Moments of Innovation - When Documentary and Technology Converge

Defining documentary has never been easy, and interactive documentaries and other new forms of documentary storytelling compel us to revisit our assumptions now more than ever. Aiming to help put the long story of documentary innovation into perspective, and to speculate about its future, MIT’s new Open Documentary Lab and IDFA DocLab have joined forces and created , an interactive installation and online research project. The installation presents seven themes that digital documentary artists are currently exploring, ranging from “Interaction” and “Immersion” to “Location” and “Participation.” Each theme is shown on its own screen, and gives the visitor the opportunity to explore several historical examples of documentary innovation, leading up to more recent highlights from the digital age. The project takes an expansive view of documentary and investigates the between representation and technology, and the resulting capacity to see the world with new eyes. It’s a first step in connecting some of the dots between the latest digital endeavors and those conceptual pioneers and technological prototypes that came before them.