NARRAHAND

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Keywords

mobile phones, collaborative fiction, wiki-based narrative, GPS narrative, locative media, identity, shared authorship

Overview

We explore the making of a collaborative fictional narrative on GPS mobile phones authored by young adult African immigrants in Oslo. A wiki is used to link online reflections on shared making and use.

Aims

- to develop a wiki and GPS platform for the development of a mobile narrative system
- to build a jointly authored collaborative locative fiction work
- to establish core concepts and design patterns in production based research into shared meaning making via mobile technologies
- to study wiki-based reflections on collaborative construction, identity and mediation.

Drawing on a sociocultural perspective and social semiotics of Communication Design, research is being carried out into collaborative, mobile authoring, genre and GPS based narratives, identity and wiki-based meta reflection.

Methods

Based on a wiki and programmed in JAVA NarraHand makes use of contemporary maps and a metaphorical, poetic visual overlay. It encompasses a variety of media types. Seen as a digital design experiment, the collaborative fiction is accessible on smartphones (with GPS) as well s via a Web-based wiki. In the latter it is posibble for a wider public to both access the narrative an to add comments. The makers of NarraHand also use the wiki to reflect on their design and collaborative processes of mediated meaning making. Production based inquiry sits behind the development of Narrahand as do the changing kinetic and locative practices of multimodal multimediational literacies.

Partners

IntermediaLab, Faster Imaging, KHiO, TransActions Group, INVENTIO project 

Duration

2006- 2009 

Outcomes

- mobile GPS based collaborative fiction
- wiki-centred online mediation and site for wider reflection
- research papers. 

Related projects

INVENTIO, MULTIMO

Funding

Intermedia, INVENTIO (Research Council of Norway)