#metamedia

This was one of my most complete interventions to date.

The reason I say this is because of the multiple issues it tackled. It provided me with a good foundation to see the validity of this in the future. Why is that important for me?

Well, ever since I started doing workshops with the drama society, ever since I started reading on empathy, I started seeing the potential of applying my learning to external groups and audiences.

After the intervention, my research question changed slightly, into:

How can we use metamedia narratives as a catalyst for creating stronger empathic connections in the future?

The reason I introduced the word CATALYST in there is because it is a very assertive, hands-on word, suggesting change in a very active way. I kept the word future because I want to show that I am thinking of carrying this research and experimentation after the course comes to an end.

This intervention not only proved the validity and necessity of it, but showed me as a researcher, the universal language of interaction, storytelling and play. Of course, language in communication is fundamental in building any kind of connection, but there we were, in a room full of individuals from all over the world, connecting on multiple levels of cognition. Connecting on various emotional levels, empathising towards an imaginary dead man, crying over the loss of a girl that never existed, feeling worried and confused about the burning of a building that never happened.

I am aware that immersive theatre, role play and all these techniques exist. I am aware that this is very much making reference to such techniques that have been around for a while now. The only difference with my focus and direction is in the element of storytelling and narrative: I am adopting these forms, these METAMEDIA forms, to find a more real, engaging, empathic way of narrating personal experiences. New ways of connecting with different cultures and age groups, because it is a loose, fun form of role-playing with the intention of bringing people closer together.

After having iterated and reflected upon 4 interventions, there were moments were I tried to control certain situations. Dealing with human interaction is something very hard to control, specifically when it is individuals from different generations, where the communication and even usage of language is different every time. I guess that is part of my research objective, right? When talking about intergenerational communication, it is because of the current ‘difficulty’ or indifference towards this connection, which is vital in understanding more about our individual selves.

Through my interventions, there were certainly moments of impact: dealing with human emotion, breakthroughs in realizing the power memory has in storytelling, or the transmission of other people’s stories through different lens: how does that feel? The true impact can be shown in the way people express themselves once the intervention is over. Every time they finished participating, there were thoughts, questions, curiosities. In intervention 2, the young generation (ages 10-18) was particularly interesting: I could see they were trying to answer what I thought would be ‘right’, but also they were so curious to see the objects they had heard their grandparents narrate on the recordings. One girl felt guilty for not knowing more about her grandmother’s valuable object, apologizing for not showing interest before. These kind of interactions were very unexpected, and also very personal to the individual’s experience.

I quickly saw that every participant was very influenced by their surroundings, which were never controlled (almost all my interventions took place in uncontrolled environments, where distractions came easy). This also instantly revealed people’s personality and even identity traits: I was fascinated by how some people took the ‘instructions’ very seriously, while others were distracted, or casually did it without much thought, or actually simply did not care. I think this is the result of trying to measure emotion and engagement, very in a way, abstract and humane factors.

Some times it has been easier, because of the openness of the participants, and sharing very clearly what they felt (reflection round in intervention 1). Other times, it was through their actions that I could understand their empathetic nature (like in the funeral scene of intervention 4).

Under different circumstances, I might have created a written feedback form or some sort of reflective thing that the participants could take their time understanding and that could serve as proper feedback, helping me understand whether metamedia narratives built closer, empathetic connections or not.

Due to a big shift in perception towards my research methods and the way of I was experiencing and perceiving my topic, I felt as though the RQ:

How can trans-media narratives preserve older generations’ experiences?

was no longer relevant to what I was aiming to investigate. Of course, the older generations’ experiences is one of the key points of my study and interest, but should it really be in the research question?

I went back to my notes when I first started researching on the topic, to see the words I used to describe sources and notes that fascinated me. What I found out was the very prevalent word EMPATHY written in almost every mind-map I made. I thought to myself, why is it I am not using this term anymore? Something so universal and relevant, you cannot miss the word empathy when reading about migration stories, connecting cultures, identity and anything related to contemporary anthropology really.

Empathy is now shown to be a necessity in the ever changing world of business and economy; as everything becomes automated, people desire to connect to their human senses and humane needs, and that is often related to basic human communication and direct connection.

As this ‘re-introduction’ of empathy took place, I was also starting to doubt the use of transmedia narratives. I was not convinced with transmedia, because of its usage on a wider scale. I was looking for creating a new word using media, something that refers to the connection of different media, but also that through media itself, there is a story. This search reminded me of the time I read Marshall McLuhan’s book, ‘the medium is the massage’ where he made a whole book using the book to tell the story, having the message and the form exist parallel tell the story similtaneously.

I thought of hypermedia as a new term, but then it reminded me too much of hyperreality, VR and AR technologies and I wanted it to not immediately relate to the form. Then, I thought of metamedia (as meta in greek refers to after or across/ within, and in the English language, it is used when referring to the media form within the form it is been used: e.g. when a plot of the film makes reference to the film itself as a form).

Googling the term, I found Lev Manovich.

Metamedia is used to show the new relationships between form and content emerging from new technologies. This term was first introduced by Lev Manovich in 1999, in the context of analysing the new wave of media:

The new avant-garde is no longer concerned with seeing or representing the world in new ways but rather with accessing and using in new ways previously accumulated media. In this respect new media is post-media or meta-media, as it uses old media as its primary material.

Of course, the usage of the term is very different, different time, different context. But I was pleased to see it doesn’t have much use today, because I wanted to take its principal meaning, and shift it to make sense to my process.

The question I will work on for my last intervention will be:

How can we use metamedia narratives to inform the building of an empathic future?

G designed a gamified, interactive workshop, or in performance terms, LARP (live-action role play), for the actors of Drama Society, with the aim of understanding the different levels of interaction and immersiveness whilst being part of the experience. They got to experience the ‘game’ as a visitor would be asked for tasks and clues while trying to find specific people within a crowd they do not know.

This LARP has been adapted from G’s original immersive play called Katipuneros RPG, which tells the story of Filipinos forming a secret organization, the Katipunan, to rebel against the Spanish regime who had conquered their land. This was part of his action research and experimental testing to see whether such forms of interactive, dynamic and gamified narrative would make individuals more interested in Filipino history, and hence creating a new term called ‘Playfull tourism’.

In yesterday’s workshop, he adapted his play within the confines of a small studio space, and for only 20 people instead of the regular 200. It was interesting to see how people reacted and engaged with one another, as it was the first time I had worked together with G in assisting and facilitating the storytelling.

I take this experience as a great exercise and practice for my own process; even if immersive theatre is not necessarily the defined form I am using, metamedia forms do play with immersive experiences and participants get involved through sensorial inputs or engage in other ways. Through yesterday’s workshop, with actors who were open to trying new things, I discovered that no matter what the context is, with simple tasks, people can soon immerse themselves and follow each other at ’solving’/ discovering what they need to do. The second part of the workshop was a continuation of the play, only this scene, they were asked to wear blindfolds. When reflecting upon that, the participants mentioned the intensity of the experience, how they lost track of time and space and they were impatient to see where they would be taken next.

Dear Friends, My project Phase Shift, 2016 will be integrated in the generative arts program of this Festival.

Next 8th edition, 12th to 18th december 2016. International Festival of Creativity, Innovation & Digital Culture. ART SCIENCE INNOVATION. http://www.espacioenter.net/…/Art_Science_Innovation_genera… International Calls 2016

Hugo Paquete Portugal https://about.me/hugo.paquete

Project: Phase Shift

Author: Hugo Paquete

Technique: Generative metamedia installation and performance

Year: 2016

http://hugopaquete.tumblr.com/…/title-phase-shift-author-hu… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TqWCFVnUXo

The generative metamedia installation and performance Phase Shift (2016) explores an aesthetic interpretation and contamination between art and science, taking as reference the concept “double slit experiment” developed by the scientist Thomas Young in (1800). Back then he proposed a theory for the understating of light waves that generated interference and diffraction with each other like the sound waves, creating a light wavering pattern in a close relation between sound, matter and light. This concept is used in this project that I present as a reference for the visual constituents of the work integrated as a system of reaction in a chain of events: from image “light frequency and speed”, to computer modular programming “logical constituents”, passing to performative aspects of interaction with technology “indeterminism of the gesture and technology operatively” to the sound properties “emerging and decay of sonic events”. The objective was to approach the light frequency as a possibility to compose a generative sound composition of “non-deterministic music” which is directly linked to the frequency of the image: “light”, “speed” and “interference”, generate together a stochastic set of sonic events mediated through light sensors that trigger automatic events in a disordered module of a reactive diffusion system. Other aspect that was important in the development of this experiment is stimulate the level of the human sonic cognition and perception, the light as a sonic experience mediated and transformed through technology as a material, immanence and event. This experience is present in the limits of the visible territory of the real, as an energy or an electromagnetic field that flows in a continuum state of decay like the sound. The technology and science in this project are used as a metaphysical symbolic system passive to generate an aesthetic experience through the hyper-optical and hyper-sonic technological apparatus of the modern society and technological dispositives.

Project develop in the Atelier Salzamt, Linz: Austria.

With the suport of CreArt (Network of Cities for Artistic Creation) and European cultural fund.

Hugo Paquete resident artist in representation of Aveiro Portugal.