I continue to search the web for interactive documentaries, but to little avail. In trying to design one myself, I find it helpful to see as many examples as possible.
Here is what I found.
"Becoming Human" is an intensive piece that explores the journey through human evolution. There is a lot of content here, and the directors organized it well though it doesn't seem much different then any other documentary that I have ever seen. I am thinking this documentary was cut linearly, then put on the web. The evidence and photos are stunning. I do give further applause for the director's ability to take four million years of information and make it work in one piece. Likewise, this medium is interesting for the subject matter given that I have seen so few documentaries dealing with anthropology/archeology.
www.becominghuman.org/
HBO has been doing some cool stuff by the way of interactive documentaries.
One of the experiences is a five-part demonstration of an autopsy along with some clips of the doctor discussing the procedure. This was informative and fun. It's amazing how much interactive media seems to lend itself to the medical field. Maybe I should have gone to medical school as an undergrad, then I could make procedural pieces of interactive art (if you call it that) ... OK I'll stop there.
HBO also has an interactive piece where the user gets to investigate a real life murder examining a crime scene and analyzing evidence. It too has some video clips. The graphics look great on this site, but it felt more like a game instead of an exploration. My patience didn't allow me to get very far in the investigation. Kind of frustrating. Anyway, it's worth checking out.
www.hbo.com/autopsy/interactive/
I have been considering how game culture is affecting the attitudes of game players toward non-gamers, especially women and other minorities. It is my assumption that most gamers are also avid computer users. Given that this Age of Technology is encouraging less direct communication and thus more computer-based communication, how does this inform, for better or worse, interpersonal communication?
After reading countless articles stating that videogames are just as popular among female teens and young adults between the ages of 14-30 as they are among their male counterparts, I still find it hard to believe that game play is as prevelant in the lives of women as they are men.
The most recent stat I have found is from Look-Look, which found that 75 percent of women and 85 percent of men play videogames. Of course, the main difference between the types of games these folks play is that more than two-thirds of men favor either sport games or games with violent content. Women, on the other hand, prefer non-violent games, puzzles and board games.
Because women tend to gravitate toward different kinds of games from those that are most popular with their male peers, I want to pre-determine that men do engage in game play for longer periods of time as well as for a greater part of their life.
Countless studies have failed to show a direct relationship between game play and violent behavior, though they have found that aggressive behavior is more likely to occur after users engage in either a violent video game. This seems to make it fair to hypothesize that this aggressive behavior would transfer through the interpersonal relations gamers have with other folks.
Here is a summary from a study conducted by Bruce D. Bartholow and Craig A. Anderson for the Journal of Experimental Psychology. "This (study) examines the relationship between aggressive behavior and playing violent video games among men and women. The authors, analyzing the behaviors of 22 men and 21 women who were assigned to play either a violent video game or a nonviolent video game for 10 minutes, conclude that the participants who played the violent video game showed more aggressive behavior, and the effect was more apparent in men."
To go along with this ... I want to look at how little presence in women and other minorities could perpetuate this aggressive behavior and/or negative attitudes and beliefs.
A study conducted by the child research organization "Children Now" found that only 16 percent of human characters in top-selling video games were females. When female characters did appear in video games, they mostly portrayed as bystanders (50 percent), more likely to scream, and less likely to be fully clothed than male characters. No Latina characters appear in the most popular video games, and the few Black women who appeared in games were overwhelmingly portrayed as victims of violence: 86% of Black female video game characters are violently harmed in the games ( Bartholow and Anderson 2002).
While it is undeniably impossible to ignore the lack of presence of women and other minorities in these games, game companies and players continue to accept these racist and sexist attitudes. While the player's interpretation is difficult to determine, it is highly likely that the representation of these avatars manifests itself in a negative, though unconscious, way. Dr. Mahazin Banaji, a researcher at Yale, found that unconscious beliefs are quite different from our conscious values. This research team found that between 90 and 95 percent of test participants showed an unconscious bias against blacks. We can only assume that those beliefs are the same with respect to gender, age, people with disabilities, etc.
Sources:
"Colour blind? Dr. Mahazir Banaji reveals the racist within." Red Maple Foundation, 2003.
"Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior: potential sex differences." Bruce D. Bartholow; Craig A. Anderson. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, May 2002.
Marketing to Women: Addressing Women and Women's Sensibilities,
August 2002.
United States: In video games, Black women are victims, Latinas don't exist. Off Our Backs, Inc. 2002
The Black World Today, December 2000
Sorry folks ... I wasn't finished yet.
Hisham Bizri visited our class last Thursday to speak about his work in the field of interactive media. He has produced several interactive as well as experimental cinema pieces. His work was certainly innovative, but he made a comment that is trying me. He said that he tries not to incorporate his personal opinion into his work. While that is an artistic choice that I respect, it didn't make sense to me why he would purposely omit his feelings and opinions from his work. Isn't this one of the ultimate reasons for producing art? I found his work interesting, but it often times felt unemotional. After hearing him speak on his work, it is clear to me that that is his intention, though I am uncertain as to why.
Kind of off topic, our class watched "Timecode" this past week. The film was totally stunning. I absolutely loved everything about it. The structure, the point, the production planning, the director, etc. Ultimately, the film is a great indication of the possibilities for interactive cinema. Hopefully, we can start talks about these exciting opportunities.
My first posting to a blog. Wow. This is exciting. How can I ever manage to put into words all the things that have been going through my mind during the last year. While I have researched various topics and people - from Jane Addams, the founder of the Hull House to America's obsession with pornography - the one that compels me most and could possibly be a candidate for final project material deals with the history of prostitution, both in the United States as well as the rest of the world.
I have been religiously researching this topic, paying particular attention to the writings of prostitues throughout history. I have found Josie Washburn, a sex worker for more than 20 years who worked as a prostitute as well as a mother to dozens of prostitutes who worked at her brothel in Omaha, Nebraska, an amazing woman. Not only did she have a brilliant understanding of social relationships in the 1900s, but she is also one of few who wrote letters and books about her experiences in the underworld.
Washburn is one of many folks who I have researched. Given all the information I have accumulated since coming to USC last August, an interactive documentary seems like a promising way to consolidate lots of information in a thoughtful way. While interactive documentaries are a new phenomenon, it is my greatest hope to contribute to the expansion and exploration of this new medium.
Next semester I am taking a documentary planning class, which will hopefully help me organize all of this material I have collected.
That's all for now .... I guess