i-Docs  2012
is the only UK event dedicated to Interactive Documentary and it’s happening here at the Watershed on the 22-23 March. Produced by Pervasive Media Studio residents, the Digital Cultures Research Centre, it will introduce a collection of people from diverse backgrounds and practices to share thoughts and ideas about the rapidly developing field of interactive documentary.

Interactive Documentary is any non-fictional story that uses digital technology to provide an interactive role for viewers. It may be an online newspaper‘s datablog, a pervasive game in the streets of London or a film which links documentary footage to live data feeds. An i-Doc tells factual stories in a transmedia age; giving agency to author(s) and audiences to collaboratively negotiate and contribute to the world they live in. Increasingly, the internet is seen as a platform for people to connect to one another in order to share content and ideas, rather than a repository for information. The ability to aggregate, share, edit and embed materials in new contexts opens up a series of questions about ownership of ideas and the potential consequences of relinquishing directorial control over the interpretation and digital life of
non-fictional content.

The collaborative and participatory nature of Interactive Documentary makes it an enticing forum for fields that thrive on mass engagement such as pervasive and mobile gaming, social activism and global advocacy.

As you would expect we have some very exciting people involved from the field of Interactive Documentary: Digital Entrepreneur, Journalist and Storyteller Jigar Mehta will be discussing how he uses social media to crowd source stories around the Egyptian revolution, Brett Gaylor will be presenting: Documentary: a new layer for the web, explaining how his work with Popcorn Mozilla uses HTML5 to link video to live content on the web, the director of the NFB's Highrise: Kat Cizek will be hosting a Skype session, catch  Brian Winston: Ethics of Participation: what must we film now? And Duncan Speakman: Documentary as Pervasive Experience ...to name but a few.

Find out more about this fantastic event and buy your tickets here: http://i-docs.org/