Transforming Literature, 7 June 2019, Milan

June 10, 2019 | james

Sally and James have just returned from an event organised by the StoryVR team at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, whose aim was to bring a wide and international range of approaches to encouraging literary engagement through digital platforms together. Federico Pianzola graciously extended an invitation after seeing the Guardian article on Litcraft (two days after James made the revised videos, luckily enough!), and the initial workshop session was an in-depth trial of the team’s exciting build, which combines audiobooks, dynamic environmental backgrounds, and (optionally) on screen text. It is a fascinating concept, and every attendee identified a range of ways in which the concept could be adapted once the core model is released.

The presentation session was a novel experience for our team, as it was undertaken in a chat-show format – hosted by digital artist Arthur Clay, with excellent talks by Wayne de Fremery, Federico and Luca Deriu, and  Natasa Milic-Frayling focused around transforming literature to provide new means of visual presentation.

The session was recorded (so we can hopefully provide a link shortly), but – as with all good events – the cohorts identified so many areas of potential future collaborations. It was an excellent session, followed by one of the best pizzas James has ever had (and that’s no small claim, from him!).

Our sincerest thanks to the StoryVR team once again, and we hope it will be the first of many such events on such an engaging area.