Authorship — Multiple authors/Collective authorship/Co-Creation
13 Codings
Yasmin Elayat
“I have two thoughts about this. Sometimes I do think so. I sometimes think it dilutes the author and then other times I get excited by that idea, because I think, well it opens up something completely new. And instead of one author you could have a million authors. And there is something exciting about that as well. I think it was (.) There is a blog I read, or an article by a man named George Preston. He was saying that what he believes is technology has made us cavemen again. And I like this idea, because he was saying now we are making storytelling, technology has allowed storytelling to become a communal shared act, almost like we are sitting on the campfire again and having a discussion. And I think that is actually a pretty good metaphor for (...) You know, when we used to tell stories orally, we would all contribute and build the story together. And I kind of think that, it is nice to think about, you know, if we’d use technology to drive the story or have multiple authors, there is something about that that is kind of like a communal experience again and actually sharing the story or telling the story.”
Christopher Allen
“Authorship can be more open in a web-based documentary. There is the potential to create that openness and there is a potential to allow the viewer to create new meanings through and to have, (..) basically to engage their imagination in a broader sense.”
Katie Edgerton
“I think the role of the author is as important, if not more so. I think it might be authorship in a different way than we traditionally think of it. I think designers are authors, for instance. And the design of an interactive documentary, the way the interface is laid out, is critical to understanding the narrative message. But I think there has to be a key narrative point and there has to be an authorial vision, for a lack of a better word, or else it is going to be a sea of information. I mean participatory projects are so exciting and there is so much potential there. But there has to be some kind of curator, or some kind of path through all of the information. And that is created by a person or multiple people all on the same page. But I think the author is incredibly important in this new world. And it is not just directors as we think of them. They are designers, they are developers. There is a lot more potential for different kinds of authorship. ”
Mandy Rose
“I am interested in the term co-creation, which I think can better describe some of those relationships. It is a term which Jean Burgess and some colleagues have been exploring in QUT in Australia. And to me, co-creation is useful, because it can be about relationships that are uneven, but actually it still acknowledges multiple participation. Whereas collaboration can sometimes raise people’s expectations that there is something absolutely equal and collective about it and I think that can kind of mask something that is a little more complex.”
Susanna Lotz
“I mean, if it is a big production there are many authors. And there shouldn’t be any problems. And of course, there will not be any problems of having a squeezed role or a minor role for authors in interactive documentaries. They are completely essential, and they are needed more than ever.”
Judith Aston
“Authorship is very, very important. However, authorship can be distributed. So, you could have (.) I have no problem with an interactive documentary that does actually represent the viewpoints of one author. But if that was all we had, I would have a big problem with that. So I also have no problem with interactive documentary work that has distributed authorship, where you have multiple authors in a dialogue.”
Hugues Sweeney
“I often say that the curator is a team, because you have to (.) One part of my job is to have people from, let’s say, content and people from form working together. But that these people do not know each other, they never worked together before. And you are really like cherry picking on one side and the other and putting them together on the same goal.”
William Uricchio
“I think that the traditional understanding of what an author does - and I mean traditional - is certainly threatened. Alright, the author is a – the curator - the one who controls and structures, the one who hands something over to the reader to be read. That is under siege. If we think of authorship in a little more complex way - and I would point to someone like Michel Foucault or Roland Barthes, both of whom have written well about the death of the author or the author function - there you start to see the author more as a brand or as a reference system. And of course, those ideas of authorship work quite well. I think what we are seeing new is really a kind of, the author as a collaborator, the author as someone who is shaping and curating an environment, providing structures, avenues for experience that are in a sense brought to life by the reader, by the user. But very much in a kind of a partnership. So that kind of curatorial, collaborative shaping function (.) Authorship is shifting in that direction. I do not think we are ever going to lose the old author of control, the great storyteller. That will stay part of our culture. But I think we are seeing a new breed of author.”
Brian Winston
“The point is: What you are supposed to be doing is affecting the world. And if you do it by giving the camera to people to do it themselves and helping them do that, then that is fine. There are skills involved in telling stories. Not everybody can do it. If you give everybody a pen, they are not going to be Tolstoy. But on the other hand, you can help people find their own voices, etc., etc.”
Sharon Daniel
“I always when I, or normally, when I talk about my own work, I am careful to mention that I think of myself as a context provider, as opposed to a content provider. And I think, you know, the world of the author has been in question since, you know, the early poststructuralism, Foucault, Barthes etc. So I do not think that is new in any sense. In fact, I have written essays where I take from their body of theoretical discourse to talk about the kind of work we are all doing in participatory and collaborative kinds of interactive documentary practice. So I do not think that is new, but I think that this is a field in which new models of authorship, of collective authorship, can flourish. And I really like the word collective, even more than collaborative, because I want the collective voices to emerge within the context of the documentary project. And collaboration is a method for having that take place.“
Samuel Bollendorff
“I think the author is (...) He is at the very centre of the project for sure because he has an idea and he has something to tell. But like in cinema, if you are not able to work with different people, if you are not attracted by the collective idea, if you are not able to listen to the ideas of your team, you will not run a good project. I think especially in those kind of interactive projects, where we have to invent everything - every day we have to reinvent things - you cannot do it by yourself. You have to work with an artistic director, a coder, or a producer, or an editor. All those people will have ideas, will think about the best way to assure the quality of the experience and the quality of the interface to serve the stories. So if you are a genius, maybe you can work alone and be very directive, but maybe being a genius is being able to listen to your team.”
Mike Robbins
“I actually would like to see the idea of the author - it will always be around - but I think what interactivity offers is the possibilities. And one of the possibilities is the shift from (.) through usage, through the audience (..) And a shift, a start of the auteur (..) I am the creator, (..) to allowing people to lose control and let people alter your work. So that at the end of the project - and I do believe projects should have an end - that you can compare what you end up with what you started and then try to figure out along that path of getting there to where you end up. At what point does, (..) is it not your work anymore.”