Interactive documentary: setting the field

Abstract

This article articulates the authors' combined vision behind convening i-Docs, the first international symposia to focus exclusively on the rapidly evolving field of interactive documentary. In so doing, it provides a case study of practice-driven research, in which discussion around the act of developing and making interactive documentaries is seen as being a necessary prerequisite to subsequent theorizing in relation to their impact on the continuing evolution of the documentary genre. As an essentially interdisciplinary form of practice, the article provides a conceptual overview of what interactive documentaries (i-docs) are, where they come from and what they could become. The case is made that i-docs should not be seen as the uneventful evolution of documentaries in the digital realm but rather as a form of nonfiction narrative that uses action and choice, immersion and enacted perception as ways to construct the real, rather than to represent it. The relationship between authorship and agency within i-docs is also considered as being central to our understanding of possibilities within a rapidly evolving field of study.

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