Charley Weber Portfolio

Looking at Fort McMoney a little further, an uncomplicated extract from an academic paper I wrote is below.

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Arnau Gifreu,​ a leading MIT researcher and proponent of interactive documentary, ​defines the differences between traditional and interactive documentary as follows: ‘​‘while the linear documentary only allows the viewer to interpret the images seen on a personal level, the interactive platforms allow more processes and/or behaviours, such as viewing (observer), playing (player), learning (student) and sharing (prosumer)’’ (Gifreu, 2014).

In terms of cognitive learning and engagement, those latter four processes are seen as the primary benefits of the interactive documentary over a traditional documentary. An experiential form of immersion, giving more agency to the digital user, which according to Pedagogical thought allows greater interest and retention of facts and learning.

Arneau goes on to say:

Interactive digital media have had an impact on the logistics of production, exhibition, and reception of traditional audiovisual documentaries. In this emerging context, interactive documentaries are a new audiovisual form with specific characteristics of their own. Interactive documentaries create a new logic for the representation of reality. The emphasis of this new logic lies in the relationship between the text and the user, when navigating and interacting, rather than how the author constructs a specific discourse on reality for traditional viewers (Gifreu, 2012).

Particularly noteworthy, as a new adaptation of the linear documentary, are the data-driven, digital reconstructions developed by ​Forensic Architecture​, an agency based at Goldsmiths University, which uses the latest technology and multimedia to reconstruct possible war crimes of important Human Rights cases, which are being tried in the International Criminal Courts.

Poppy​ – is a fairly straightforward interactive online documentary which portrays a ‘world’ in which to better understand the role that illegal activities – including trafficking, smuggling and kidnapping – played in the breakdown of a nation and the subsequent rise and development of Islamic State in Mali. Apart from the ability to navigate through different stories and chapter headings there is also a pop up data and research menu, which is a strong addition to this interactive documentary.

Fort McMoney is a big variation, called a documentary game, which is shot in, modelled and based on an oil extraction area in Canada. Of the possibilities for affecting change in the real world of these kinds of programs, David Dufresne, the creator of the award winning project says ‘we have to be realistic in our expectations, it is after all just a game’ (Dufresne, 2013). However, it is also an eye-opening informational experience highlighting the power of these types of operations and the local politics involved dealing with such behemoth corporations in the real world.

Also interestingly, to open the game up beyond the confines of algorithms, Fort McMoney employed ‘real’ actors, characters in this environment, which the players can message, talk to and engage with – like the mayor or the oil company rep – to get feedback from or to try and convince to do the right thing in terms of the further development of the oil city.

Documentary and Reconstruction Forms – Old and New

What can we learn from traditional documentaries reconstructing key historical events? A Turner award winning artist, Jeremy Deller, in The Battle of Orgreave reconstructed clashes between the police and striking miners led by Arthur Scargill. He came to certain conclusions: ‘’It’s not possible for the participants to fully heal but maybe to confront their past head on and those traumatic events’’.

The role and interplay between policemen and miners in the reconstruction also affords us a chance to explore the perspective of the policeman, who at one point says from behind his shield​: ‘’‘It is terrifying, I mean even with the shield or not they don’t stop and it’s an eye opener, these are people I go to the pub with and share my life with’’ (Deller, 2000)

So apart from the more granular empirical value possible in constructing modern, data-driven forms of documentary, in traditional documentary there are qualitative, even possibly healing and empathic benefits in witnessing and re-enacting important historical social events.

Of the methods and the convergence of digital with history, in the textbook ​D​igital Humanities Pedagogy, it believes: ‘’​Digital history has the capacity to reshape our conception of History, to generate new lines of inquiry, challenge entrenched theories using vast sets of data and materials, or draw comparisons that span wide geographic and chronological landscapes.’’ ​(Hirsch, 2012)