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This website presents a selection of teaching and research projects exploring audiovisual narrative practices in the contemporary digital public sphere. It is maintained and entertained by author, designer and educator Timothée Ingen-Housz , and seeks to present a variety of educational activities developed at the University of the Arts UdK Berlin and beyond.
The projects presented here (lectures, seminars and workshops) seek to engage creatively and critically with current storytelling practices in a variety of contexts ranging from artistic experimentation to strategic communication.
The projects presented here introduce collaborative storytelling methodologies and investigate their epistemic potential for inter- and transdisciplinary research projects exploring socio-ecological transformation processes and their societal implications.
“Storytelling”
The approach introduced here can be understood as a creative and critical engagement with Muriel Rukeyser´s famous aphorism : “the universe is made of stories, not atoms” .
What does Rukeyser´s mantra imply for storytellers in the current digital public sphere and so-called “post-truth” paradigm, and what are its implications for their role in a world equally subjected to the rules of physics as that of media metrics?
Approaching Rukeyser´s narrative constructivism with playful skepticism, the teaching formats and practices concentrate on the productive tension between critical immersion and reflexive creativity. Media-analytical methods intersect with creative film-making exercises in different diffusion and appropriation contexts, hinting at a variety of iterative processes and reflective approaches.
Developed within this tension, the formats introduced here propose to situate participants in creative and reflective situations helping them develop a wide range of narrative formats in various contexts, could it be strategic campaigns, news, art projects, fictional environments or the combination of all. This hands-on approach also provides context-specific opportunities to reflect on the current media ecology´s constraints and challenges.
Gathering to tell audiovisual stories to and with specific publics, we question our assumptions, premises and meaning-making processes in a public space clustered around “bubbles” both reflecting and shaping increasingly divergent media realities.
Working alone and in collaborative settings, participants investigate existing narrative practices ranging from cinematic storytelling (features and serials in fictional and documentary genres) to social media posts and reels, stage performances, graphic novels and a growing range of generative content types. In the some formats movement, they also experiment first hand with the development of creative formats, drafting short or long-form audiovisual experiences (linear and interactive) in all possible forms and genres. The common denominator behind the variety of these formats is their narrative dimensions and iterative developmental processes.
The Seminars and workshops are designed for participants to explore chosen themes from multiple points of view and with a variety of creative-critical approaches. Using fiction, documentary, interactive or experimental forms, participants experiment with the “construction of reality” with narrative formats, questioning the implicit norms and values structuring contemporary and past tropes. This process also invites them to observe the unfolding conflicts between in “legacy media” and digital channels in a rapidly evolving media ecology subjected to industrial and technological transformations. A variety of creative and critical methodologies is introduced to facilitate the development of “prototypes” enabling this particular form of reflective storytelling.
The Lectures are written and updated to help scrutinise the evolving tensions between culture and technology, and develop a reflective approach to production, reception and appropriation practices mentioned above. Working in small or larger groups, we are questioning the premises of M.Rukeyser’s aphorism to engage productively with the so-called transformative power of audiovisual storytelling in contemporary societies, while engaging with the growing challenges of the “post-truth” paradigm and its impact on journalism, political and scientific communication.
“Narrative Prototyping”
The seminar and workshop formats presented here seek to help participants explore contemporary themes through narrative engagement, both as creative spectators and reflexive practitioners (or “critical storytellers ”) . What can be experienced and analysed when we approach an image, a film, a place, or a lived experience as a set of narrative threads? What can we learn from classical media studies and literary analysis toolsets, what kind of methodologies can be further assembled and what do they ask from us? What is a narrative meant to be (and to do) after all, what kind of references can we use of, and how should one be critical of this ubiquitous concept in contemporary discourses? Finally: how can this approach nourish audiovisual creative practices and their investment in strategic communication?
Learning from audiovisual and experiential storytelling practices in all existing shape or form, the workshops and seminars provide context for the research and development of creative prototypes drafting a variety of digital formats (movies, games, magazines, immersive environments, maps, etc…) with the intent to achieve a specific communicative purpose. They rely on modules featuring :
1- creative reading activities training the explorative interpretation of vast array of materials : images, art works, films, posts, etc…, but also experiences, places, cities, landscapes, etc.
2- narrative experiments and “critical (film)thinking” exercises training various audiovisual conception processes and sub-processes (writing, storyboarding, pre-vizualising, staging, framing, editing etc..).
3- Iterative and re-iterative processes combining 1 & 2 in sequential assignments and reflective activities.
Developed in various collaborative constellations, these projects investigate what can be learnt, taught and researched with, about and through narrative practices involving images, sounds and words in all possible configurations and imaginable formats.
They typically stage the development of a prototype, starting from their initial ideation, development and re-iteration loops, observing every step as creative situations allowing participants to continuously discover their ideas during their making, rather than “translating them” from paper to screen in a linear fashion. We enrich our processes by gathering impulses from domains as diverse as fictional and documentary film-making, theatre and performance practices, contemporary art, experience design, communication strategy or screenwriting (a.o), and use them to conceive media experiences with and/or for specific publics and communities.
“ Research potential ”
Audiovisual storytelling is an umbrella term describing collaborative creative practices coordinating the development and production of specific media experiences (films, plays, games, environments, etc.). These are intentionally designed for or with specific audiences, use tropes, devices and design features to reach their aesthetic and communicative ends. They draw back on existing formulas, mix old ones and pioneer new ones. What can be learnt from these creative and collaborative processes? How can they be reflected to further understand or develop them and, by extension, use them to explore real world problems, investigate societal questions, approach futures as “collective narratives in the making”, and enrich domains such as participatory urban planning ?
However established or experimental creative “methods” may be, they are differently applicable to different projects, subject matters and social constellations. They keep evolving with rapidly changing technologies and media consumption environments. What can these storytelling processes help us see, understand and navigate? How can they be organized and structured to facilitate the formation of new perspectives and extract new insights on both their subject matter and their construction processes?
Currently under development are modelling and mapping activities weaving different temporal scales and p.o.vs (embodied perspectives) to expand the canvas on which storytellers can collaborate to construct possible futures and the adaptable strategies to implement them.
Dramaturgical mapping
•The first type of projects regards the co-creative development of fictional worlds on multiple temporal scales (diegesis). They include methods facilitating the development of dramaturgical maps and their use for fictional world-building applicable to a variety of projects: books, films, games, experiences and physical environments. They also offer collaborative ideation and story-development processes usable to generate multiple narrative p.o.vs and stories in multiple formats on the basis of the same diegetic environment.
•The second type deals with collaborative world-building methods based on real-world environments. These are fashioned to facilitate the formulation of planning questions (change scenarios). Specific iterations of these methods for inter & trans-disciplinary research projects dealing with urban transformation : scenario co-creation, speculative mapping, etc.
•The third type is concerned with the interaction of these co-creative methods to generate educational formats for public engagement, science communication, transformation literacy: engagement methods to facilitate the introduction of complex problems and reflect on their media representation.
•The fourth type regards the extension and re-formulation of the above mentioned methods with generative models and interfaces.
Collaborative Storytelling & Co-creation
Audiovisual storytelling is by definition concerned with multiperspectivity and the creative manipulation of multiple points of view.
The craft of the audiovisual storyteller is centred around on the negotiation of this experiential plurality : whose point of view matter more now, which kind of dilemma, ambivalence or univocal perspective do I want audiences to focus on? This central characteristic of audiovisual creative processes can also be used to manifest perceptual gaps between different social actors.
Scenario co-creative workshops offer in this regard interesting possibilities to formulate real life problems in insightful ways, bringing different experiences to the fore. Approaching complex issues from different angles, participants engage with problems, questions or conflicts they would otherwise ignore or neglect. Participants may empathise with social actors they usually perceived as antagonists or communities they never heard of, potentially gaining critical insights on their own position as they listen to that of others to co-create common futures.
This may generate insights potentially illuminating what is at stake for all participants involved, nourish productive debates and help find consensus on a way forward. The formats sketched out in the research projects result from an attempt to bring creative methods originally rooted in visual arts, design and audiovisual storytelling practices (screenwriting, narrative mapping, etc.) in productive interactions with transformation projects unfolding for instance in urban spaces, and necessitating intense consultations with shifting constellations of identified or not-yet-identified stakeholders.
This research approach explores current transformation narratives as social constructions involving a variety of future imaginaries. The focus on audiovisual narrativity allows multiple temporal lenses to be explored, cross-linked and compared, generating diverse views on specific subject matters, from different angles, and in different spatial-temporal scales.
These formats can help better understand complex situations by all those involve, identify knowledge gaps and lingering conflicts, change mindsets and affect existing behaviours, support the consensus building process enabling collective action.