Page 98 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2016

98years into the festival par excellence of digital culture in all its dimensions.To give it greater momentum, since 2001 each edition has revolved around a particular theme or idea. For example, in 2001 the theme wasDo It Yourself!, in 2011 Response:ability and the forthcoming edition in February 2016 will centre on the idea of conversationpiece (on the so-called post-digital art and culture and keenness to do, share and secure).Researchers, artists and creators from allover the world are invited to exhibitions and installations, lm and audiovisual screenings, stage performances and other events, somefor professionals. In addition, the CTM festival (originally club transmediale) arose in 1999 as a side event focusing on electronic, experimental and digital music and is held on the same dates as transmediale.Speaking of digital arts might bring to mind visual arts and music, but literature and storytelling have not been immune to changes either. We nd, for example, the Kosmopolis festival (Barcelona), a biennial event hostedby the Centre de Cultura Contemporània in Barcelona which is de ned as ‘the ampli ed literature fest’. It is a space that examines literature from its oral, print and digital dimensions, extending the very concept of storytelling, as well as transmedia (the use of various media to explain a story) and crossmedia (using various media to explain the same story repeatedly in each of them), or the development of the publishing industries and literary consumption in the information society.The type of content chosen for the festival consists of lectures and debates, workshops, audiovisual screenings and poetry slams (including the Poetry Slam Barcelona, an oral poetry contest). These events bring together writers, publishers, lmmakers, poets, journalists, developers of videogames and other kinds of local, national and international creators.The festival also features programmes focused on schools in the metropolitan area and on families, which are aimed at fostering a closer relationship and dialogue with literature and the changes it is undergoing. However, what distinguishes it from other festivals is that between editions it runs an ongoing programme in the same format.Today not all festivals need a speci c physical space. #TwitterFiction Festival1 (since 2012) is a participatory ve-day event that re ects this social platform’s trend for 140-character stories. The festival is hosted by Penguin Random House publishers and the Association of American Publishers, as well as by Twitter itself.1. NEW TECHNOLOGIES AS CONTENTUsers are not simply invited to write something with a hashtag. The involvement of US and British writers from various genres is previously scheduled in activities that include book launches and real-time storytelling. Users can take part and interact with them throughpoetry, images and Vines (very short videos), collaborative stories written between several people sporadically in a non-linear manner (because by allowing a tweet to be reposted, anyone can carry on from any point, creating unexpected rami cations in the story) and even the creation of ctitious accounts held by literary characters and parody versions.The fact is that storytelling has aroused great interest in the past years. The Future of Storytelling festival (New York) is based on the following question: ‘As technologies continue to evolve, how will we create, share, and experience the most fundamental unit of human culture— the story?’Focus: Use of New Digital Technologies at Cultural Festivals