Digitization has impacted on almost every single
aspect of our lives and it has successfully integrated new forms of
communication into our daily routines. Not surprisingly, of course, the Digital
era of our lifetime has innovatively altered all artistic movements and
literature as well. Nowadays, it is quite an ordinary thing to access books via
the Internet as many people now seem to prefer the e-version of a text to its ‘old-fashioned’
printed form. We are now witnessing a remarkable shift in the collective
attitude towards the quintessential art forms. Hence they are now being transformed
into an upgraded interactive form of art which extends the initial opportunities
of expression.
The Home Page of ‘InanimateAlice’
A Student exploring
an episode from ‘Inanimate Alice’
For instance,
the ‘Inanimate Alice’ Project is a good example of how we get to experience the
mode of storytelling from a completely different perspective – the creatively
constructed digital novel gives its ‘readers’ a chance to interactively engage
with the story. However, the most interesting aspect of this project is the
fact that it has been designed to serve as an innovative tool for educational
purposes. And this is where the actual debate takes place. Should this mode of
storytelling be embedded in the National Curriculum? Can students actually
benefit from this apparently creative but rather undeveloped way of
communicating information? Well, it is definitely an idea that is worth trying.
The episodic digital novel written by the
novelist Kate Pullinger and the digital artist Chris Joseph would definitely
provide a nice way to include something new and modern to the Educational
System. Their innovative digital novel combines a range of multimedia elements
such as text, sound, images, videos and - of course - interaction. On the
website PUBLISHINGPERSPECTIVES Edward
Nawotka writes that the digital novel “can
be read linearly or non-linearly; stories can be framed in such a way where
action unfolds in different time frames and — here’s the difference — can be
experienced as
such.” Therefore, if integrated into the curriculum this way of
communicating information would completely alter the way of perceiving a
narrative. Furthermore, students could develop their own artistic as well as creative
ideas, prompted by the multimedia experience.
Multimedia
Elements are now an archetypal aspect of the digital novel
Enabling students to engage
with a story in such a way will not only boost their level of attention but it
would also help them in developing the literacy they need in order to use the
advancing Digital applications of the Web. Nonetheless, this is one extraordinary
way of inspiring pupils to come up with their own creative ideas. This is one
of the best features of the Digital arts as they now represent a plethora of
various opportunities for creating new and innovative products. Of course, the
literacy skills acquired within these Digital features can also be applied to
many other fields beyond arts and literature. For example, a marketing expert
can only benefit from having mastered such creativity skills as this can only
be a beneficial method for designing highly effective campaigns.
In the book Digital Art (2003: 68), Christiane Paul writes that the digital
medium is “customizable, adaptable to
a single user’s needs or intervention, for example in artworks where the user’s
individual profile becomes the basis for the development of and changes in the
work.” In other words, such statements suggest that the course of development
in the Digital arts is predominantly determined by the creator. However, in
terms of ‘Inanimate Alice’ this is not entirely true as the reader of the novel
does not have the real chance to actually affect the story’s development.
Therefore, we should raise the question: is the non-linear narrative actually
non-linear? Would it be still useful, if the interactive elements of the
digital novel were only illusory? What can we learn from this experience, if our
“actions leave no trace on the work itself” as Tribe and Jana claim in their
book New Media Art (2009: 13)?
Another form of a Digital novel – an e-book of
the Harry Potter series
We still might not have created
the perfect digital novel in terms of graphics and non-linearity, however the
concept of this Digital art form is unquestionably a good way of providing an innovative
education. Refreshing the old system and adding some new features to it can
have a crucial impact on the young generations. In this way, the education
system could only benefit from more creatively thinking young people who are
going to influence the world one day. Of course, the ‘classical’ e-books as
shown above play a huge role in the contemporary society as well. Despite the
fact that they do not feature the multimedia elements of ‘Inanimate Alice’,
they represent the starting point of this developing digital form.
Finally, digital novels like ‘Inanimate
Alice’ can be considered the future of the contemporary novel. The Digital era
is continuously affecting more and more professional fields, so it is highly
likely that such projects would become a standard method for distributing
knowledge and for telling a story. Therefore, it would be highly beneficial if
schools introduced the digital novels to their students in advance, so that
they could be prepared for the technological innovations of the future.
The Trailer of 'Inanimate Alice'
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