Storytelling

I came in earlier this afternoon to set up my office. Looks like I'm all set. About 80 of my books about art, technology, performance, and sociology (plus a good selection of my books from childhood!) are on display and ready for sharing. Next week, a space at the back of the second floor will open up where Donna will be moving her current workspace into. Then I'll move into hers.

I met Alma Quinto---who conducts workshops with marginalized communities---this afternoon, and she pointed out something that I started to realize about early last week and now is so obvious I can't understand why I've never said it out loud: visualizing psychological data as I did in Hello Manila can be used to aid in the telling of a story. Again, this is another way to use this technology for advocacy.

It seems that one of the questions is, "How is data visualization useful? Can it be a tool for telling stories that will move people to action, or change the way they look at the world? Or can it be a tool for telling their own stories?"

~

Ok, so here's what will have to happen. I will have to use this residency to work on the interactive project that film scholar and colleague Jasmine Trice has proposed we work on for our presentation in the Annual Southeast Asian Cinema Conference this November. In a nutshell, it's a map of Filipino independent cinema, but with critical perspectives. I think first thing I need is to put down a set of requirement specifications. Then I'll have to look at the different APIs that I would need to use. Programmableweb.com will be probably be invaluable. Then I would also need to take a look at existing data: how well can we populate this visualization with data that already exists? I will really need to talk with other film makers.

(Damn, I should have gone to .MOV! I've been so exhausted with teaching my class that I didn't make it to a single night.)

VISIT THE INVISIBLE, VISIBLE WEBSITE FOR THE SCHEDULE OF EVENTS AND FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS RESIDENCY