Hidrazone - Digital Arts Reviews & News

http://bombsight.org/

”

The Bomb Sight project is mapping the London WW2 bomb census between 7/10/1940 and 06/06/1941. Previously available only by viewing in the Reading Room at The National Archives, Bomb Sight is making the maps available to citizen researchers, academics and students. They will be able to explore where the bombs fell and to discover memories and photographs from the period.The project has scanned original 1940s bomb census maps , geo-referenced the maps and digitally captured the geographical locations of all the falling bombs recorded on the original map.

”

http://s1.lemde.fr/webdocs_contenu/fichiers/la_zone_va/index.html

”

 http://highrise.nfb.ca/onemillionthtower/1mt_webgl.php

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/11/one-millionth-tower/

”

To tell the story of Canadian high-rise residents reinventing their homes in the sky, the makers of new film One Millionth Towerreinvented the documentary format.

The movie, which makes its online premiere above, was carefully crafted to be watched on the internet. It uses interactive tools to illustrate the Toronto residents’ ideas about how to improve the decaying high-rise in which they live. Powered entirely by HTML5 and open source JavaScript libraries, One Millionth Tower is loaded with photos and information from all over the web, and exists in an online environment that is about as close to three-dimensional as something on a flat screen can get.

“We’ve added an entire new layer to the web and One Millionth Tower is one of the first examples of that,” said Mark Surman, executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, the force behind the Popcorn.js toolkit that powers the film. “In the same way we all got really excited when you could highlight a word on a page and create a hyperlink … that’s happening now with film. I think of this as the first real web-made documentary.”

The resulting film is unlike any before it. It can be watched without much interaction, but it’s much more fun to play with it (see “How to Watch This Movie” at right). Some aspects change even without viewer input: For instance, the time of day and weather in the film change based on actual conditions in Toronto.

One Millionth Tower, which is premiering on Wired.com the same day it premieres at the Mozilla Festival in London, is not just a static story recorded on film and then edited together for audiences. It exists in a 3-D setting made possible by a tool called three.js, which lets viewers walk around the high-rise neighborhood. Moving through allows viewers to see the current state of urban decay, then activate elements to show ways the residents would change their world, like an animation showing where a new playground or garden would go.

The interactive movie is chock-full of photos from Flickr, street-views from Google Maps and changing environments fueled by real-time weather data from Yahoo. Everything is triggered by Popcorn.js, which acts like a conductor signaling which instruments play at what times.

”

There is also a description of some of the backend technology here:

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/detail/highrise-one-millionth-tower/

http://www.conspiracyforgood.com/

”

A few years ago, I started thinking about an entirely new way to tell a story, far different from traditional TV. I didn’t just want to talk about ‘saving the world’ in fiction, I wanted to create a narrative that spilled out into the streets. One that you could live inside of for a while. How cool would it be, I thought, to create a story that exists all around you all of the time? On your laptop, your mobile phone, on your sidewalks, as a secret message hidden in your favorite song or while standing at the bus stop on your way to work.

And, taking it further, what if your participation over a few weeks or months actually impacts the story’s development and creates positive change in the real world because a philanthropic mission is integrated into the narrative itself?

The Conspiracy For Good is the culmination of this dream. This is the pilot project for a first-of-its-kind interactive story that empowers its audience to take real-life action and create positive change in the world. Call it Social Benefit Storytelling.

To achieve this, I need you to participate. Reality and fiction have to blur. Every story needs a villain and you will meet the villain in the STORY SO FAR section on this site. And every story needs a hero. That’s where YOU come in.

As part of The Conspiracy For Good you will join a collective of thinkers, artists, musicians, and causes, creating a unified voice to fight the forces of social and environmental injustice. This is our site, where together we can follow the story and build a community that focuses on changing the world for the better, one person and one action at a time.

”

http://www.beactivemedia.com/tv-film/350-south/

http://www.350south.org/

”

350 South is beActive’s first transmedia adventure documentary, following environmentalists Ian Lacey (Ireland) and Lee Savile (US) on their year-long journey cycling from Alaska to Argentina, as they cross through 15 countries, three mountain ranges and some of the harshest terrains in the world in 350 days.

The 350 South route follows the historic Pan American Highway, home to some of the world’s most fascinating places, crossing 15 different countries: USA, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.

The series offers a unique experience by integrating online, mobile and interactive elements. It features a website, Facebook page, Twitter channel, blog, iPhone and iPad app, a YouTube channel where video blogs will be published daily and an interactive map with a GPS locator, which allows the audience in North and South America to find out when Ian and Lee are in their area. A fully participatory documentary experience.

”

http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/shatila/

”