Posts By: Amy Spencer

Script development and the web series – an Australian perspective

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Reading Time: 9 minutes Online viewing of Australian-made comedy content has emerged as a strong rival for Australian-made television. Screen Australia, the federal screen agency, has ploughed millions of dollars into the development of online content, mainly comedy, and this has been mirrored by state, and territory, based screen agencies and national broadcasters. Hit shows such as Superwog (2017-2018),… Read more »

Hands Up for Digital Humanities – When Humanists Go Off-Piste

Reading Time: 7 minutes Welcome to the fourth article in this series where we’re dissecting the multifarious entity of Digital Humanities (DH). To understand the context and scope of this series, and to consider the research questions upon which the investigation is based, please view the previous articles here, here and here. We’ll also be referring to my online survey Hands Up for… Read more »

Opportunity: AI Story Lab

Reading Time: 2 minutes From talking to Alexa, to using virtual reality and tech in immersive theatre, to the way we interact with characters in games, to innovations in TV narrative such as Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch, a revolution in creating stories and characters is underway. This revolution is driven by AI (Artificial Intelligence). Innovation in machine learning will see… Read more »

Where Is The Bird? – A Story of Augmenting Reality

Reading Time: 5 minutes Where Is The Bird? is the first augmented reality storybook to promote British Sign Language as a language for deaf and hearing children alike. Combining animated Augmented Reality (AR), video and audio with traditional print media, it endeavours to create an immersive multimedia storybook. By turning the pages the reader can find and ‘awaken’ magical… Read more »

Beyond the Book: The Beginning

Reading Time: 8 minutes Paper Nations, a South West England-based creative writing incubator dedicated to diversity and innovation, has commissioned three writers with links to the region to develop exciting and experimental writing projects that use smartphone technologies to tell immersive stories. Led by Bambo Soyinka, Professor of Story at Bath Spa University, Paper Nations promotes collaboration across all… Read more »

An Interview With: Mez Breeze

Reading Time: 10 minutes Mez Breeze is one of the leading innovators in the fields of experimental storytelling and virtual reality literature. Her work has heralded new ways of making and collaborating for creators, and her ethos and politics demonstrate ethical practices for all creative practitioners.  In 2019 Mez was awarded the Marjorie C. Luesebrink Career Achievement Award to honour… Read more »


Bringing short story form into the 21st century: a call for bold and inspiring ideas

Reading Time: 3 minutes Storytelling forms an integral part of our understanding of the world. Historically, traditional literary forms saw us give entirely to the storyteller as a submissive listener, but with the rise of technology and an ever-growing experience economy we are leaning more and more towards active consumption. Theatre, traditionally seen as a passive experience, is rapidly… Read more »

Leaving Space at the Table

Reading Time: 5 minutes Democracy is starting to feel uncomfortable. In 2016, we saw the rise of the ‘silent majority’ with Trump, Brexit, and the return of One Nation. In the most recent Australian election, all of our polling was proven wrong with another surprise victory going to the major right-wing party. It doesn’t matter how often this same… Read more »

The Fantastia Express

Reading Time: 6 minutes This is an article about an augmented reality practice-based research project, The Fantasia Express, commissioned by the UK Department for Transport through an InnovateUK competition. And about how a non-writer tried to create a story around a train journey from London to Edinburgh. I am an artist who specialises in technology-driven public realm work that… Read more »