Debut filmmaker, and winner of the IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling, Antoine Viviani opened the night with a trailer to his beautiful interactive film that searches for creative and artistic ways of intervening in public space. Central to his film’s goal was questioning ‘what does all this insitu experience in the street tell us about urbanity in film?”. He began by launching the website that hosts the documentary, where it can either be watched linearly as a 90-minute documentary or non-linearly by accessing the individual chapters via theme or map.

From the get-go one can sense the film to be that of a poetic essay on open spaces within rapidly urbanizing cities. According to Viviani, strange things are happening and you get a feeling of an abstract city that can also symbolize the fictionalized open spaces within Europe. Unique to project is how all of the footage was filmed outside on the streets (entirely by Viviani) and how the people, artists, performers, architects and philosophers appearing throughout his film were randomly found by Viviani.

Insitu takes us to normal everyday places —- the metro, staircases, a bus ride, images of buildings, city places, construction vehicles — and unites the audience with on screen characters that possess different obsessions with urban space. Whether it’s a Berlin woman who chases old visible symbols of Nazism around the city, dancers in the Marseilles subway station, or an architect working to improve the traffic situation at a Parisian business park, Viviani questions different aspects about public city spaces by portraying the different obsessions his characters have with urban space.

Is it a public space only? What makes a public spaces? How do we transform old spaces? Can we change the way we see architecture with utopian projects that attempt to transform an old financial district space into a theme park?

Characters surely abound in Insitu to tell the stories of intervening in city spaces. There are city sounds performed by a Spanish composer who questions ‘What makes cities sound? From police cars to boats to every bell of every church, he goes to big cities and does huge cacophonic sounds. He stays for two months in a place and then gets the city to sound. In another shot, two guys whisper to people all over the city. A man works as a fake window-washer. And another man fantasizes about empty spaces on a map and explores them.

Antoine illustrates that despite the film existing as a stand-alone, completed, linear experience, the life of the film is extended via an interactive web component. To this day, materials are constantly uploaded by audiences who are contributing in devising their own, original, artistic interventions in our highly urbanized surroundings.  The film can also be experienced via a mobile app .

From artistic intervention in cities, the cinema evening at Tuschinski took a turn to experiencing the streets of Greece in all its glory and chaos. Co-directed and co-produced by Nikos Katsaonis and Nina-Maria Paschalidou — two Greek friends that have lived abroad for many years but came back to Greece in light of the financial and social crisis in 2010 — the duo presented a collective documentation of Greece. The Prism attempts to bridge the gap between photojournalists and documentary filmmakers via a unique production method that creates short multimedia stories alongside a feature length film that documents this tumultuous year in Greek history. Fundamentally, the Prism tells how the crisis has or hasn’t changed life in some places, and how a group of like-minded people can get together and do something creative, beating the stereotype of the lazy Greek.

To tell the untold stories of today, Nikos and Nina conducted an experiment where they gathered fourteen photographers and four journalists to create a new type of narrative. As Nikos explained during the live cinema event, some needed more training than others in transforming from photojournalists to multimedia storytellers. But together with his and Nina’s help, 27 short films that capture crisis-ridden Greece in a a creative and resolute way were produced. Covering the entire country — from the Turkish border to the mountains of Crete —  The Prism enabled Greeks to imagine their cities and represent subjects, people and voices that needed highlighting since they were getting lost in the noise of the media circus.

Nikos first presented the trailer of the feature film which was woven from the short snippets of stories. It should be noted that the feature film portion of the The Prism project offers a more complete birds-eye-view of the disparate stories and perspectives nesting across Greece. Once Nikos navigated to the individual short stories on the website, the range in themes spanned from activism, environment, and immigration to politics, music and life in the city. In short intervals, the audience gathered at the lavish theatre was confronted with groups of bikers interested in improving the city streets of Athens, the dark and seedy nightlife in Athens, insomnia, consumerism, sustainability, and then a starkly different scene — beautiful music in the mountains of Crete.

The colorful mosaic of mini-documentaries are directly available online, where they can be navigated by theme, filmmaker, or geographic location. Browse this online compilation for an archive of all the stories, selection of photos and interviews from the journey around Greece.

Condition ONE Demo from Danfung Dennis on Vimeo.

Danfung Dennis, co-founder of Condition One, started his career as a photo journalist, working in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan. His pictures were published by the New York Times and Bloomberg, but he didn’t feel they fully communicated the reality of war as he had experienced it himself. From photography he moved into filmmaking, directing the Sundance winner Hell and Back Again. But it was only when Dennis discovered a way to combine lightweight DSLR camera’s with panoramic lenses and the iPad, that he felt he found the ideal way to tell his stories.

By reinventing photojournalism into a full-immersion, tactile experience, the Condition One iPad app presents short documentaries that let the individual user choose their own field of vision – whether it’s images of a bloody protest in pre-revolutionary Libya or a chaotic police arrest on the streets of New Orleans. By changing the way footage of a scene is captured and delivered, the Condition One app creates a user experience that is rarely experienced in documentary. Using the gyroscope inside the iPad, the app gives the viewer navigational control that is not unlike that of a video game, essentially putting the viewer in the driver’s seat of a highly visceral experience. The goal of Condition One’s founders is to become a new platform for immersive journalism and documentary storytelling.

Condition One’s amazing new way of capturing and representing reality is something that has to be experienced to fully grasp its potential. And it also raises artistic and ethical questions. How can one create an experience that is as immersive as a game, but isn’t reduced to meaningless entertainment? When a user can navigate freely within a video image, is it still possible to use editing and camera movements? How can one tell a story and guide the user, when it’s the user himself who decides what part of the image he watches?

During the workshop and the case study, Condition One producer Christian Pilling and co-founder Karol Martesko-Fenster discussed both the challenges and possibilities of this spectacular new tool. Young filmmakers from the Doc Next Network got an exclusive demonstration of the app and the camera used to shoot the panoramic images. They were also shown how to shoot and edit stories for a three dimensional, interactive enviroment.

If you want to try it out for yourself, download Condition One here (iPad2 only)

When:

Fri, Nov 18: 12:30 – 15:00 Part 1 Workshop, Compagnie Theater, Kleine Zaal

Sun, Nov 20: 12:30 – 15:00 Part II Case Study, Compagnie Theater, Kleine Zaal

Invitation only. Presented by Doc Next Network, an international partnership capturing the views of young European media makers.

Last Thursday evening, the newest edition of DocLab’s dynamic program showcasing cutting-edge works in documentary storytelling launched to a full house at the De Brakke Grond. It was just the beginning of a week full of live cinema events, performances, and industry panels dedicated to exploring new documentary narrative forms.  Caspar Sonnen, curator of DocLab, the new media program at IDFA, kicked off the evening and welcomed the buzzing crowd to the opening reception of the Expanding Documentary exhibition.

Every corner of the exhibition space was packed with visitors navigating the diverse set of projects that traverse alternative ways of presenting documentary content. While the projects showcased this year varied in theme and experience, we applaud all the projects because they think outside the box and are creating challenging user experiences that explore never before seen stories. Whether the stories are told through video, immersive technology, photography, games, performances or collaborations, today’s project makers are working with new medias and going beyond traditional formats, time frames and narrative styles.

All the projects selected for DocLab’s digital documentary storytelling competition were on display on various screens for visitors to peruse at leisure while five of the works were built in the form of interactive installations.  From birdifying your voice with Thijs’ What Is It Like to Be a Bird?’ to revealing the stories hiding behind objects in Barcode.tv, the selected projects further documentary narrative forms and increasingly involve interactivity in the form of user control and navigation.

An unrivaled hit of the night — and of the entire week — was C.A.P.E.,  a virtual reality performance and experience brought over by C.R.E.W. that literally lets you touch the documentary. How good was it? Sold out every single day. Equipped with video goggles, a headset, and a laptop you wear with a backpack, you are transported to the center of Brussels and go on a virtual walk and experience that is a part of a 360 degree environment. Led by a guide to make sure you don’t stumble over people at the gallery space or fall down because you can’t see where you’re going in actual physical space, you can look around, walk around (very often on rooftops), and just get lost in the city of Brussels.

DRAWING THE INTERACTIVE DOCUMENTARY: FROM PIXELS TO PAPER

The live cinema events go beyond traditional screening formats by taking the most innovative documentary gems to the big screen. These unique events provide the opportunity for a director’s cut of a project, enabling audiences to be taken on a personal guided journey. The first live cinema event opened with Caspar introducing the unique work of Dutch documentary artist, Jan Rothuizen, and the launch of his latest book: The Soft Atlas of the Netherlands.

It may seem a rather strange fit for interactive storytelling, but DocLab is all about experimenting with new formats of documentary storytelling — be they digital, an installation, or on paper in this case.  Pen and paper, as the audience is alluded to, also has a lot of similar themes that exist in interactive work in the sense that a piece of paper has no boundaries.Inspired by documentaries, forms of journalism and different levels of interactivity, Rothuizen’s drawings have many levels of information going on at the same time. He takes everyday locations and visualizes them on paper, revealing personal stories, surprises, and a level of detail that a photographic image cannot capture. And because there’s no hierarchy of information in the drawings, there’s absolute freedom to the way it’s perceived and read.

Rothuizen explains that his drawings attempt to re-imagine the interactive documentary without thinking of  ‘a book’ in terms of interactive media, because well, it comes down to a question of what is interactive — on a brain and physical level. Whether a fallen soldier’s room, a design studio space, or the room of a teenage girl who passed away, the lives and stories that are revealed in Rothuizen’s mappings are often melancholic and alway a very personal way of storytelling.

Jan Rothuizen’s The Soft Atlas of the Netherlands in the installation space.

RE-IMAGINING LIVE DOCUMENTARY STORYTELLING

The evening’s program also brought the audience face-to-face with the concept of live documentary storytelling taking center stage. Moving from paper and pen to paper and typewriter, writer Dirk van Weelden captivated the audience immediately when he chose an audience member to write a story about on stage. What happened next was live documentary storytelling at its finest. Weelden began by asking the participant a series of seemingly unrelated questions to which he readily obliged. Questions ran the gamut of: Do you collect anything? What personality traits did you inherit from your mother? Have you ever been in a house that was burning? Do you have a favorite island in the world? Would you like to be able to pilot a plane? Do you like horses?

Following this brief q&a, the audience began to watch a writer write in silence on a typerwriter. The only noise emanating from the room was the loud sound of each typed key. About five minutes of writing later, a story surfaced.

”

Descending in a small airplane

we spot an island.

Warm and sunny

in a sea of worry and pain

On the island is a little boy.

Very inquisitive

He knows god doesn’t need cash.

so he roams around, looking for ways

to work and pray.

On the shore line he meets a dog

bringing him a big box of matches.

Oh, this little researcher goes crazy

he almost sets his safe and peaceful island alight.

But his mother

a booming voice coming from the sky

shouts so hard, he runs to the shore in time to stop the fire

Night falls

Franklin retreats to his cabin

rearranging his collection of bedlamps

Sleep will bring him back

to the world of work

worry

and caring.

”

All in all, a brilliant start to DocLab 2011! A night that revealed to all in attendance the possibilities of the documentary medium. Stay tuned for more reviews exclusively on doclab.org.

The NDSM-wharf, an abandoned ship yard in the northern part of Amsterdam has become one of the most mysterious and beautiful places in town. After the last ships were built and christened in the 1950s, the docklands area slowly got abandoned and deteriorated. The wharf became a new home for people without a home, and for artists looking for a place to live and work freely. Festivals and illegal house parties were organised in the giant empty buildings and, in the end, urban planners and the rest of the city rediscovered the NDSM wharf. Nowadays, there are restaurants, artists making a living and offices housing MTV and other media companies.

Many aspects of the history of the NDSM wharf have been recorded over the years, for instance in Marjoleine Boonstra’s documentary Harbour: Roaming through the night (shown at IDFA in 2004). But also in the historic television images from the Dutch Sound and Image Institute and the Amsterdam City Archive. As part of the Culture Vortex program, a joint venture of these and other organisations, the rich history of the NDSM-wharf was turned into an locative documentary experiment by a team of talented app developers.

Take your smartphone (iphone or android) and take the little ferry from Amsterdam Central Station to NDSM and experience the stories hidden all along the docklands area. Find the codes and unlock all videos, pictures and soundscapes. The result is a locative mashup of documentary content, blending the past and the present and offering a unique point of view on one of the most beautiful places in Amsterdam.

Visit: Docs on the Spot website

For the rest of this year, the film Harbour: Roaming through the night can be watch in its entirety on IDFA.TV.

Docs on the Spot is a project by Culture Vortex, a collaboration between the Institute of Network Cultures, MediaLAB Amsterdam, IDFA, the Dutch Institute for Image and Sound, Open Images and the Amsterdam City Archive.

Smartphone’s and social media seem to be the new weapons used to topple both dictators and power structures.  The euphoria over the Internet and its revolutionary role, seems endless.  One man, Evgeny Morozov states that this is nothing more than a mirage.  He takes Backlight into his battle against cyber utopianism.

This installation is a reconstruction of a recording session in which author Evgeny Morozov is visually bombarded with thoughts and situations on the effects of the technological revolution on totalitarianism, democracy and the people concerned. Morozov shares his criticism, flow of thought and dilemma’s with us. Morozov is an angry young man who fights the cyber-utopianism that is so dominant in today’s world.

Morozov grew up in communist Belarus and was just 5 years old when the Berlin wall fell.  While working for a NGO in the former Soviet Republics and Central Asia he tried to organize revolts using social media.  Disappointed with the impact, he wrote the book “The Net Dellusion: How Not To Liberate The World”.  His status on Twitter currently is: “in transit”. In the installation Morozov engages in an intellectual battle with a remix of Vpro documentary-clips from the last 15 years. Spontaneously he reacts on the dilemma’s presented to him, while moving around in what he himself sees as a panopticon; leading to a vivid dialogue with the images. The result is an immersive documentary experience over 11 screens.

This installation was developed by Marije Meerman, who works as a documentary director, together with the team of the future-affairs television series Backlight of the Dutch public broadcasting company Vpro. The Backlight team is a group of journalists, filmmakers and researchers that tracks current thought on the effects of globalization, technology and international politics over people’s daily lives.

Length: 50 minutes

Language: English spoken

When: Sunday, November 20, 2011

15:00, 16:00, 17:00, 18:00, 19:00, 20:00

Admission: Free

More information: www.dezwijger.nl/tegenlicht

The good news is:

• The IDFA DocLab 2011 Events Schedule and  Program and  is now online.
• The Project Database now features 100+ of our favorite digital documentary storytelling projects produced since 2007.
• The brand new Profile Section features people and organisations that we consider to be pioneers in digital documentary storytelling. New profiles will be added regularly.
• The improved Site Search and Tag list makes it easy to find and refine what your looking for.
• More details for every project, making it easier to get in touch with the authors or follow the progress of a project.

With little over a week to go before the documentary world invades the centre of Amsterdam, we wish you a lot of fun browsing the website and hope to see you at one of the IDFA DocLab live events. If you’re not able to join us during the following ten days of festival mayhem, we look forward to hearing from you online or seeing you at another IDFA DocLab event, such as our annual Guest Program at SXSW Film & Interactive.

Executive produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin MacDonald.

Moderated by Sean Farnell.