Judith Aston on Polyphonic Docs March 31

Polyphonic documentary is a collaborative and practice-based research project convened by Judith Aston and Stefano Odorico. It explores the potential of interactive documentary for promoting interdisciplinary dialogue and exchange in a context of climate emergency and increasing polarization. We re-visit the work of Bakhtin and look at the relevance of what he has to say about the polyphonic novel in relation to evolving documentary forms and practices. We investigate ideas about co-creation, polyphony, and transformative narratives.

Although polyphony can be found across a number of documentary forms, we focus on earlier debates within interactive documentary around narrative/non-narrative/anti-narrative and its relationship to the database form. What happens for example when the human computer interface enables us to create spatial, multi/non-linear and more open-ended organizational strategies, as opposed to the more sequential, linear and fixed approaches found in the age of cinema and print?

We look at power dynamics and the situated nature of all forms of knowledge construction by looking at the pitfalls as well as the benefits of interactive documentary as a means of promoting polyphonic thinking. In the current moment,  the computer-based aesthetic of the multiple is being made ubiquitous by interfaces such as Zoom, high profile interactive narrative projects have started to emerge on channels such as Netflix, and many are engaged with interactive tools for on-line learning.

Now is a good moment for a re-set to question received ways of doing things,in order to develop new approaches and strategies which can help us to embrace complexity, navigate uncertainty and celebrate diversity.

Judith Aston is Co-founder of i-Docs and an Associate Professor in Film and Digital Arts at the University of the West of England in Bristol. She has an interdisciplinary background in anthropology, geography, interaction design and media practice. As an active member of the University’s Digital Cultures Research Centre, she is also an experienced tutor and PhD supervisor. At the heart of her work is the desire to put evolving media technologies into the service of promoting multi-perspectival thinking and understanding. She has published widely on this and her current collaboration with Dr Stefano Odorico on ‘The Poetics and Politics of Polyphony’ is the latest manifestation of this ongoing endeavor.