Humans have been telling stories for as long as we can remember but the future of storytelling and, in particular, the future of the book, may be more complex than we can imagine right now. What we do know is that since storytelling is an essential part of being human; we will certainly continue to innovate and find ways to express the stories we want to tell.
But what about the humble book? Will there still be space for books in the future?
Our speaker for November, Emma Nuttall, is a Doctoral Candidate researching emerging narrative tools for storytellers using digital platforms. Her practice-led PhD has included theatre work, she has co-written locative based experiences and produced digital fiction pieces for smartphones. And yet, she is still fairly certain that the book will stick around for a long time yet.
Her talk began by looking at exactly what a book is:
This is an important starting point for the simple reason that as writers become more experimental in their work, the boundaries of what constitutes a “book” are being pushed all the time. From cutting words and phrases out of an existing work to create a new work – a process known as erasure – to sewing sentences together to create a page, writers are playing with the notion of what a book is all the time. The introduction of digital media is giving this process even greater freedom and writers are certainly making the most of the mediums available to them.
If one genre has benefitted from the expansion of narrative mediums, it’s horror. Ghost stories are best told when they can be brought to life and many authors have used a range of techniques to do just that.
Kate Pullinger, author of Breathe, says that technology can feel possessed. This is an interesting idea, particularly when you consider that we are surrounded by cameras all the time and our lives now revolve around the tech we carry with us. It’s easy to freak out when you consider how easily we have allowed tech to seep into every aspect of our lives, though this is probably a subject for another blog later on!
That more and more people are now reading on screens, including phones, tablets and eReaders, is definitely shaping the way some writers design their method of storytelling. Stories can now be told through a series of tweets, can be delivered in bite-sized chunks through text or email and can even become interactive. A good example of this is location-based storytelling, where people gather at a particular place and receive instructions to play a part in the narrative.
Locative based storytelling is a fascinating area for study. No-one at the event will ever get the whole story and each participant is watching the story unfold while being watched by others. The location also takes the story off the page to an extent but still relies on the written word to create the story in the first place.
From locative based storytelling, it is easy to bounce into VR, AR and video games, as well as mixed media pieces and more experimental modes of storytelling. And yet, even with the sudden emergence of so many different mediums, the book, centuries old, continues to form a solid foundation for every foray into new media experiences.
Listen to the Full Talk
Reading List to Take Home
Six Conversations, Duncan Speakman
Night Film, Marisha Pessl
Death Book, Andreas Winklemann
Breathe, Kate Pullinger
The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall
Sites to Visit
https://electronicliteraturereview.org/
Our Next Event:
The Future of Personal Data: Designing a ‘Qualified Self’
https://www.meetup.com/Manchester-Futurists/events/267164054/
Manchester Futurists 