The Center for Research in Arts and Communication (CIAC) of the University of Algarve has launched the book “The Forking Paths: Interactive Film and Media”, a work resulting from the joint work between researchers from this center and «some of the world's leading film and media specialists Interactive'.
According to the University of Algarve (UAlg), this book, whose electronic version is already available on the CIAC website, «revisits historically, socially, pedagogically and aesthetically the last 50 years of audiovisual interactivity», while «pointing to a hypothetical future of cinema».
The project “The Forking Paths” began in 2013, “when a group of researchers from the Center began a theoretical-practical research process in the area of filmic interactivity”.
«Since then, dozens of scientific publications have been written and four interactive film experiences have been produced that were featured in leading international festivals such as FILE, in São Paulo, Brazil, or Script Road, in Macau, China», states the UAlg.
In 2021, there was a meeting between CIAC researchers and world experts in interactive film and media, which resulted in this work.
«Claudia Giannetti gives us an insight into the background and evolution of interactive audiovisual from the early 70s to the first decade of this century. Jeffrey Shaw presents us with the visionary text “Future Cinema”, written precisely 20 years ago and now revised, which impresses for its timeliness and the way it remaps and redirects the history of cinema», reveals the university.
Peter Lunenfeld, on the other hand, «writes about the multimedia immersion and pedagogy project entitled “Colloidal Suspension: Immersion and the Pedagogies of Making”».
In the chapter “Remediation or specificity? Interactive digital narrative and other interactive forms as continuation or new beginning”, Hartmut Koenitz “inaugurates an important discussion around the issue of conceptual framing of interactive digital narratives”.
«The last chapter, written by CIAC researchers Bruno Mendes da Silva, Mirian Tavares, António Araújo and Susana Costa, relates filmic interactivity with surrealism and temporal perception, by presenting and contextualizing, in the history of cinema and interactive film, the production of the last interactive artifact of the Forking Paths: Cadavre Exquis project, launched in 2019», adds UAlg.
For the authors of the book, with the advent of artificial intelligence «it is foreseen a possibility of breaking with the issue of pre-established contents, related to the real image, enabling the emergence of a new generation of interactive films».
«Soon, the viewer will be able to gain creative powers that are beyond their control and the control of the original author. There is talk of a generation of unpredictable content and of film as a total audiovisual experience», they anticipate.
This book is edited by CIAC vice-coordinator, Bruno Mendes da Silva, and researcher Jorge Carrega.
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