A new documentary brings the user-experience to the forefront of discourse surrounding society’s trust in new technologies
“Every time a new technology is announced, one question arises: can we trust it?” This is the question Archis and Subarmine Channel ask the general public as they introduce a new documentary that expands society’s relationship with technology. Besides the documentary’s topic, what makes this project even more interesting is its interactive viewing capability.
Calling it a “smartphone documentary,” the project creators realized how media consumption primarily takes place on our mobile devices. The team describes this experience extensively on their website, “when people experience content through a mobile device, the information they retains is very different from other media: they do learn faster, but as long as the experience is absolutely seamless […] This is why we crafted the experience around two pivotal aspects: making the topic accessible, and the specific experience of content on a smartphone.” By positioning user experience at the forefront of their project delivery, participants can immerse themselves at the center of the documentary’s primary topic, technological trust and its impact on future designs.
Trust in the Blockchain Society is a documentary about how we trust technologies and how these technologies shape the way we trust each other.” By inviting eight individuals whose work focuses on blockchain and its impacts on social design, politics, art, the economy, cryptocurrency, and culture, the interactive mobile documentary provides a new way for participants to learn the future of technology by also experiencing it. The documentary “explores the many ways in which blockchain is changing how we organize information, how we build consensus, and ultimately how we design the future of our social institutions.”
A QR code is displayed on their website allowing participants to begin their interactive documentary experience right in the palm of their hands. The user interface transforms each interview/presentation into an “intuitive interaction” for the user. The documentary’s project team explain, “the intuitive interaction with your device becomes an elegant transition between reading and watching, a seamless flow of information creating a tailored rhythm in the person’s hand: whether the linear narrative we curated or the nonlinear storylines that users can create for themselves.”
Subarmine Channel is a production studio that uses interactive and immersive projects to “explore the narrative potential of formats like virtual reality, augmented reality, interactive documentaries, motion comics and video games.”
Archis is an experimental think tank devoted to the process of real-time spatial and cultural reflexivity and action. Archis has a long running experience in publishing the various incarnations of Volume magazine. In which various editorial concepts and publishing formats have been realized over the years
