& a blog

here is a story about stories; with a question about whether stories are still stories and whether we are beginning to live in a post-story age.

the already cool mit media lab has founded a “center for future storytelling.” the purpose of this “labette” as the initiative is described, is to engage in studying and possibly saving the narrative.

or as the official press release states:

to revolutionize how we tell our stories, from major motion pictures to peer-to-peer multimedia sharing. By applying leading-edge technologies to make stories more interactive, improvisational and social, researchers will seek to transform audiences into active participants in the storytelling process, bridging the real and virtual worlds, and allowing everyone to make their own unique stories with user-generated content on the Web.

in the recent new york times article on the center’s founding, the proposition is posited that the narrative is danger amongst the flood of new technologies, and patterns of cultural storytelling that are disrupted by them. but of course, disruption is really re-direction, if not re-intrepretation, so while some might cry wolf and see the founding of the c.f.f.s as a sign of the academy overreaching its aims, i think that the project should actually have great implications for current, future, and past narrative-producers. not because it will develop an essentialist theory of the narrative (though there is CERTAINLY a danger that this is how the initiative will begin, or be misconstrued by the public) nor because the narrative is really in need of rescuing. rather, i think narrative studies are entirely under-represented in media & cultural research, and if our unique technological moment is indeed as seismic as has been suggested, then the inflection we stand upon needs thorough, and engaged interaction.

it’s a story i can’t wait to read.

especially if i get a chance to help write.