Thesis and Dissertation Template
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INTERACTIVE AUDIENCES: viewers\users' engagement in National Film Board of Canada's interactive documentaries Patrícia Nogueira da Silva Doctoral Program in Digital Media Audiovisual and Interactive Content Creation Advisor: João Mário Grilo, Full Professor Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa Porto, 2018 INTERACTIVE AUDIENCES: viewers\users' engagement in National Film Board of Canada's interactive documentaries _______________________ A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of Engeneering Department of Informatics University of Porto Porto, Portugal ______________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Doctoral Degree in Digital Media _______________________ by Patrícia Nogueira da Silva July 2018 Patrícia Nogueira Keywords: interactive documentary; National Film Board of Canada, participative audience; phenomenology; psichoanalysis. COMMITTEE MEMBERS Committee Chair: Eugénio da Costa Oliveira, Ph.D. Full Professor of the Faculty of Engeneering University of Porto Committee Member: Nuno Robalo Correia, Ph.D. Full Professor of the Faculty of Science and Technology New University of Lisbon Committee Member: João Mário Grilo, Ph.D. (supervisor) Full Professor of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities New University of Lisbon Committee Member: Nelson Troca Zagalo, Ph.D. Associate Professor of the Department of Communication and Arts University of Aveiro Committee Member: Mariana Estela Graça, Ph.D. Associate Professor of the Department of Communication, Arts and Design University of Algarve Committee Member: Rui Penha, Ph.D. Invited Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Engeneering University of Porto iii ABSTRACT This thesis explores the audience’s engagement and perceptual experience of interacting with interactive documentaries. The aim is contributing to a discussion about how interactivity and new technologies promote new spectatorship performances and subsequently affect the spectator’s subjectivity. Through a phenomenological (and post-phenomenological) approach, the investigation discusses the user’s perceptual and embodied experience of interacting with a corpus of study, selected from the National Film Board of Canada’s portfolio. The research delves into the descriptive analysis of interacting with three digital objects, each one of them corresponding to a different mode of interaction and therefore engaging the audience in a particular way. The hyperlink interactive documentary Bear 71 is scrutinized as a panopticon of surveillance, merging linear sound with the interactor’s non-linear navigation through surveillance footage. Fort McMoney, as a conversational interactive documentary with a rhizomatic and complex structure, opens the possibility of exploring a spatial narrative and playing with reality. In its turn, A Journal of Insomnia, with a participative interactive mode, provides a collective portrait while engages the interactor in a self-reflexive portrait. Throughout the investigation, I consider the interactor and the digital object as two interrelated and dependent entities that influence and shape one another. As fragmented, multilinear and dynamic forms, interactive documentaries provide the audience with the agency of manipulating and developing the narrative, while conversely engender in the interactors what I address as ways of affection. I propose eight digitally disrupted and induced sensations, or senses of, for describing how interactive documentary affects users during the interaction performance. v Considering the self-centered and sometimes self-referential nature of interactive documentary, its derivative objects also afford a particular way of portraying the Self and confronting the viewer with her or his self-being. The Lacanian psychoanalytical formulations provide a framework for analyzing the interactor’s virtual experience and how the audience observes and is observed within the digital environment. As a mirror, the digital screen reflects back to the interactor her or his own image and traps her or him into the Digital Gaze, a myse-en- abyme between the Self and the Same. vi RESUMO Esta tese explora o envolvimento e experiência percetual da audiência durante a interação com documentários interativos. Pretende-se contribuir para uma discussão de como a interatividade e as novas tecnologias promovem novas formas de espectatorialidade e consequentemente afetam a subjetividade do espectador. Através de uma abordagem fenomenológica (e pós-fenomenológica), esta investigação discute a experiência percetiva e incorporada do utilizador ao interagir com um corpus de análise, selecionado a partir do portfólio do National Film Board of Canada. A pesquisa apresenta a análise descritiva da experiência de interação com três documentários interativos, em que cada um corresponde a um modo de interação diferente e, portanto, envolve o público de forma distinta. O documentário interativo do modo hiperlink Bear 71 é examinado como um panóptico de vigilância, combinando som linear com a navegação não-linear do interator através de imagens de vigilância. Fort McMoney, enquanto documentário interativo conversacional com uma estrutura rizomática e complexa, abre à audiência a possibilidade de explorar uma narrativa espacial e de jogar/brincar com a realidade. Por sua vez, A Journal of Insomnia, com um modo interativo participativo, proporciona ao utilizador a participação num retrato coletivo enquanto o envolve num auto-retrato reflexivo. Ao longo desta tese o interator e o objeto digital são examinados como duas entidades inter-relacionadas e inter-dependentes que se influenciam e moldam mutuamente. Enquanto objetos fragmentados, multilineares e dinâmicos, os documentários interativos proporcionam ao utilizador a possibilidade de manipular e moldar a narrativa, enquanto inversamente induzem nos interatores o que eu denomino de ways of affection. São propostas oito sensações ou sentidos induzidos, denominados senses of, digitalmente disruptivos, para descrever a forma como o documentário interativo afeta os utilizadores durante a performance de interação. vii Considerando a natureza auto-centrada e por vezes auto-referencial do documentário interativo, estes objetos digitais também oferecem uma forma particular de retratar o Eu e confrontar o espectador com seu próprio ser. As formulações psicanalíticas Lacanianas fornecem um método de análise da experiência virtual do utilizador e permitem considerar a forma como a audiência observa e é observada dentro do ambiente digital. Tal como um espelho, o ecrã digital reflete a imagem do espectador e captura-o no Gaze Digital, um myse-en-abyme entre o Eu e o Mesmo. viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Looking back at my Ph.D.’s journey I realize how much I evolved as an academic by virtue of all the various experiences, knowledge, and challenges I found along the way. Somehow, this dissertation tries to sum up the personal growth and evolution, as well as the critical thinking I achieved during this expedition. Although a Ph.D. is frequently compared to a pilgrimage, despite all the ups and downs, I must confess the path was more pleasurable than painful. Even during the writing process, that often becomes a lonely walk, along the road I met many different people, in a variety of places, who supported and encouraged me. Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Prof. João Mário Grilo, for the continuous support during my Ph.D. study, for his patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. His guidance helped me throughout the research and writing process of this thesis and specially challenged me to expand my theoretical framework. Besides my advisor, I would like to thank Prof. Gonçalo Leite Velho for his insightful comments and encouragement, but also for the hard questions which incentive me to widen my research from various perspectives. I’m profoundly grateful to the National Film Board of Canada, especially to the Vancouver’s studio producers and creators, for accepting me as a visiting researcher and sharing their experience and expertise in documentary film. Their creative minds and cutting-edge works were an insightful contribution to understanding the interactive documentary realm. My sincere thanks to the University of Texas at Austin, particularly to the Radio, Television and Film department, for accepting me as a visiting scholar. Inside and outside the classroom walls I meet many interesting people who helped and inspired me. I’m particularly grateful to Prof. Sharon Strover, who sponsored my application, to Prof. Andrew Garrison for accepting me in his documentary production class and notably to Prof. Lalitha Gopalan for the insightful and meaningful conversations, as well as for introducing me a distinctive way of “reading” books and moving images. ix I also thank the doctoral program host institutions, both the University of Porto and the New University of Lisbon, where I found many professors and fellow colleagues who stimulate discussions and with whom I shared sleepless nights of work. These acknowledgements would not be complete without mentioning several other people that, in different ways, contributed for the development of this research, such as Katerina Cizek, Kate Vollum, Sergiu Raul Suciu, Professor Nuno Correia, and particularly Sara Marques, whose help in the final phase allowed me respecting the deadline. Last but not the least, I’m genuinely grateful to Sofia, Rui and my mom for all their support and understanding regarding my absence and temper over the last