The Silent History – some thoughts

The App has been available since the start of October, which makes the whole experience a little over a week old, and already I’m impressed at how the Silent History has begun to address some of the fundamental problems of digital storytelling.
If you’re new to Silent History, here’s a blurb:
‘The e-book tells the story of [...]

Paradigms

More from the book. Actually, from a paper that draws on chapter one, and will probably sit somewhere across three chapters:
For the last decade, Duncan Speakman has been developing a form for immersive narrative he calls the subtlemob – films without cameras, alternate worlds and poetic layers in the everyday. The antithesis of a flashmob, Speakman’s work [...]

A Monolothic Wrongness

I’m guilty of many things, not the least of which is a tendency to rush to judgement, although I do tend to think things through before I express that judgement in public.
Which brings me to PD Smith’s City.

A piece of design, from Bloomsbury, that is as near perfect in print as I’ve seen for some time. From [...]

Disruptive Innovation

Last week Nick Harkaway drew attention to the paucity of innovation within publishing, suggesting that really disruptive innovation might not appear within a conventional publishing industry.
I agree. I could make this into a lecture about Marshall McLuhan and cars vs buggies, but you haven’t the time, and neither have I.
However, I am interested in making [...]

Mapping the landscape

Baldur Bjarnason and I are writing a book. It’s about books, electronic textuality and materiality and is a manifesto of sorts. I suggested a few weeks ago that we might blog sections of it while we go, partly to make public some of our thoughts, but also as a declaration of intent. The book (it’s draft title [...]

Ghent, Lovecraft and Schrödinger’s tape recorder.

Each time I begin to write in this blog it seems as if I’m apologising for not having written anything for the last few months. And this time is going to be no different. Since Lucy was born (and before, if truth be told) it’s been increasingly difficult to find the time or the inclination [...]

Word of the week is:

Archiviolithic, which is a word to use in conversation more often.
Or: Why do we archive in the first instance?
It’s about removing the ability to forget – reframing the argument (much of the discussion online following the announcement of the British Library’s archive has been about the specifics of the archive, not what it is for. [...]

Notes from the coffee shop by the front line.

First day back from the London Book Fair, and here are some thoughts. They’re not organised, and not considered, but they are thoughts:
It’s encouraging to see the surge in interest in digital books, ebooks and even the inevitable cooing over the iPad, but what’s less convincing is the snake oil salesmen hawking their XML conversion [...]

Who died and made me God?

I need a bigger desk.
Don’t tell MrsT, for goodness’ sake, but this simply isn’t cutting it – unless it’s that it’s too cluttered, and what I need to do is to decamp somewhere like the Pervasive Media Studio for a day or so a week. Regardless, it’s like writing at the edge of a table.
There’s [...]

Embarkation

Today is the opening day of the project that I’ve been itching to start for the best part of six months. Six months that are going to be occupied with large-ish amounts of the following:

Digital storytelling,
Archival strategies and realities (especially the realities, which are going to end up taking more of my time than anything [...]