layering

This paper introduces three original works that use features of interactive documentary arts to explore social constructions of places and their attending narratives. The three interactive projects that are introduced are Inside/Outside, The Unknown Territories Project, and Estuary. The paper asks how tools of layering, compositing and navigation through documentary imagery in photography and film contribute to an understanding of the connection between social relationships and a sense of space.

This essay discusses a series of projects that use horizontal scrolling composition. The essay considers how the digital panoramic and scrolling formats combined with techniques of layering and compositing provide makers with ways to integrate diverse modes and disciplinary materials in a common environment and how they allow uses means of path-making and choice-making. Works discussed include Cultures In Webs (Eastage 2003), Something That Happened Only Once (2007), and Unknown Territories (2008).

While aesthetic practices in photography, film and music have undergone significant transformation due to the affordances of computational tools, the practice of creative and critical writing has remained largely unaffected. As programmable environments further populate the cultural environment it is increasingly important that we understand the ways in which those designed specifically for literary contexts may serve to challenge traditional notions of the writing endeavor. Our paper will provide a brief historical framework for the emergence of generative literary writing practices, a description of a new authoring environment (RiTa) for use in both the production and teaching of digital writing, and an analysis of specific concepts—including layering, materiality, authorial intent, constraints, and distributed creativity—that the use of this environment meaningfully engages.

(Source: Authors' abstract, 2008 ELO Conference)