New Screen Media

The advent of new media presents a serious challenge to our understanding of visual representation, of narrative and indeed the whole art of the moving image. New narrative forms in hypertext, multimedia, computer games, interactive broadcast and screen media are constantly redefining the relationship between the creators of content and their audiences, who increasingly are becoming the co-producers of meaning. 

This publication juxtaposes the work of leading cultural theorists and philosophers of new media, against creative artists' attempts to accommodate to these new vehicles of content. The book shows how classical narrative in many areas has been giving way to a new, more fragmentary culture of drama. It re-purposes the use of critical tools for discussing the inner design and immersive effects of the new media forms and its social, political and cultural contexts. Alongside a discussion of how these new stories relate to issues of identity and the body, restructured temporal and spatial models and interfaces, the book explores differing creative platforms such as the Internet, Media Installation, Interactive Broadcast, CD-ROM and Expanded Cinema. The artists, themselves exploring innovative solutions, critically examine their own practice, with a special focus on fiction-based forms of interaction. 

This unique volume is presented with an accompanying DVD-ROM, featuring extracts from some of the groundbreaking works discussed by leading media theorists from Europe and the USA, including: Annika Blunck, Alex Butterworth, Sean Cubitt, Söke Dinkla, Jon Dovey, Timothy Druckrey, Malcolm Le Grice, Lev Manovich, Peter Weibel, Paul Willemen and John Wyver. 

DVD-ROM: Made in conjunction with the ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany, this unique addition to the book provides a rich sampler of interactive work and videos by which to explore the experimental territory, where the cinematic and digital arts are converging in new forms of narrative. Such work has usually been shown in international gallery and conference venues, which have been inaccessible to a general audience. This compilation is carefully cross-referenced with the book to open a comprehensive overview to a wider public. 

The cross-platform DVD-ROM provides up to 4 Gigabytes of detailed illustration and analysis of the work of artists and interactive filmmakers from around the world, who are at the cutting-edge in creating and critiquing these new hybrid forms of interactive narrative. Practitioners such as: Zoe Beloff, Michael Buckley, Luc Courchesne, Toni Dove, Ken Feingold, Chris Hales, Graham Harwood, George Legrady, Martin Rieser, Jill Scott, Bill Seaman, Jeffrey Shaw, Eku Wand, Grahame Weinbren and Andrea Zapp are featured.