Researcher, USED project (HIIT/m-cult), documentarist and developer.
Research topic
Digital Documentaries - developing methods and tools for collaborative audiovisual storytelling
Research abstract
The goal of the research is to define the digital tools and methodologies required for collaboratively creating and sharing audiovisual narratives and to reciprocally investigate the new kinds of media productions that these environments enable. It explores the new genre of participatory media production by combining perspectives of documentary film-making, narrative intelligence, semantic exchangeability and participatory methods. The aim is to create platforms for what Tim Berners-Lee calls "intercreativity", collaborative creative work.
The objective of the study is to investigate these practices through one or more pilot projects that incorporate different motivations for storytelling; tradition, exchange, planning, inquiry, recording, expression or informing. The aim is to develop methods for facilitating collaborative storytelling activities in different communities, such as neighbourhoods, families or communities of interest. The research addresses the question of sharing and publicizing private media and respectively gaining control over media representations in public archives.
A technological study addresses questions of semantic interoperability of the media that is being circulated in these systems, in conjunction with concerns of trust. My current research has been focused on the Semantic web annotation and reasoning mechanisms. Another technological area to look at is a derivative of the previous; narrative intelligence. This term designates an area where AI research into narrative coalesces, the logic by which stories are created.
The vision is to nurture storytelling that will bring out perspectives of local/political issues, personal or collective historical events or visions of the future and recirculate them into contemporary discussion. A comparative analytical study will also reflect on the role of the storyteller, the documentarist, when her interpretation has been turned into facilitation.
Through the execution of a pilot project I will chart the various technologies and methodological solutions that arise from the practical need. I will co-operate with other research groups that work with these technologies, transferring my experience into the research that develops the technologies. Based on the experience I will analyse the possibilities of producing such productions on a large scale and investigate possible new programme formats that arise from the result. The intended outcome during the USED project is to have the project plan for the pilot ready. The project will employ home archives in combination with public media archives and circulate them in three spheres: peer-to-peer, on the net and on broadcast media.
Short bio
Susanna Koskinen has worked in the fields of visual arts, new media and documentary filmmaking. She has studied in the University of Art and Design Helsinki in the Departments of Photography, Film and Television and the Media Lab, with additional studies in the Academy of Fine Arts. She graduated in 1998 with Trekker (1997), a documentary film gaining several recognitions in festivals around Europe. Within visual arts she has mainly focused on participatory projects, interactive works or projects in public space, often contesting the borderline between an art project and a community initiative. Tuote Cultural Dairy project in Savonlinna 1996-97 was an urban intervention aiming to create cultural discussion and activities around a local urban planning topic. Since 1998 Susanna has worked in the field of new media. She was project manager in UIAH Media Lab research project Mediaspaces in 2001-02. Recent projects include a web documentary, produced for m-cult, that utilizes semantic annotation of documentary footage to create dynamic online short movies.
Links
Rajapinnalla/Thresholders: http://www.m-cult.org/rajapinnalla/
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