Publish! was convened by Media Futures’s Nico MacDonald and Laura North in partnership with Tracey Guiry of Cyprus Well, in collaboration with Plymouth University and funded by NESTA. The one-day conference brought together authors, artists, publishing houses, academia and digital entrepreneurs, speakers and delegates from across the breadth of publishing and beyond.

The conference posed the question, “Can innovation invigorate the book and the publishing industries?” Innovation was debated in terms of the form and content of the book.  Far from the death of the printed the book, print can be a partner of digital, as demonstrated by Meg Geldens of Touch Press, where iPad apps are stimulating demand for printed versions of the titles. The digital can be seen to extend user interaction with the use of sound, image and game play, creating greater accessibility and the potential of multiple presentations of content in a variety of formats that may be print, ebooks, games, ‘mixed reality’ or cross-platform.

A central theme of Publish! was the adoption of appropriate and sustainable business models to underpin the creation and distribution of digital practices. Authors, small start-ups and representatives from established publishing houses discussed their current and newly launched innovative solutions that included subscription, streamed content, pay-per-page and partnership with content owners/ownership of content.

The conference was structured as five themed sessions. ‘Innovation and the Book’ began the day by offering a review of the current state of the publishing industry in the UK. Alistair Horne of Cambridge University Press presented an overview of his findings from the report Future of Publishing, commissioned for the conference. Horne argued for practical strategies that could be applied within the publishing industry: (i) Skills: addressing the current digital skills shortage within the publishing industry. (ii) Processes: traditional publishing processes do not work for digital publishing (iii) Reading: taking advantage of the additional functionality of digital and extending content (iv) Relationships: developing partnerships between businesses, small start-ups and publishing houses to help obviate the dominance of Amazon, Apple and Google.

Future speculator Richard Higham considered how digital technologies will continue to affect the publishing industry, particularly in terms of the format of the book, its functionality and the delivery of content to customers through serialization, streaming or as stand-alone apps.

Michael Kowalski, CEO of Contentment, formally of Guardian Online, illustrated the practical constraints posed by digital formats – containers for the book. Device sizes, orientation and the particularities of coding, Kowalski argued, pose challenges and opportunities for publishers, authors and designers.

The second session ‘Making Money from Digital’ showcased current work in digital publishing, hosted by Haidee Bell of NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.

Anna Lewis from the start-up company CompletelyNovel.com demonstrated VALOBOX, software, currently in beta, that offers a method for monetising ebooks on a pay-as-you-go basis. Readers pay 10 cents per page and can then embed and distribute content across social media platforms. Questions from the audience raised the concern that content would be freely distributed, without any return for the publisher. Lewis responded by arguing that if the reader enjoyed the freely distributed page they would pay for the section, chapter or rest of the book.

Meg Geldens of Touch Press demonstrated the award winning iPad The Waste Land and also Gems & Jewels, The Solar System and the recently published Skulls. Touch Press specialize in multi-layered apps that offer in-depth content with high production values that aim to have a universal appeal often with an educational emphasis. The visual aesthetic, as Geldens described is, of a coffee-table book. Touch Press http://www.touchpress.com/ take a partnership approach working with content owners such as publishers, universities, music companies and museums. The apps retail at the high end of the market. Geldens reported that the production costs were between $40,000 $50,000 for Touch Press’s early iPad Apps reaching to $100,000 for current projects. The app Solar System sales generated revenue of $700,000, The Waste Land $100,000 (after Apple’s percentage).

Printing over a million books a year Charles Catton describes the business Amber Books as an illustrated book packager. Catton argues that one of the strengths of the business is the company’s ownership of the content copyright that enables cost effective cross-platform distribution. Content may appear as printed illustrated books, sticker books and apps or ebooks. Amber Books apps offer a range of complexity and user interaction that include the low-cost top trumps format of Dragons to medium market apps that utilise animated maps, quizzes, text, animation, such as Human Body and D-Day Landing.

The third session of the day ‘Pioneers or Playing it Safe’ hosted by Suzanne Kavanagh of Skillset introduced three speakers who offered their approaches to thinking about business, publishing and creativity. Dean Johnson of Brandwidth discussed how to get your app noticed and promoted by Apple in a crowded App Store market by creating apps that showcase the capabilities of Apple’s technology. Johnson also argued that the TV would play a greater role in publishing in the future as another platform from which apps and other content will be viewed.

Erica Wolfe-Murray of Lola Media discussed her approach to business innovation by identifying a company’s or individual’s often overlooked assets and repurposing these assets as new business opportunities. This may involve recognizing untapped skills, material or intellectual property rights that have yet to be fully utilised.

Naomi Alderman, the novelist, journalist and games writer advocated writing for multiple platforms. Alderman’s recent app for iPhone and Android, Zombies Run! is a running game financed by Kickstarter, raising £70,000 in pre-order sales with its crowd funding mechanism.

The session ‘Inventing the Future’ asked how can we make money from digital. Hosted by Adam Gordon of Future Savvy, speakers Dave Addey of Agant, Chris Book of Bardowl and Matt Marsh of Firsthand Experience discussed their company’s approaches and products. Dave Addey of Agant advocated apps that fill-in dead time and build upon and extend content with existing value, such as their TV tie-in the QI iPhone app and the innovative Malcolm Tucker the Missing Phone iPhone app. The BBC political satire The Thick of It moves from screen to lived experience in the aforementioned app, implicating the user into the story with ‘real’ voicemail messages from the characters played by the on-screen actors.

Chris Book of Bardowl declares the audio book “…as a hugely important niche…” and advocates its reinvention with a shift in the business model from single purchases to a subscription model of streamed content. Bardowl’s model allocates revenue proportionately to authors linked to the number of minutes titles are streamed. Data concerning minutes streamed, sections of books most read and reader comments, informs authors and publishers. Book advocates using social media to promote audio titles through Twitter provide links to free samples of audio books. Celebrity readers and endorsement of titles, he suggests, are also important marketing tools.

Matt Marsh of Firsthand Experience described the role of ethnographic research and it’s importance in the design process of the development of the first E-reader. Ethnographic research, Marsh considers, is essential to understanding what he considers to be the key issues: what people really want, when does reading comfort really matter, if annotation is required, the size of memory required and the kinds of services that should sit behind E-readers.

The final session of the day ‘How to Innovate’ was chaired by Paul Squires of Perera accompanied by the speakers Dr.Tom Abba of University of the West of England, David Burton of RedWeb and Professor Mike Phillips of i-DAT, Plymouth University.

Dr.Tom Abba of University of the West of England asked what is the relationship between form and content. Abba argued that digital changes the way that we write and read. The printed text is fixed whereas the reader of the digital text does not necessarily know the scale of the writing. These ideas are themes in Abba’s creative work, he suggests, “…find the corners of a text, like a jigsaw [that] shows the edges of what is there…”

David Burton of the Bristol-based award winning web design company RedWeb discusses the value of hack-projects, in-house exercises that ask his employees “…to get together and build cool stuff…”, by developing creative and fun solutions to problems.  Burton argues that the time set aside for these projects allow his employees to take risks, make mistakes and be inventive and that this has positive benefits by fostering a culture of innovation within the company.

Professor Mike Phillips of Plymouth University gave an overview of some recent projects within i-DAT citing Bio-OS.org – the real-time feed of data collected from the body as a source of material. It has multiple potential uses and is currently utilised within the project for generating new forms of interaction in stories and games. Phillips identified uncertainty as an important factor in innovation and advocated sustained research within academia and industry.

Publish! A Day of Innovation on the Future of the Book, offered a broad range of speakers, approaches and practice that was reflected by an equally diverse audience. The key messages emerging from the day were that there is no single answer to innovation and the future of the book but many possible and approaches. The future is not bleak but to the contrary, there is room in the present and emerging markets for the future of the book to be many things: written and illustrated content can be for a mass market or niche; content may be of varying quality and production values; revenue may be generated in large or small increments commensurate with the product and mode of delivery. The delivery of content should be in forms appropriate to the audience that meshes with their behaviour and expectations on and offline.

Authors and publishers should be prepared to innovate with the form and content of the book and it’s mode of distribution. Business models should be appropriate to the digital product and processes, rather than relying upon those established within print industry. The future of the book may not be book-shaped but it will be as multifarious and dynamic as the producers and promoters of its content.

“Make a game for the Science Museum in our first Games Jam. Pervasive and live gamers from Blast Theory, Coney and Hide and Seek give quick fire talks to set you off into the field of gaming.

Work with curators and live gamers to deliver an experiential game for the weekend of PLAYER festival on 1 and 2 October and for a chance to win the Science Museum’s PLAYER Award 2011.

Speakers:

Holly Gramazio, Hide and Seek

Tassos Stevens, Coney

Matt Adams, Blast Theory

A Science Museum event, produced by Trigger

Tickets £5,

To book please call general museum booking number 0870 870 4868 please note there is a £1 booking fee”

“Blending secret missions and high adrenalin, you will be in an interactive heist movie playing the lead role. It takes part in the streets of Brighton and is played through your mobile phone and your mind!”  Blast Theory http://www.brightondome.org/events/Blast-Theory—A-Machine-To-See-With/4336

A heist is taking place and you are implicated.

Outside the disused theatre, boarded-up, you wait. Glancing around you notice fast walking shoppers and a few metres to your left, clasping bottles, a group of red-faced men roll around on the pavement. The mobile rings, it is a recorded message from Machine to See With and warning that you are responsible for your own actions, legal or illegal (?). The voice informs you that you are being watched, that cameras are trained and following your every move.  With the phone pinned to your ear you are given directions to walk, first right, then through a passageway, down streets, across roads. Now locked inside a toilet cubicle, the recorded voice at the end of the phone conducts a psychometric test.

Your answers will have a bearing on your role in the heist. You hide money about your person. You can hear those oblivious to your mission, queuing outside the door. Now you are set apart from the world around you, trying to act normal. It begins. On the top floor of the multistory car park, you look down to the city below and skulk between parked cars. You are looking for a registration number, a BMW. You are supposed to get into the car. Alarm bells are ringing. Are you on CCTV? It’s not your car, what’s/who’s inside? What’s going to happen next? Is this safe??? You circle around the edge of the car park discreetly watching the car and thinking, if I get in the car others will see me? Minutes pass. A man in a black jacket walks swiftly towards the car. He opens the driver’s door and gets in. You press ‘1’ on your phone to indicate that this has occurred. Walking towards the car you make the decision and get into the passenger seat. Glancing towards the driver you say ‘hello’. Phones ring. You are told that you and the driver are partners in the heist. Your partner tells you his plan. He seems to have it all worked out. Should you go along with his plan? Offer other suggestions? There is no time for this because you now you must run down to the fourth floor and look over the parapet. Your partner emerges on the street. You can see the entrance to the bank and your partner has disappeared. Later – you are now running away from your partner, he must not see where you have gone, you must make your way to the next location. Later – with the sense that the end is in sight, you are standing outside of the amusement arcade clutching the money and deciding which person to give it to…

Blast Theory’s Interactive Locative Narrative, A Machine to See With places you as a lead character in classic film heist. Popular culture so steeped in the conventions of the genre, make a prescribed back-story unnecessary. It is assumed that the participant will draw upon their ‘storehouse’ of scenarios, prompted by the familiar signifiers of the mastermind masked behind recorded messages, the division between the state and the underworld, the public and the agent and the dual identity of the streets.

Blast Theory’s  A Machine To See With has a maximum number of six participants beginning every fifteen minutes at individual places in the city. A recorded message gives directions towards a number of key locations, at which participants arrive at staggered times. The drama is structured as a series participant/location specific nodes and core nodes. At particular times it appears that a participant’s actions cause a particular character role and subsequent story trajectory to come into effect, for example, by selecting an appropriate number on their mobile to indicate if they have got into the driver’s seat, the passenger seat or not got into the car. The short psychometric test is apparently used to identify your personality type and your subsequent role in the heist. The experience is that of an emergent narrative, partially determined by role-playing and following instructions and partially, it seems, based on chance, which participant arrives at a location at the same time as another.

Interaction occurs by pressing buttons on the mobile to indicate when an action has happened, or when another participant is present, walking/acting in the location and potentially conferring with others. Some participants are also asked to devise plans, coming up with an escape route or deciding on what to ‘steal’ from the bank.

Immersion in the experience is predominately dependent upon the participant’s willingness to role-play. The use of the mobile phone is successfully integrated into the experience as a legitimate ‘prop’ of a character involved in a heist. Unlike many locative narrative experiences, the presence of the devise is not incongruous within the story-world nor does usability break the suspension of disbelief. The ability to replay the last message by dialing the number is an important feature especially as the spoken instructions are the only method of navigating through the city and the story.

In an informal debrief with participants Phil and Becky, the overall impressions Machine to See With was of an engaging and immersive experience peppered with real tension. When the rules of everyday behaviour were challenged, receiving secret messages in a toilet cubicle, hiding in a car park and getting into an unknown car, greater immersion in both the role-playing and story was evoked. The duration of Machine to See With was approximately an hour. It was generally felt that it could have been extended and that the ending came too soon (with possibly an anticlimax). There were a number of elements that did not seem to develop on this particular occasion, for example, the escape plans were not used or mentioned again. Further connections between the participants would have added another dimension to the experience.

A participant that had taken part on a different day reported that the experience was marred by the fact that their starting time occurred after the bank to be robbed had closed and this rendered some of the story impossible.

A Machine To See With offered a generally carefully constructed and well-produced Interactive Locative Narrative experience. Drawing upon the cinematic conventions of the heist, Brighton is augmented by the disembodied voice that successfully performs your transformation into a gangster, if only for an hour.

ACE 2011 conference International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technologies
8-11 November, 2011, Lisbon, Portugal

Tutorial – Introduction to Interactive Story Creation with Generative Tools and Systems

Tutorial Organisers: Ulrike Spierling, Steve Hoffmann, Nicolas Szilas

“Abstract:

The tutorial covers basics of conception and processing of interactive stories by making use of generative tools and systems. It can also serve as a general introduction to AI-based Interactive Digital Storytelling (AI = Artificial Intelligence). AI-based story engines are able to support meaningful responses to player interactions within an interactive discourse, by generating new courses of events on the fly.

Participants learn about novel creative principles for interactive story formalization and abstraction. This includes thinking of acting situations and conditions for narrative actions and events, categorizing actions and events of a storyworld in abstraction layers and approaching story creation in terms of modeling a dynamic system. We show three kinds of such formalizations: a) abstraction of conversational material, b) modeling a storyworld by goals, tasks and obstacles, and c) modeling a database of dramatic actions with their occurrence conditions and effects, suited to be processed by planning software.

Target group:

Game designers, authors and creators of interactive media and games, who are familiar with basic story creation principles.

Take away:

Attendees gain insights into novel technical approaches of several story engines that are presented in an introductory and low-tech way. Simple versions of these engines are made available for exercises. Even in case these engines are not in the scope of being used by participants, the principles may help to improve story structuring for interactive performances.” Ulrike Spierling, Steve Hoffmann, Nicolas Szilas

Email: tutorial@interactive-storytelling.com

Registration:

Attendees must be registered at the ACE 2011 main conference in order to attend the Tutorial. Please register via the ACE conference registration form at http://ace2011.org/

Centred upon research funded by Plymouth University HELP CETL, a master class in Interactive Locative Narrative took place on the 14 June 2011, with Emma Whittaker and lecturers in education, creative writing, computer science and media arts from Plymouth University and UPC. Placed in the context of media, literary and dramatic theory and practice, the day offered creative ideas and practical strategies for the development of ILNs with undergraduate arts students.

For information and resources concerning Interactive Locative Narrative development, or integration within the arts curricula please see the Resources page or contact Emma Whittaker for further information.

Cold Case 1866 from emma whittaker on Vimeo.

An Interactive Locative Narrative created by Emma Whittaker in collaboration with iPhone App developer James Brocklehurst and FdA Performing Arts & Events Management students at South Devon College, UK. Funded by Plymouth University HELP CETL Teaching Fellowship 2010/11 www.coldcase1866.org

Photograph courtesy of Jill Drysdale & Totnes Museum

‘Cold Case 1866′ an Interactive Locative Narrative

‘Cold Case 1866′ is an Interactive Locative Narrative (ILN), based on the real unsolved murder in Totnes in 1866. Follow the Exeter Flying Post reporter, Florence Luscombe, as she investigates.  See www.coldcase1866.org to read Florence’s notebook and search for clues.

Experience the ‘Cold Case 1866′ drama live on the streets of Totnes, Devon, UK, on Saturday 9 April, 2.00 – 5.00pm . Download the free application to your GPS enabled iPhone or basic version for any MP3 player, in advance of the event, available from www.coldcase1866.org

‘Cold Case 1866’ has been created by researcher Emma Whittaker with the Foundation Degree Performance and Events Management students at South Devon College. The script for ‘Cold Case 1866’ was written by second year student, Louis Brzozka. The story is based on the article, Murder on the Race Course, by historian Jill Drysdale (2009). The interactive narrative was performed and produced by first year students. The iPhone App has been developed by James Brocklehurst

‘Cold Case 1866’ forms part of the research conducted by Emma Whittaker concerning Developing Interactive Narratives for Mobile Technologies within Arts Education, funded by The University of Plymouth HELP CETL.

Drysdale, J. 2009. ‘Murder on the Racecourse’. In: Totnes Review. Winter No.5.

What is an ILN?

An interactive locative narrative is a story (or information) that is set in a specific physical location and whose narrative sequence is affected by the participant’s choices.

How does an Interactive Locative Narrative Work?

The audience downloads the ILN onto their GPS enabled iPhone/Android. The ILN can consist of audio and still images/graphics. At a predetermined location the audience hears/watches a segment of audio and graphics, referred to as a story node (or scene). The participant is then offered a choice of how the story should develop and where the participant should walk to next. On the arrival at the next location, GPS triggers another story node and the participant is offered another choice.

High up on the windy cliff of the North Devon coast at Morte Hoe, a truly immersive narrative event plunges the participant into the eighteenth century world of wrecking.

The user is given a map and a handheld GPS enabled device. Simple audio instructions are delivered by the voice of an elderly man. The screen interface evokes an antique document and simply requests that the user begins walking. Logically, it would seem ludicrous that a twenty-first century artifact should allude to an object from another century, but equipment’s presence begins to disappear as the user starts to walk and the tune of a sea shanty arises.

The story begins: cast in the role of the lead protagonist’s friend, the user finds themselves amid a feverish and hurrying procession of villagers making their way towards the sea. We are going to take part in a wrecking, but this is no straightforward business. Characters approach us and their stories reveal themselves, as does the nature of the community and life in this place. We become aware of the different moral dimensions present within the story.

What transforms ‘Ship Around’ from a well-written thirty-minute historical play to an immersive experience, are the high production values of the audio. The sound world appears to surround you. The impending King’s horses galloping from the distance, intensity mounts, and their neighing can be heard close by. A voice shouts and you feel yourself swinging round and jumping out of the way. Recorded effects blend with location’s ambient sound, sheep baa-ing, seagulls calling. This creates what Jon Dovey, of University of West of England, calls ‘magic moments’, the blending of the real and fictional world. These moments act as portals, shifting you in to a parallel world.

The story offers some interaction with the narrative in the form choices that the user can make for the main character. The options are not central to the plot and have limited influence on the trajectory of the narrative. This is a minor feature of ‘Ship Aground’ that could be developed, adding another layer to the experience. The main interactive component of the narrative is the GPS that triggers the story component in accordance to where the user is standing. The user is encouraged to ‘see’ the ship broken up on the rocks beneath them, and the cogence between the story and location is not affected by the speed at which the user walks. The scale of the location means that ‘Ship Aground’ does not suffer from ‘drift’ – a misalignment of story components and the correct location.

‘Ship Aground’ offers an interactive experience whose sound writing offers a nuanced picture of the emotive subject of wrecking. The effective use of illusionary devices immerse the user, transported through time to experience first-hand the violent history of this now tranquil place. ‘Ship Aground’ is created by the Bristol based company, Interactive Places, for the National Trust. Handheld devices and earphones can be hired at the Morte Hoe Heritage Centre.