This section presents different seminars and workshop formats introducing a set of reflective storytelling practices using conception and reception exercises as starting points.
These may involve the critical /analytical investigation of curated materials ( artworks, films, games, interfaces, etc.), and the conception of prototypal formats exploring a concept, an idea or a question creatively. The projects usually result from the participants´ engagement with the seminar´s theme (see selected examples) and the manifestation of its underlying dramaturgical potential. This dynamic process is conceived to undo conventional framings and established norms, values and systems. Further exploratory steps help differentiate actors and interactions to manifest the coexistence of multiple perspectives and experiential lenses, and seek the development of alternatives.
Activities may involve excursions, interviews, mapping exercises, screenwriting, improvisations or performance. They may lead to vastly different output formats ranging from stage-plays to music videos, speculative business models or fan-fictions. The seminar themes range from everyday concerns ( “bred”) to dystopian speculations, and generally address current societal issues. Gathered under the umbrella concept of "narrative prototyping”, the approaches build a repertoire of combinable modules adaptable to a wide variety of themes and participants.
1. Participants may engage with reception processes as creative experiences, exploring a variety of creative responses and interpretive appropriations. This may imply the examination of current hypes, audiovisual tropes, digital services and media experiences.
2. Engaging with conception processes as critical experiences, participants conceive, prototype and realize formats such as short documentaries, fictions, serial pilots, news segments, live events and social media miniatures reflecting a wide array of themes and questions addressing or revealing current societal issues.
3. Exploring the dynamics between 1 & 2, participants investigate the transformative potential of such creative and critical experiences, applying their findings to the construction of collaborative storytelling environments and their application to trans-disciplinary research projects.
SEMINARS
Seminar Structure.
A typical seminar is presented with a title , a theme and broad research impetus outlining what we want to explore and how. Chosen themes generally point at contemporary issues, tropes, hypes or trends currently emerging in media and society. Participants approach them with a first speculative exercise to identify a dynamic set of actors, situations and values broadly deploying its dramaturgical scope. What is at stake?
A second exercise provides focus and helps map out a cluster of concepts slowly crystallizing a research question and/or a creative project. A variety of texts, films, art works and excursion materials enrich the conversation, providing theoretical references, experiences and interpretive framings. A project format is then chosen to articulate the participants´ research and communicate their findings. The work may eventually take the form of a prototypal video, stage performance, text, comic book, documentary/ethnographic research, a “user´s journey” or even a co-design workshop format. All use narrative dynamics as organising principle.
In the seminars outlined in the link below, a recurrent preoccupation is to crack open expectations associated with a chosen trope or a theme. Working in groups of various size, we seek to manifest unexpected perspectives and generate alternatives. Listed below is a selection of seminars and workshops developed in the past years in association with the chair “media conception and dramaturgy” at the University of the Arts Berlin.