We are two academics who met in Cape Town when our children became friends. Conversations around our shared interests in history, technology and Cape Town’s District Six got us speculating about social justice pedagogies in our respective disciplines. Our preliminary discussions revealed many parallels in our approaches but also intriguing distinctions, enough to seed a… Read more »
In September 2019, five months before the pandemic, I moved to Toronto to begin a PhD at York University. I had been to the city before, and as I was a new international student I thought I would make new social connections in school. However, in February 2020 the world transformed into its virtual ‘metaverse’… Read more »
In 2021, I attended the 10 Days on the Island festival in lutruwita/Tasmania as part of a research project exploring the social impact of the creative arts in Regional Australia. On my second day at the festival, I went to a small workshop Reaching Global Audiences with Local Storytelling led by Catherine Pettman from Rummin… Read more »
Think of a song or piece of music that is important to you. What happens when you hear it? Does it take you somewhere else and bring you back? Are you saddened by it? Does it transport you away from the everyday? What is it about this song that is important? This last question lies… Read more »
It’s August 2020 in Melbourne, Australia – roughly a month into what would become one of the world’s longest COVID-19 inspired lockdowns, at 111 days. I’m out for my daily run along the Merri Creek, a serpentine trail winding through the city’s north. Normally quiet at this time of the week, it’s bustling with people,… Read more »
Walking through a city without direction and following its sounds, may uncover unknown territories of urban experience. Without a concrete navigational strategy, the listening trail might be more productive than a planned urban journey from A to B, when it comes to reconnecting with the city more intimately, heightened in a migratory context. Such a… Read more »
BBC Research and Development is the home of technological research and broadcast innovation at the BBC – behind innovations from Ceefax right up to modern day standards like UHD. One of the ways we continue to innovate is by experimenting with and exploring storytelling formats; from the thousand outcomes of branching narratives to exploring other… Read more »
“Alexa, open The Messlins” says one of my kids out loud to the smart speaker setup in our living room. After eight months of research, design and production, I was about to witness my children interacting with my voice-enabled audio story for the very first time. With a background in performance and media production, I… Read more »
We talk to Ian Forrester, a Senior Firestarter at BBC R&D, who has been developing innovative adaptive podcasting technology and working on its potential applications alongside artists and creative professionals from the Rabbit Holes Collective. Through their work, the collective aims to ‘constructively disrupt’ and reimagine possibilities for digital collaboration by developing ideas in immersive… Read more »
Falling into the Story(World) Don’t you love that moment when you fall into a storyworld? The magic of storytelling relies on the power of words to create the world you visit through the act of reading or listening. Suspending your real world situation, time and space, and even your body, you transport yourself into another,… Read more »