I am delighted to be able to share the reports from a sequence of Multisensory Storytelling Development Debriefs conducted with a group of Immersive Arts UK artists earlier this year.
The Debriefs arose as part of my UWE funded project into technical bottlenecks in immersive development and represent an extension of the work that myself and Mandy Rose have been doing in the Multisensory Storytelling project, part of MyWorld – Bristol Bath. For more info, please visit: https://lnkd.in/eHGGgAB9
The reports themselves reflect several things, not least of which is the generosity and candour of the participating artists. Originally scoped as a means of highlighting and examining isolated points in the development process where a technical bottleneck impacted the creative impetus of immersive storytelling, the conversations grew into much broader explorations of who bottlenecks constrain and who they liberate, how bottlenecks limit creativity and how they unlock it and why these factors vary from project to project.
TLDR: bottlenecks are never only technical, nor are the opportunities or challenges they represent distributed evenly across creative projects and practitioners. Technical bottlenecks, like technical affordances, are emergent phenomena and not static, materially defined problems to be solved by one plucky media and cultural studies scholar.
It is a huge – if sometimes complicated – benefit to any researcher to come out of a project with more questions than when they went in. Thanks to these conversations the Multisensory Storytelling project is equipped with more avenues to investigate the impact of multisensory media technology on creative practice, cultural production and the emerging configurations of digital media and the human sensorium. That said, these reports represent one means by which to bring these questions to practitioners, engage in productive dialogue with the artists refining multisensory media tools, and to generate questions and interventions relevant to the immersive sector as a whole.
My thanks to Immersive Arts UK, MyWorld – Bristol Bath and UWE Bristol Research and External Engagement for supporting this project, to Engy Elboreini (www.engyelboreini.com) for designing the document, and to all of the artists who shared their time and experience.
I’m open to further discussions about Multisensory Storytelling, the shape and impact of bottlenecks on immersive development and Debriefs as an equitable and accessible research methodology, so please get in touch to chat through any and all of the above.