, notions of audience entertainment in favour of enlightenment can oftentimes be ignored, but do not need to be. If complex high-fidelity exposition is required for non-expert viewers to understand the topic or issue driving the documentary’s story, many viewers could lose focus and choose their entertainment elsewhere. Documentary does not need to uphold the ideals of entertainment over the primary directive, but entertainment should always be a consideration, for filmmakers seeking wide audiences, particularly if the primary directive involves educating, persuading or exposing important truths. This situation is particularly important in the selection of subjects and interviewees, where documentary should adhere to the standards of fiction casting. In the grand scheme of the documentary as a whole, knowledge on a subject matter is no more important than camera presence and charisma. If a given expert lacks presence, he/she should be recast. If a key interview drags and can’t be cut or re-shot, it should be enhanced with a score that bolsters the intended emotional response. It should also be noted that actuality (sound-up) footage is, in general, both more engaging and more convincing than explanatory interview. Critics have not been bemoaning talking-heads for reasons of unfair bias.

3. Freely twist, exaggerate and manipulate the truth (but don’t get caught doing it).

If one must lie to preserve the film’s primary directive (a common facet in persuasive propaganda), it is obviously imperative that the intended audience does not know this fact. While fiction films hope to immerse audiences by engaging a willing suspension of disbelief, documentary films today hope to accomplish their primary directive by engaging a willing suspension of skepticism. Contemporary documentary audiences know that films are created with some degree of subjective molding, in the selective choosing of “topics, people, vistas, angles, lens, juxtapositions, sounds, words”  (Barnouw, 1993) . Stella Bruzzi notes that some theorists (including historian Barnouw) fear documentary is in “imminent danger of failing” due to such questionable issues of representation (let alone outright lying), but that talk of the ideal pure documentary “uncontaminated by the subjective vagaries of representation” (Bruzzi, 2006) is largely irrational. As Bazin and Baudrillard debate the meanings of image VS reality, they ignore the fact that rational audiences are not bothered by this conundrum, that what matters is upholding the illusion of truth, whether seemingly objective or subjective. What does bother audiences, however, is knowing we have been duped, which breaks our suspension of skepticism, and consequently, our faith in the director’s vision. When it became clear Michael Moore selectively edits his footage in his popular Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), pundits dismissed Moore’s voice and it is arguable this prevented the film from accomplishing its primary directive of persuading audiences to reject President Bush in the November re-election. If documentarists must bend the truth to service the narrative, the primary directive or the viewability, it should be handled with the utmost care, to avoid the scrutiny of attention-seeking skeptics who are liable to spread negative word-of-mouth and negatively impact the film’s reception.

4. Documentary should borrow the techniques of reality television, just as reality television freely borrows from documentary.

The popular and critical success of documentary today (what could possibly be termed the Golden Age of Documentary) owes itself to the proliferation of reality television in the late 1990s and early 2000s and its ability to present nonfiction content in such a way (observation meets sensationalism) that makes it palatable to a wider audience. Is it any coincidence that nine of the top ten highest grossing documentaries, including Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Bowling for Columbine (2001) and Sicko (2007) and Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me (2004), were released after the debut of Survivor (CBS, 2000 – current), Mark Burnett’s show largely credited with catalyzing the modern craze for reality TV? Often it is this popular viewership to which documentaries are intended to enlighten and educate, if not inspire change, and yet many filmmakers tend to ignore the conventions reality TV (or popular factual entertainment as its referred to with academics such as Stella Bruzzi) has proven to connect with audiences and could therefore help the films better reach and target larger audiences. Some Reality TV promises powerful insight into private affairs, or melodramatic conflict with truth-claims and human social experimentation, giving heightened dramatic edge to otherwise familiar subjects. Bruzzi notes in New Documentary that, while in much of contemporary factual programming, conflict is manufactured (and comes across as contrived), the sensationalist situations can provoke spontaneous conflict that works (Bruzzi, 2006). She also notes the greater importance in “reality documentaries…given to emotion and character,” (Bruzzi, 2006), factors, which, should always be exploited in any documentary.

5. The subject’s representation should be honest, but not at the expense of the documentary’s primary directive or the filmmaker’s vision.

Only if the honest representation of the subject (or of his/her family, friends or colleagues) would require a sacrifice in the documentary’s viewability (on account of a consequential lack of drama, charisma or other tangible appeal) and modus operandi, should the filmmaker consider extremes of selective editing, which could misrepresent said subject in a negative or otherwise dishonest light. In indictment, propaganda, persuasion and exposition documentaries, it is encouraged to selectively edit subject interviews and juxtapose potentially unfair b-roll images, if it will help the documentarist to make his/her point with more effective poignancy. Amy * accomplished this in her Oscar-nominated Deliver us From Evil, a biting portrait of Irish pastor Peter O’Grady, who was convicted of molesting several children during his tenure. O’Grady participated as a form of personal confession but was edited into a smug, emotionless monster, so that Amy could drive home her primary directive: the condemnation of the Catholic Church apparently aware of O’Grady’s behavior. On a related sidebar, when a subject’s representation is constructed via the exclusive use of television clips (which itself have been ruthlessly edited), the result can be highly suspect and can increase the skepticism described in point 3.

6. Beware the curse of narration—except in nature films and com-doc (comedy documentary)!

Narration, be it poetic or empirical can and should be used where necessary to bolster a documentary’s truth claim, but it should not be used as a band-aid solution over weak visual storytelling. Narration bears both blessings and curses as a documentarist’s tool. The Voice-of-God commentary adopted during the birth of the Expository Mode (Nichols, 2001 & Cormer, 2007) is now such an archtype that it is readily dismissed as overly didactic and untrustworthy, the tell-tale sign of unconvincing propaganda, even when used in its most conversational Michael Moore-ian tone. However it is also enormously pleasurable and effective as an anthropomorphizing tool in nature documentary, as Richard Attenborough has proven with his legion of Discovery fans. A general rule of thumb is to use narration sparingly, particularly when it is satirical or witty (audiences seem to trust it when it is comedic in tone). On a separate note, celebrity stunt-casting for voice-over (Morgan Freeman in March of the Penguins; Sigourney Weaver in the American release of BBC Planet Earth) can be effective marketing ploys (ensuring the film itself is more widely seen) but as a gimmick that risks diminishing a documentary’s credibility, particularly with the “prestige-film” demographic through whom documentaries often spread word-of-mouth, filmmakers and producers should proceed with caution before resorting to it too heavily.

7. A documentarist should use all tools of construction – including staged reenactments – to achieve his/her primary directive.

Some pundits believe that tools of artifice should be avoided at all costs to uphold a maximum level of authenticity (and the claim to truth) in documentary. However these tools, which include staged, but highly sophisticated reenactments (whether with some of the original participant(s) such as in Werner Herzog’s Wings of Hope (1999) and Little Dieter Learns to Fly (2000) or hired actors, such as Errol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line (1987) and the First Canadians ) can often increase the production standards (and consequently, the film’s viewability) and should therefore be celebrated and manipulated, when used strategically. However, re-enactments should only be used when potent actuality footage does not exist, as the spontaneity of actuality is generally more persuasive (Stella, 2006) and considered historically authentic (Nichols, 1993).

8. Beware snuff film masquerading as documentary:

Animals (or humans) killed, tortured or otherwise injured for the purpose of (or under the moniker of) documentary, as defined above, are in essence no better than snuff films. Fiction films, which receive flack for all manners of superficial injustice, could never legally resort to the murder of animals; documentary, however, can commit such crimes and label it reenactment, for the purpose of education.  POLAR BEAR film] and instead use creative reenactment (via animatronics, CGI mimicry, or elaborate proper and costume design)  to accomplish the task whenever the script demands. In this modern cinematic landscape where reenactment is no longer readily dismissed (Stella, 2006) and can achieved

9. The line between experimental film and documentary is not fine – but sometimes it is called poetic or performative documentary.

If documentary is to be taken seriously, it must reject semantics of abstract representation in allowing pretty much any form of expression to be labeled documentary, opening the door for unnecessary confusion, ridicule and criticism from the legitimate, non-arts communities. While it is possible and encouraged to combine most of Bill Nichols’ classic Modes of Documentary (Expository, Participatory, Observational and Reflexive are proven sub-categories), two of his modes—Poetic and Performative—are far more problematic when employed on their own and are therefore suited to categorization in Experimental Film. Some of the most interesting, most widely celebrated documentaries (The Thin Blue Line, Bowling for Columbine, Super-Size-Me and An Inconvenient Truth) have all combined disparate documentary techniques (strict observation, reflexive narration, staged reenactments, poetic metaphors) but all are clearly identifiable as documentaries with distinct primary directives. But what of those poetic “documentaries”, unleashed during the 1920s, including Joris Ivens’ Rain (1929) and even Dziga Vertov’s Man with the Movie Camera, which John Grierson rightly dismissed from the documentary family as [ ]. These films may contain nonfictional shots and are certainly strong examples of cinematic poetry, but with a complete rejection of conventional notions of continuity and location (Nichols, 2001), there are no incontestable truth-claims to be detected beyond abstract commentaries on beauty and time so expressionistic the term non-fiction hardly applies. According to Nichols, the Performative Documentary arrived in the late 1980s to raise questions about “what is knowledge” and “what counts as understanding or comprehension?” (Nichols, 2001) by playing with experiential, scripted and unscripted performances, unusual metaphors and reenactments. If we bend the rules for these arthouse pieces, suggesting documentary is so malleable as to accept formal experimentation for experimentation’s sake, we might as well abandon the terms documentary and fiction altogether. Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich (2000) is not a fictionalized biopic, it is rather a scripted performative documentary that just so happens to star Julia Roberts and a $60 M budget.

10. It is the documentarist’s job to speak for and on behalf of the other

Some Academics are prone to lament ethnographic documentary’s tendency of speaking for the other. Hal Foster identifies this “Marxist” criticism as questioning an ethnographer paradigm that “displaces the problematic of class and capitalist exploitation with that of race and colonialist oppression … or because it displaces the social with the cultural and the anthropological” (Foster, 1996). How could the documentarian, oftentimes archetyped as members of patriarchal, upper-class artists begin to understand the plights of third-world communities or the impoverished? However, it is important to note that usually the voice of the other might otherwise be ignored if it was not for the documentarist’s ability and training and ideally unbiased perspective to speak on their behalf in such a way that audiences (both the public and governmental spheres with the ability to affect change) want to listen. As the NFB proved when they equipped marginal societies with the equipment required to document their own voices in the Challenge for Change program, the results were generally so amateurish and unremarkable they were rarely seen beyond the community level. Additionally, on a more superficial anthropological note, the appeal of the other for documentary audiences is oftentimes their exotic ‘otherness,’ which can only be truly captured by one who can identify it.  The documentarist is typically equipped with the instincts to identify what makes the other so fascinating, and how to capture that in such a way that the primary directive (in this case, likely education, exposition, investigation or documentation) is achieved, ideally without exploiting the other.

References

Alcoff, Linda (1991-2). “The Problem of Speaking for Others.” Cultural Critique, Winter. NC: Oxford University Press

Bruzzi, Stella (2006). New Documentary. : New York: Routledge

Cormer, John (2007). “Documentary in a Post-Documentary Culture? A Note on Forms and their Functions.” Available December, 2007. (http.lboro.ac.uk/research/chaning.media/John%20Corner%20paper.htm)

Foster, Hal (1996). “The Artist as Ethnographer: In The Return of the Real: The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century – An October Book. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Nichols, Bill (1993). “Getting to Know You … Knowledge, Power, and the Body.” In Renov, M. (Ed.) New York & London: Routledge

Nichols, Bill (2001). “What Types of Documentary Are There?” In Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press

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