Ashley

Open mic, no. 1

For open mic session number one, I choose to take a look at a couple of projects produced by the Labyrinth Project, a branch of the Institute for Multimedia Literacy.

The Dawn at My Back DVD-ROM
Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing, An Interactive Cultural History
By Carroll Parrott Blue and The Labyrinth Project

I really liked this piece, which explores the filmmakers’ relationship with her mother during their years together in Houston, Texas.

The interactive documentary gives the audience a chance to experience the segregated south through contemporary interviews, still photos and moving image archive.

Of particular interest the documentary includes two highly memorable sequences: one dealing with the KKK; the other a lynching. It’s also worth noting that the use of panorama images was a great way to bury hidden treasures for additional archival and interview bits.

Finally, just wanted to mention that much of the design of this project was done by Kristy Kang, who is certainly a talented graphic and interactive designer who truly makes this experience a fantastic one.

Norman Klein: Bleeding Through--Layers of Los Angeles, 1920-1986 DVD-ROM
By Rosemary Comella, Andreas Kratky, Norman M. Klein

This interactive narrative combines a database detective story with a digital city symphony and a meta-narrative reflection on storytelling in this new medium. Set in a three-mile radius near downtown Los Angeles, this DVD-ROM explores Boyle Heights, Bunker Hill, Chavez Ravine, Chinatown, Echo Park, Little Tokyo and other contested locations that helped shape the city’s cultural history.

These ethnically complex neighborhoods are documented through archival photographs and films and through contemporary images that either reproduce or evoke them.

While I also found this to be an eloquent piece of work, and I absolutely loved the incorporation of various silent films, I found myself being troubled by many elements of the design.

Of particular note was the way the interviews were incorporated. In fact, I only remember seeing one interview and it was crammed at the top of the screen. Because the rest of the DVD was arranged to beautifully, it was truly a disservice that the interviewees seemed so out of place.

I thought the piece was highly informative, provocative and fresh, though I wish that it could be more cinematic in terms of the way the information was relayed. Something also left me wanting the piece to have a more traditional documentary feel, particularly with respect to incorporating multiple points of view.