Alternative Realities: A Storyscape

What follows is an excerpt from my thesis, a description of a digitally enhanced storytelling experience.

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The background noise dies down as Owen adjusts the dials on the speakers and laptop.

A soft, poignant melody washes over the studio and Owen’s voice comes out of the speakers. As his words begin to fill the room, I can see the form of a traveller, walking the roads with his bag of dreams, carefree, alone. The notes of his simple tune, slightly discordant, hint at the story to come. I am aware that the students sitting around me are still, and I hope that they too can see the traveller in front of them, now resting under a hawthorn tree.

The alternative reality is that of a top floor art college studio, painted white and filled with desks, swivel chairs, computers and the debris of student projects past and present. Cold January light seeps in through skylights. You may think it is perhaps not the best space from which to enter the land of stories but it does show that the doorway can be opened from anywhere. The third year design students sit gathered round the front half of the room, the lucky ones slouched on the black sofa. Owen’s storyscape comes near the end of a day-long workshop on practical storytelling techniques, part of the Re-Telling module I am running to explore how storytelling and digital technology can interact.

Owen watches the laptop screen intently, making small adjustments every so often.

The rich, verdant story landscape is untouched by town or traffic, devoid of even the incessant hum of electricity. The traveller man is running across the landscape, heavily, clumsily, but swiftly all the same. The green woman he chases runs just out of reach, leading him over hills and through trees, almost floating over the ground as she dances effortlessly in front of him. The timeless layers of harp notes weave through the landscape, shaping the contours as Owen’s voice shapes the story.

I met Owen through the Dundee storytelling group, Blether Tay-gither, and he was an obvious choice to run a guest workshop for a number of reasons, not least because I consider him to be an excellent storyteller. Blether is a predominantly female group, with a tendency for storytellers to be older rather than younger and, in general, not eager adopters of technology. Owen is younger than most of the group in Blether and his background in sculpture along with his experimental soundscape storytelling made him the ideal person to introduce the basic concepts of storytelling to the students. Owen’s style of telling is quite traditional, in that it is clear, understated and well paced, allowing time to watch the story unfold in your mind’s eye.

I smile to myself as I remember Owen telling me about Robin Williamson and how inspirational he was. ‘I listened to his work and I was blown away by it. He plays a harp and it’s quite bardic, you know. It sounds like it’s coming from a place back in time, beautiful stories, and I was really inspired by what he was doing.’

It was during this interview that Owen told me about the electronic soundscapes he had created. As he explained to the students, normally the soundscapes are put together live, with the story told live too. For the purposes of this workshop and because the piece was unfinished Owen used a pre-recorded version.

Days have now passed in the chase of man and woman. The man struggles on, slower now but not defeated. Yet the green lady is swifter than ever before and try as he might, it is all the traveller man can do to just keep up with her. And still the landscape rolls on relentlessly, dreamlike in its insubstantiality.

On reflection, I find myself surprised by the storyscape. It was not what I was expecting when I asked Owen if he would show the students an example of a story soundscape. Yet I struggle to know what I was expecting. The style matches Owen’s normal telling, but has a more detached edge to it; the story is more elusive, almost mythic in its ephemerality.

I think back to our conversation a few months earlier in the local arts centre.

‘One of the things that I’m interested in doing is using modern technology, especially sound and music, combining it with storytelling so that there’s something that people can access a bit more easily.’ Owen’s interest in combining electronic sounds and stories comes from a love of electronic music and a need to bridge the worlds of bardic-inspired storytelling and modern culture.

‘It’s a way of letting them know what storytelling is and then they can trace it back and hear what real, simple storytelling is if they want to. But I love electronic music and it’s a way for me to fit in with modern culture and what my friends are into, you know. And that’s electronic sounds and computers and iPods so it’s a way of bringing it to them.’

Owen pauses, taking a drink of tea. The café area is getting busy and tables are being set for the evening although it’s still only late afternoon.

‘There’s one particular festival that I go to called Solfest and you’ve got a big storytelling centre there, lots of storytellers and theatre groups come and do their thing. And then at night you’ve got a tent that’s playing full on electronic music and I like that balance. There’s people coming to the storytelling sessions who are going out at night to dance to the electronic music and I’d like to find that middle ground where you can bring the two together and make it work.’

Owen is the only storyteller I know, and am aware of, who actively seeks to incorporate elements of storytelling and digital media into live events or performances. However, I recall a piece of performance dance, Sensational knowledge, Sensational Ethnography, which explored the connections between digital and analogue. A collaboration between composer and programmer Curtis Bahn and dancer Tomie Hahn, it created electronic sounds from Tomie’s dance movements. Tomie embodied traditional elements through her experience of Japanese traditional dance whilst the sensors capturing her movements brought ‘a contemporary expressive moment.’

Owen continues, ‘There’s electronic music that I’ve heard that uses traditional folk music in it. And I know quite a few people who’ve learned a lot about folk music because they’ve heard this electronic music and heard that little folk tune and then traced it back and just discovered what folk music is all about. So I’d like to do the same with storytelling.’

‘Have you done that so far?’ I ask.

‘I’ve done a couple of stories where I’ve used my laptop with sound programs and I’ve mixed samples into my story live. I’ve done a storytelling live, you know, standing there telling it and used a laptop to bring in sounds at certain points in the story. It’s more been music based but I’m looking to make it more like combining storytelling and sound art, rather than just music. So that’s what I’m moving towards.’

I’m intrigued by how the audience would react to such a story, trying to imagine what the rest of the Blether Tay-gither tellers would think about it. Owen tells me of the positive response from listeners, but admits that they were festival performances.

‘I’d like to do the same thing to a traditional storytelling audience, people who are really into tradition, just to see how they react.’ Owen smiles. ‘But one festival I did it and somebody came up to me afterwards and he said, ‘You know, it’s really good just to see something different.’ And that was a great comment to me because that’s what I want. You know, I want them to hear something that is different, not been heard before. So, yeah, I’ve had a great reaction from it actually, really good.’

Owen illustrates the potential affinity of tradition and new media. He admires the bardic style of telling, with music accompanying the tale and Celtic myths, but he also wants to ground part of that tradition in contemporary contexts, distorting sounds of the harp through electronic effects and making full use of the two seemingly separate worlds.

Upon awakening beneath the original hawthorn tree, their journey come full circle, the traveller man offers a blossoming branch of hawthorn to the green-robed lady. Together, they walk into the green hills, their journey just beginning. As the last notes fade away, there is stillness in the darkening studio.

The Importance of Being er, Truthful?

Well, like many I've been following the We Tell Stories Penguin 6 week special (for those of you who haven't heard of it it's well worth a look).

So, I haven't found any of it mind-blowing literature but I did find one story thought-provoking, although it's the medium rather than the text.

I'm talking about Slice.
Slice is told through two fictitious blogs by the main character (Slice) and Slice's parents. Now these are real blogs (whatever 'real' may mean in this context) hosted on recognised blogging sites and, as would be expected, the entries have attracted followers and so comments. Some of the commenters (is that a word?) are other fictitious friends of Slice from home but some of them are avid readers of the blog.

Now my question (hypothetical I hope) is, what if someone stumbled across these blogs through the ether and was unaware of the Penguin Six Stories connection? Would they fear for this girl's life? In essence, would it matter to them if the girl was real or not for all the difference they could make?

Truth and authenticity is a subject much debated in the realm of traditional oral storytelling but I fear it is less contentious an issue there than in the virtual world. I firmly believe that all stories contain truth, whether it be a true tale, or culturally accurate, or resonates with the human soul. (To clarify, my definition of 'truth' in this context is similar to 'believability' - if the story doesn't ring true on some level then it simply cannot function as a story.)

And I suppose that this blurring of reality/fantasy or fiction/non-fiction can occur on many other planes (e.g.'The Man Who Planted Trees') but is 'truth' (as in the events actual occurring) important here? If you can identify with or be inspired by a character in fiction (or popular media culture) then is the emotional reaction less valid for its fictitious underpinning? If so, try telling that to the thousands of girls who broke their hearts crying over the break up of Take That. (Which btw I wasn't one of.:-))

Storytelling & Authenticity III - Susie Pratt & Cats

Susie Pratt - Digital Stories & Social Media

Now, I have to apologize for my increasingly sketchy notes, but Susie gave a history of the background to Digital Stories and the current context of social media.
Inspired by project such as the Mass Observation social research organisation, Capture Wales started up before the UGC (User Generated Content) phenomenon. UGC is characterised by giving power back to the individual through easily accessible technology (democratising technology).

Susie talked about the 'Cute cat' theory of the internet and having googled it since this is what I found:

"The Web was invented so physicists could share research papers. Web 2.0 was invented so we could share cute pictures of our cats. The tools of Web 2.0, while designed for mundane uses, can be extremely powerful in the hands of digital activists, especially those in environments where free speech is limited."
ETech blurb for Ethan Zuckerman's presentation.

And there's more info about the cute cat theory talk on Ethan's theory at his blog (where the image below can be found).


Continuing on the furry animal theme, Susie went on talk about the Long Tail, which, again through surreptitious background digging courtesy of Google, I take to refer to Anderson's theory 'The Long Tail' referring to the shift from a hits-based marketplace where limited merchandise (e.g. books, CDs, DVDs) takes physical shelf space (and corresponding shelf cost) to a niche marketplace with unlimited stock lists (think Amazon & iTunes). The Long Tail itself refers to the graph of stocked items against quantity of items sold. The graph tails off pretty quickly. This tail represents the more unusual items which perhaps sell only 3 or 4 copies a year, but putting all these sales together, according to Anderson, amounts to a substantial chunk of profits.
Interestingly though, there seems to be a few parallels between this marketing or economics observation and our shift towards digital storytelling. The Long Tail principle requires that the infrastructure to support virtual shelf space exists (the Internet, postal services) and that people can find the content they want (recommendations, reviews - ie UGC).
And finally, this shift towards niche markets (is it a form of backlash to globalisation?*) is reminiscent of traditional low-technology small communities, defined this time by mutual interests, not geography.
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*Or is it just another marketing ploy? Hmmm...

Storytelling & Authenticity II - Capture Wales

Capture Wales - Lisa Heledd

Lisa defined a digital story as a 'short personal multimedia film'. For me, the key word here is 'personal' (i.e. autobiographical) in so much that it differs from traditional tale telling. In this definition of digital stories the teller uses their own material to illustrate, and is narrated or spoken through the teller's voice.

Digital storytelling has been heavily influenced by the work of American artist Dana Winslow Atchley III who wanted to trigger memories and tried to find a way to bring new media forms and people together. Similarly, photographer Daniel Meadows tries to show that technology can break down barriers and facilitate the sharing of stories. Karen (BBC) & Daniel created a workshop approach and pilot to creating digital stories (Capture Wales) and the 3 year scheme is now almost finished.

Lisa claimed digital stories can have power to affect you emotionally and certainly the examples she played support this (e.g. My two nains and Samiya). She also noted the opportunities digital storytelling gives you to say things that you couldn’t say to family/friends in any other way – normally the things which are most important. This is turn triggers discussion within families/groups (e.g. Lisa sent copies of My Two Nains to her family).

Natural themes emerged in the stories from the Capture Wales workshops, and this let the team direct the story creation process to fit these themes and aided the development of:

• portfolio of technology (cameras, equipment)
• portfolio of story seeds (e.g. genealogy, questions, photographs)

The technology element is important, helping people to engage with technology. Most people who attended the Capture Wales workshops would describe themselves as compute illiterate and this potential fear of technology was addressed through sympathetic facilitation - making people feel comfortable about stories and technology through jokes and anecdotes.

A good digital storytelling experience needs 3 things:

1. Strong story - that is, best version of the story that author can possibly produce
2. Transferable skills – normally 2 days spent on learning technology, gaining the knowledge of what is possible
3. Ownership - storyteller is owner.

One specific project Lisa talked about was working with streetkids - working with groups where the technology was deliberately lo-tech, through using disposable cameras. To me, digital cameras are still a relatively recent phenomenon and I remember (and maybe actually preferred) getting physical photos through the post or picking them up at Boots and the fun of sitting in the local square with friends looking for the one decent photo in 24. But children nowadays don't get to do this and so in terms of this project it was a novelty value. The delayed time it takes to see what the photograph is heightens the excitement and surprise and allows reminiscence of actually making the image.

And finally, last comment on technology, Capture Wales started using video, mobile phone video to be precise. They used mobile phones because they saw the benefit of building on the familiarity of using mobiles. (Although, if you actually think about it, a mobile video phone is actually a lot more complex interface than a camcorder.)

My Thoughts
Following on from discussions after this talk (along the lines of 'but is this really storytelling? Who does it appeal to for an audience?') I think an important thing to keep in mind is the aim of digital storytelling. I mean, what is it's purpose?
It is the process or the output which is more important? I would suggest that for traditional oral storytellers the output is more important. Pleasure in telling the tale comes from a love of the story and engaging the audience directly.
In digital storytelling it seems to me that the process can be more important to the teller than the output - to create a piece that they can be proud of. An achievement in technological competence, creating a rendition of personal feeling/anecdote. It seems a cathartic experience, primarily meaningful to the creator, and of interest to their immediate circle of friends and family in articulating how they feel. A niche product, symptomatic of Web 2.0...
This isn't to say that either traditional or digital storytelling is better or worse than the other in either of these contexts, just that they are different and answer different needs in society.