In this episode – which is based on a live recording of a talk within the context of the lecture series Digital documentary practices. Topical paradigm shifts in negotiating 'the Real, Judith Aston outlines her latest thinking around polyphony and multi-perspectivity. Linking it to her work of over thirty years with interactive media in the fields of creative media practice, documentary and visual anthropology, she introduces the concept of metamodernism into discourses on interactive narrative and discusses it in a wider public. In her inspiring presentation – followed by a lively Q & A session –, Judith explains why metamodernism can be useful to engage with complexity and uncertainty in documentary making, how it helps us to overcome simplistic binary thinking and why it prepares us to tackle future challenges.
Contact: podcast@avinus.de Project website: DiD – Das Dokumentarische im Digitalen: did.avinus.org/
**Intro/ Outro **
Beauty Flow by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5025-beauty-flow License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Intro spoken by: Sarah Topfstädt Host and Editor: PD Dr. Anna Wiehl Logo: Anika Ch. R. Nöhre License CC BY-NC-ND Funded by the BMBF
Judith Aston holds an associate professorship of film and digital arts at the University of the West of England, Bristol. As a scholar as well as media maker, Judith is particularly engaged in the development of transformative narratives which can help to tackle 21st century challenges such as climate emergency, social justice and ideological polarization, thus, bringing insight from her academic publications into practice-led projects.
**i-docs mentioned in this episode **
_18 Days in Egypt _(USA 2011, A: Jigar Mehta, Yasmin Elayat et al.); Trailer
Question Bridge (USA 2012, A: Bayete Ross Smith, Chris Johnson, Hank Willis Thomas, Kamal Sinclair et al.); Trailer
_Gaza/Sderot _(F 2008, A: Alex Szalat, Joël Ronez, Susanna Lotz et al.); Trailer
Further web resources : i-docs.org and the i-docs symposium
Films mentioned
The Tree of Life (USA 2011, D: Terrence Malick) Secret City (UK 2012, D: Michael Chanan)
Literature
Aston, Judith: "The ‘linear turn’ in i-docs – a provocation". Available online, checked on 4/10/2021.
Aston, Judith (2010): "Spatial montage and multimedia ethnography: Using computers to visualise aspects of migration and social division among a displaced community". _Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung _11 (2).
Aston, Judith (2014): "interactive documentary". Kerric Harvey (Ed.): Encyclopedia of social media and politics. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, pp. 703–704.
Aston, Judith (2015): "Interactive documentary – what does it mean and why does it matter?" i-docs.org. Available online, checked on 4/10/2021.
Aston, Judith (2017): "Interactive documentary and live performance. From embodied to emplaced interaction". Mandy Rose, Sandra Gaudenzi, Judith Aston (Eds.): The Evolving Practices of Interactive Documentary. New York: Wallflower Columbia University Press, pp. 222–236.
Aston, Judith (2017): "the new materialism: human and algorithmic agency within interactive documentary". Adrian Miles (Ed.): The Material Turn and Interactive Documentary. s.l., pp. 51–61. Available online.
Aston, Judith (2020): "The readerly and the cinematic: Hybrid reconfigurations through digital media practice". Roderick Coover (Ed.): The digital imaginary. Literature and cinema of the database (Electronic literature), pp. 51–58.
Aston, Judith (2021): "The Polyphonic Entanglements of Co-creation". Visible Evidence Forum. Available online, updated and checked on 12/6/2021.
Aston, Judith; Gaudenzi, Sandra (2012): "Interactive documentary: setting the field". Studies in Documentary Film 6 (2), pp. 125–139.
Aston, Judith; Odorico, Stefano (2018): "The Poetics and Politics of Polyphony: Towards a Research Method for Interactive Documentary". alphaville (15), pp. 63–93.
Aston, Judith; Odorico, Stefano (2022): "Interactive Documentary: Its History and Future as a Polyphonic Form". Kathleen Ryan, David Staton (Eds.): Interactive Documentary. Decolonizing Practice-Based Research. London: Routledge.
Daniel, Sharon (2007): "The Database: An Aesthetics of Dignity". Viktorija Vesna (Ed.): Database aesthetics. Art in the age of information overflow. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (Electronic mediations, v. 20), pp. 142-182.
Daniel, Sharon (2008): "Hybrid Practices". Cinema Journal 48 (2), pp. 154-159. DOI: 10.1353/cj.0.0094.
Murray, Janet (2015): "Future of Storytelling | Dramatic Agency". Available online, updated on 9/15/2016, checked on 12/19/2021.