shoni

Embedded narrative is the predetermined story that exists within a game. Regardless of how the player interacts with the game, and the individual choices she or he makes, the narrative unfolds in the same way.

Emergent narrative is when the story develops through the player’s interaction with the game. The player’s narrative experience is influenced by the choices she or he makes during the game.

Twelve ‘micromovies’ shot on mobile phones have been shortlisted for a new category in the St Kilda Film Festival. The films can be viewed at www.micromovie-award.com and at the festival which takes places 24-29 May. The winner of the competition will be announced on 30 May.

World without end is a screen exhibition that explores concepts of time, place and landscape. The exhibition is located in the screen gallery at Australian Centre for Moving Image in Federation Square, and is exhibiting until the 17 July 2005.

It was with a sense of intrigue that I descended into the darkness of the screen gallery. I have a strong interest in place and landscape and was looking forward to seeing how the artists had interpreted these concepts. The dark space was almost eerie as haunting sound tracks transcended the parametres of individual works. Despite my initial curiosity I found it difficult to connect with most of the works presented. I wondered whether this was in part because the works negotiated a space somewhere between art and narrative, a medium that I’m not conversant with. I found that much of the work lacked depth, repeating themes that reflect a largely western world view. This alone, made it difficult to engage with the material in a meaningful way.

Clare Langan described her work, too dark for night, as an exploration of ‘mankind’s fragile existence in the face of the relentless forces of nature’. The stunning yet haunting imagery portrayed a predominantly patriarchal view of nature. I found it disappointing that this view was again reflected in many of the other exhibition works. I think this form of representation reinforces the western paradigm that people are disconnected with place, landscape and nature.

Simon Carroll and Martin Friedel’s history of a day compresses time and space to make up of five, four-minute ‘days’. These visual sequences are shown simultaneously on five different screens, that are arranged in a circle, encasing the audience in the middle. The imagery is awe striking but in a similar way to too dark for night the sound track and dramatic images represent nature as a force to be reckoned with, reflecting the discomfort associated with not being able to control the cycles of nature.

In contrast Hold: vessel 1 by Lynette Wallworth, was a more positive and uplifting experience. In a dark room the visitor holds a glass bowl over beams light. Projected onto the glass are a series of bright, colourful images of microscopic sea life. The result was mesmerising. Wallworth has designed the experience to be interactive helping to engage the visitor. The other work that intrigued me was Train no. 1 by Daniel Crooks, which ‘time slices’ a suburban Melbourne train fragmenting the viewer’s perception of time and space.

Overall I was disappointed with the limited scope with which the main thematic threads were exlpored. The curators Alessio Cavallaro and Alexie Glass discuss the exhibition in more detail in their world without end: exhibition essay.

During our travels into The Outback Bj and I took substantial footage of the different landscapes that we traveled through, including the Tanami Desert, Kimberley, Purululu, Witjira, and Gammon Ranges. I am interested in using this footage to develop a proposal for an interactive documentary with an online component. We spent some time with an oral historian when we were away who had collected people’s stories while he was travelling with his family. His stories have been archived in the National Library of Australia. I would like to incorporate some of his personal stories, and the stories that he captured, into my work. SBS has recently launched a Cross Media Documentary Series which I think would support a concept like this one.

Sadly the Landy that took Bj and I into the heart of the outback in 2004, and who accompanied my family on many other exploratory adventures, is no longer with us. I received an email with the news from my dad this evening.

OBITUARY March 1996 - April 2005

She travelled far and wide,
through mud and snow and sand.
She crossed creeks and deserts and mountains
Faithful to the end
She was a colossus of a car,
with an insatiable appetite for adventure
Sadly missed, never forgotten,
and seemingly irreplaceable.

Lest we forget,
the old girl will be buried at Cornelian Bay,
from whence she was kidnapped,
and in shallow water so she can be seen at low tide
A monument in life as well as death,
with or without barnacles.

Pip Ellis May 2005

Collecting firewood, East MacDonnell Ranges

Tightening the manifold, Mitchell River Plateau

The Pink Roadhouse, Oodnadatta