Hi, hypernarrative is a blog by Wilbert Baan about Art, Media and Technology with a focus on interactive storytelling. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed with Google or Netvibes. I'll post a few messages a week. Thanks for visiting!

 
Flick Radio is a Dutch (English subtitled) Radio drama about storytelling and about Flickr. Flick Radio is about a lot of things, but mostly it’s about Flickr. How we perceive identities on Flickr or in virtual worlds in general, we think to know people by the photos or items they post. And we fill in what we don’t know.

It’s a very interesting experiment and visual documentary made with ‘found footage’. It deserves your attention if you like documentaries, storytelling or photography.

Watch it in full screen DivX or in lower quality on YouTube.

Social websites are getting better, more used, more open and more complete. Why should you start a website or blog if you can also write on your Facebook. Or why wouldn’t you transfer or duplicate all your data from your Facebook to any other social network or widget.

Do we need custom coded websites?
We need interfaces that show the information, but do we still need custom coded websites? We’re transfering data via xml, rss and api’s from one website to another. We import contacts from one service into another. We’re trying to work to a universal/sigle sign-on and to standards in open social techniques. Technology (widgets) and design (templates) are available to everyone, you just take what you need.

The field is rapidly shifting, we are clustering information around people not around services anymore. Information gets easily transportable and because of this, free of the website it is presented on. There are already many communities and I’m sure the amount of smaller communities will grow fast within the next years.

Why start a website, if you actually would like to start a community? Communities are about engagement and engagement is the ultimate goal for most websites and the base for a long term relationship between provider and user.

I’m writing these articles on my hypernarrative blog, but why should I? It’s a closed environment (except full article RSS). I could as well start writing this on my Facebook, Flickr or Ning. As long as you all move with me :)

I don’t need a special website to express myself. I need an outlet to publish my thoughts, a community and readers that sometimes give me valuable feedback, ispire or correct me. And the funny thing is that my chances finding these readers in social networks are growing.

My options are changing. First I made a blog because it gave me freedom of publishing. I could stop using Dreamweaver for updates, change the lay-out or control the information anytime I wanted.

We’re getting into a situation where I don’t need to run my own blogsoftware or website to be in full control of my information. With the direction social networks are moving I can easily move my information everywhere I want, when I want.

The barrier of technology had its peak, for now. Everyone can make what he or she likes. We just need to find the tools we need. The real challenge in launching a successful website is in building a great community.

Last week the new game Assissin’s Creed was launched. It is a game developed by the makers of Prince of Persia and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell. Two very popular game series, with extraordinary gameplay.

From ps3.ing.com “The setting is 1191 AD. The Third Crusade is tearing the Holy Land apart. You, Altair, intend to stop the hostilities by suppressing both sides of the conflict. You are an Assassin, a warrior shrouded in secrecy and feared for your ruthlessness. Your actions can throw your immediate environment into chaos, and your existence will shape events during this pivotal moment in history.”

Yesterday there was a music video for the game on Dutch television. It’s is always interesting when Dutch artists make music for major game releases so I searched YouTube for the videoclip. I didn’t find the videoclip I had seen on television, what I found was an enormous collection video clips made from the same trailer footage and edited on different music.

This isn’t machinima where you take a game engine and compose your own story with the game characters. The video clips don’t add anything new or extra to the game or the trailer, the clips are just forms of expression.

People are making their own video clips because they can and love it. Everyone with access can edit, like everyone with access can write. You need basic knowledge, but that’s about it. This is how people show what kind of music and games they like. It’s a tribute to a game that isn’t released yet. This is a culture that only exists around the collective waiting for a game release.

This is how we entertain ourselves, by telling stories with and about the things we like. I don’t know how to call this, it’s a mix between game culture, video clip culture, and waiting. But above all it’s cultural expression. Unfortunately still illegal (due to music copyrights), but a great phenomena.

Brainpower & Intwine (the music video)

The original game trailer

The YouTube remixes

This saturday the Dutch translation of the last Harry Potter book is released. The Volkskrant has an exclusive (newspaper) interview with Harry Potter creator, J.K. Rowling. To create an online extension for this interview we have a downloadable 14 pages A4 pdf version and a Flash animation. In this animation you can read the interview, a column, watch a movie review and interview with the Dutch Potter books Illustrator.

What is fun about a project like this is that you can experiment with interactive storytelling. Although the website just displays the interview and we didn’t have time for ‘real’ interactive storytelling, the Harry Potter theme gives great mise en scène possibilities. You can experiment with Flash and Photoshop and create a special atmosphere.

For a while Volkskrant graphics editors (instead of web editors) are making animations for the website, which is how I think it should be done. They know everything about graphics, maps and where to get the right visual information. They can create one graphic and port it to different media.

I don’t often make animations anymore. So the JK Rowling interview which I mostly did with Marijn was fun. A long day, but fun. The animation works with full browser Flash and starts like a movie. Unfortunately there was no time left for sound design.

This project isn’t about breaking news. It’s about presenting the same interview in a different format. It’s transporting something from one media (paper) to the other (web), do extra visual design and make it a little interactive. It’s a start in interactive storytelling.

These are the kind of projects that connect all parts in a news organization to create multiple productions about a similar subject in different media. These are the projects that learn an organization about interactive storytelling and about the possibilities. What’s next?

Last year I experimented with something more news related, a reconstruction of a mysterious project involving suitcases with money.

The last two years Inge and I have organized lists to present the best dance record of the year.

In 2005 we asked experts about their favorite dance record. In 2006 we upgraded the concept, asked experts about their favorite songs and added a second part where everyone could vote on the records.

This year we will ask everyone about their favorite records of 2007 and let everyone vote.

The voting system
Last year I had been reading Critical Mass, how one thing leads to another (a great book if you like statistics). Somewhere in this book there was the notion that the best scientific choice is one out of two. I love simplicity and wanted to do something with this. The dance election looked like the best opportunity to experiment with it. How can you create an advanced voting system that relies on the simplest choice. Right or left, yes or no?

What we build was a voting machine that had over 70 items in its database. Every time you open the website it generates a random playlist of random pairs. Every time you click one item it will update both items in the database in views and give a point to the winning item. The result is a list generated on percentages (views/votes) and as far I know even reasonably scientific correct.

You can listen to previews of the songs and once you make a choice it will show two new songs to make a new choice. To continue, you always have to choose your favorite song out of a random pair.

It sounds really simple, and it is. So far I have found no other system that beats this way of measuring what people like. The list of songs can be indefinite and the number of contributers can be indefinite. Lobby parties are more than welcome, but they should know that every other vote they make counts. You can vote on four records or 600.

Last year we’ve got over 70.000 votes, great media coverage, heavy use of bandwidth and a final list that is a very good representation of what was interesting in electronic music in 2006.

For this years election we connect the election to the Eclectro blog. A Dutch weblog that has a substantial, growing and very smart group of visitors interested in electronic music.

How to improve
This week I am building the system for this years election, how do you think we can make this better? Is there something we forgot? Or do you know a dance song that should be on the list? Let me know.

Media-theorist McLuhan wrote about the horseless carriage syndrome. This is about how we initially use new media the way we use old media. This transition period is necessary for us to invent and adapt to new media.

We start building something new by taking objects from old media to new media. The horseless carriage was the first car. Not designed from the perspective of a car, but from the perspective of replacing horses with an engine.

The funny thing about this - natural - transition is that after some time new media takes it own shape and develops its own objects. These objects are often taken over by old media.

I have taken some examples from newspapers that show the use of ‘new media objects’ in previous media. Since this is the business I work in, I’m confronted with the class of old and new media objects every day ;)

This is what de Volkskrant looked like on May 5, 1945. The end of the Second World War. A War where (mass)media played a very important role. What you see is a collage of articles that just fit the frontpage.

This is last tuesdays newspaper, the right column looks a bit like a blog, don’t you think? It shows article introductions and tries to convince you to open the newspaper and continue reading the article.

It even uses hyperlinks to help you jump to the article.

The newspaper DAG uses a different approach to highlight parts of the text. This html-like lay-out makes it very easy to scan words in a text and see if this article is about something you might like.

It’s a reading/scanning habit known from the web transferred to a newspaper. Some people will like it, others will hate it. I think looking at ways to make your newspaper easy to scan is good.

Scan reading to control information overload is something we learn from new media and transfer to old media. Old media just needs to experiment and find the objects that make scanning of a text possible for example by breaking it up or highlighting parts.

DAG uses text on photos the way we know from television subtitles. There is no reason - other than an aesthetic one - not to layer information. Text on visuals. We do this in television all the time and feel comfortable with it.

De Volkskrant uses a rating. This isn’t probably an object originated on the web, but it did get popular and common because of the web.

Since the web this star rating stands for interactivity and democracy. The collective of what readers think… instead of what the editors think… Will this new meaning eventually change the way we can use this object in old media?

The back button. Would we have known the meaning of this object without the web or VCR? It would most likely indicate ‘go left’ instead of ‘previous’.

I like it when these kind of things happen. And especially when designers and art-directors aren’t afraid to experiment with it. It can transfer an object used in certain media into an universal object that can be used in other media.

For example the play button we know from cassettes and VCR. It is just a sideways triangle that is so strongly connected to the action [play/continue] that it’s impossible to indicate anything else with it, no matter what kind of media you use.

Will hyperlinks - the most popular object on the web - move to paper?
What are the objects popular on the web that could transfer back to previous media like a newspaper? Sharing is a strong object on the web. The web is about sharing, saving, sending, publishing and tagging. This is how we control our information overload. We trust systems and people to sort information that is valuable to us.

If we would like to transfer the object of sharing to old media we have to adapt the system. For example how can you share an article you’re reading in a newspaper? You could photograph it, scan it or even cut it out and mail it. You have to save it in order to send it. You’re not sending a reference to the article, you’re sending (a copy of) the article.

To save a physical object (printed text) in a virtual world (hypertext) you need an anchor (hyperlink). To share a physical object you need a virtual reference to it.

I don’t think it’s such a crazy thought that in the future we might give references to everything we print, the way we give different hyperlinks to everything online. Because in the future something printed will always coexist online, there is no reason not to. Print is package.

So a future object could be some kind of hyperlink that tags printed information in a way we can virtually share its representation.

Do you know other objects - maybe visual - that might transfer to previous media? Or do you know good examples of items known from radio, television or the web that already moved to previous media?