About : Part 3 of a series of eBooks created as part of a Case Study Residency. Being a collection of images compiled by the artist with his daughter while wandering about London and its environs in search of beasties on the dates of November 28th and 29th, 2007. The reader should note that this is by no means a complete archive of the creatures observed.
Published November 2007
Andrew Hunter is the Director/Curator of RENDER, an interdisciplinary art based research, teaching, production and presentation centre at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Hunter also works as an independent artist, writer, and curator and has produced exhibitions, writings and publications for art galleries and museums across Canada, in the United States and Europe. He was a contributor to the Proboscis project Navigating History. For his Generator Case Study, Hunter will visit London in November of this year to develop a poetic, illustrated guidebook in collaboration with his 11 year old daughter Maggie.
About : Second in a series of eBooks created by Paul Goodwin as part of Proboscis’ Generator Case Study Residencies. This eBook is the text of a lecture given by Paul Goodwin at the Royal Society of Arts London, October 18th 2007. It was part of a series of lectures called “No Leader” with Bonnie Greer and Kevin Spellman.
Published November 2007
Paul Goodwin is a writer, curator and urban researcher. He is director of the Re-Visioning Black Urbanism Project based the Centre for Urban and Community Research, Goldsmiths, University of London. The project explores new modes of inhabiting, imagining and making cities from progressive black and culturally diverse perspectives by organising exhibitions, film screenings, lectures, seminars and publications. Paul is also a creative consultant for IniVA’s (Institute for International Visual Arts) Mapping Project and a member of the Franco-British Council for whom he co-organised (with Bonnie Greer) an international symposium on the “Challenges of Cultural Diversity in the UK and France” in November, 2006. Paul is currently in the process of setting up a new strategic urban intervention office and think tank with the architect John Oduroe that will launch in London in 2008.
About : Vanda took part in a Writing Workshop for young writers run by Proboscis in July/August 2007 as part of the Case Study Residencies. This eBook is a gothic tale of ghosts, prisoners, schoolkids and cannibalism!
Published November 2007
Vanda Rjechko is in Year 9 and lives in east London.
About : Georgia took part in a Writing Workshop for young writers run by Proboscis in July/August 2007 as part of the Case Study Residencies. This eBook is a gothic tale of ghosts, prisoners, schoolkids and cannibalism!
Published November 2007
Georgia Hudson is in Year 9 and lives in east London.
About : AyoOluwa took part in a Writing Workshop for young writers run by Proboscis in July/August 2007 as part of the Case Study Residencies. This eBook is a gothic tale of ghosts, prisoners, schoolkids and cannibalism!
Published November 2007
AyoOluwa Alao is in Year 9 and lives in east London.
About : Part 2 of a series of eBooks created as part of a Case Study Residency. Being a collection of images compiled by the artist with his daughter while wandering about London and its environs in search of beasties on the dates of November 27th and 28th, 2007. The reader should note that this is by no means a complete archive of the creatures observed.
Published November 2007
Andrew Hunter is the Director/Curator of RENDER, an interdisciplinary art based research, teaching, production and presentation centre at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Hunter also works as an independent artist, writer, and curator and has produced exhibitions, writings and publications for art galleries and museums across Canada, in the United States and Europe. He was a contributor to the Proboscis project Navigating History. For his Generator Case Study, Hunter will visit London in November of this year to develop a poetic, illustrated guidebook in collaboration with his 11 year old daughter Maggie.
About : Part 1 of a series of eBooks created as part of a Case Study Residency. Being a collection of images compiled by the artist with his daughter while wandering about London and its environs in search of beasties on the dates of November 25th and 26th, 2007. The reader should note that this is by no means a complete archive of the creatures observed.
Published November 2007
Andrew Hunter is the Director/Curator of RENDER, an interdisciplinary art based research, teaching, production and presentation centre at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Hunter also works as an independent artist, writer, and curator and has produced exhibitions, writings and publications for art galleries and museums across Canada, in the United States and Europe. He was a contributor to the Proboscis project Navigating History. For his Generator Case Study, Hunter will visit London in November of this year to develop a poetic, illustrated guidebook in collaboration with his 11 year old daughter Maggie.
In addition to using the Diffusion eBook format to publish essays and artists books, Proboscis has also been using it to create notebooks for specific activities and projects. The eBook format allows us to design and distribute a notebook that participants in a project or workshop can fill in by hand (writing, drawing or adding stickers as they wish) which can then be scanned and turned back into a PDF file for sharing – either within the group or more widely. This ‘virtuous circle’ moving from digital to material to digital is at the core of the ‘Shareables’ concept. We have designed the Shareables so that they can be used without always needing a computer, but still providing a path for capturing and sharing digitally.
Proboscis has successfully used ‘eNotebooks‘ in our schools projects as learning diaries (e.g. Sound Scavenging, Everyday Archaeology and Experiencing Democracy) and, in our community projects as a simple means of gathering local knowledge and information (e.g. Robotic Feral Public Authoring, St. Marks and Conversations and Connections).
Learning Diaries
The eNotebooks have been very effective for the schoolchildren participating in our projects, giving them a single place to record and reflect on what they have learned from the different activities and how they are integrated into everyday learning. Over the three years we have collaborated with the Jenny Hammond Primary school on Social Tapestries projects, we have worked ever more closely with the teachers to use the learning diaries to make the bridge between the activities of the workshop and what the children are learning as part of everyday school. The diaries themselves are also an invaluable tool for the teachers and us to gauge each child’s engagement with the project and its concepts – some children choose to do the minimum whilst others spend considerable time and effort embellishing their drawings and writings. This serves an additional function in helping to assess the impact on learning that the workshop has had – the diaries show how the children are absorbing new ideas, vocabulary and improving their spelling as the project progresses.
Field Notebooks
We have also used the eNotebooks in community-based projects and workshops to record knowledge about places and communities. The eNotebooks offer a familiar ‘interface’ and technology (paper and pens) that is very inclusive and engaging – allowing people to write, draw or stick photos into them. In communities and situations where access to computers and broadband internet was not possible the eNotebooks allowed us to design a simple and effective means of asking open (but targeted) questions and enabling people to complete them there and then or post them back to us at their leisure. We see many other possible uses of this kind of eNotebook for researchers in the field doing ethnographic or anthropological studies.
We have also speculated on using the Diffusion Generator in brainstorming activities, where the eBooks are used to create iterations or snapshots of the process in situ. This would both provide an immediate outcome to the activity, but also document the creative processes along the way.
Evaluation Tool
Proboscis has begun to experiment with creating structured notebooks for people to give feedback and evaluation on an event (such as a conference or workshop) or project. The StoryCubes have also been used in this way – at the Enter Festival in Cambridge (April 2007) conference delgates helped create a landscape of ideas, images and themes relating to the event. Futurelab also used the StoryCubes to engage delegates at their Why Don’t You… conference (October 2007) in mapping and exploring ideas relating to new education practices and uses of innovative technologies in schools and learning. Proboscis also uses the StoryCubes as a notetaking tool (instead of taking minutes) for its own advisory group meetings, enabling us to combine the questions and observations that the group members note down in an ever-growing and evolving landscape.
Other Ideas
One of our key aims for Diffusion is to explore its uses in places (such as developing countries) with poor access to publishing technologies (both traditional print and electronic). A Diffusion eBook can, of course, be made with nothing more than some blank sheets of paper which can then be written and drawn on – or even have sections of typwritten text pasted onto them. Once made, these unique handmade books can be scanned and turned into Shareable eBooks (PDF files), endlessly reproducible and distributable through email and web downloads.
Examples: we plan to make some illustrative examples available soon
About : Part 4 of a series of eBooks containing notes and images from journals and diaries created by Alice Angus during the Artists in the Park residency in Ivvavik National Park, Yukon, July 2003.
Published November 2007
Alice Angus, co-director of Proboscis, is an artist inspired by rethinking concepts and perceptions of landscape and human relationships to the land. Over the last six years she has been creating a body of art work exploring concepts proximity and remoteness, technology and presence, against the lived experience and local knowledge of a place. In 2003, Alice was the only non-Canadian to participate in the first Artist in the Park residency in Ivvavik National Park in the Northern Yukon, organised by Parks Canada. This essay is inspired by the experience in Ivvavik and by her long term collaboration with artist and guide Joyce Majiski that began on the residency. Information on Ivvavik can be found at:
http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/yt/ivvavik/index_e.asp
About : Part 3 of a series of eBooks containing notes and images from journals and diaries created by Alice Angus during the Artists in the Park residency in Ivvavik National Park, Yukon, July 2003.
Published November 2007
Alice Angus, co-director of Proboscis, is an artist inspired by rethinking concepts and perceptions of landscape and human relationships to the land. Over the last six years she has been creating a body of art work exploring concepts proximity and remoteness, technology and presence, against the lived experience and local knowledge of a place. In 2003, Alice was the only non-Canadian to participate in the first Artist in the Park residency in Ivvavik National Park in the Northern Yukon, organised by Parks Canada. This essay is inspired by the experience in Ivvavik and by her long term collaboration with artist and guide Joyce Majiski that began on the residency. Information on Ivvavik can be found at:
http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/yt/ivvavik/index_e.asp
About : Part 2 of a series of eBooks containing notes and images from journals and diaries created by Alice Angus during the Artists in the Park residency in Ivvavik National Park, Yukon, July 2003.
Published November 2007
Alice Angus, co-director of Proboscis, is an artist inspired by rethinking concepts and perceptions of landscape and human relationships to the land. Over the last six years she has been creating a body of art work exploring concepts proximity and remoteness, technology and presence, against the lived experience and local knowledge of a place. In 2003, Alice was the only non-Canadian to participate in the first Artist in the Park residency in Ivvavik National Park in the Northern Yukon, organised by Parks Canada. This essay is inspired by the experience in Ivvavik and by her long term collaboration with artist and guide Joyce Majiski that began on the residency. Information on Ivvavik can be found at: http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/yt/ivvavik/index_e.asp
About : Part 1 of a series of eBooks containing notes and images from journals and diaries created by Alice Angus during the Artists in the Park residency in Ivvavik National Park, Yukon, July 2003.
Published November 2007
Alice Angus, co-director of Proboscis, is an artist inspired by rethinking concepts and perceptions of landscape and human relationships to the land. Over the last six years she has been creating a body of art work exploring concepts proximity and remoteness, technology and presence, against the lived experience and local knowledge of a place. In 2003, Alice was the only non-Canadian to participate in the first Artist in the Park residency in Ivvavik National Park in the Northern Yukon, organised by Parks Canada. This essay is inspired by the experience in Ivvavik and by her long term collaboration with artist and guide Joyce Majiski that began on the residency. Information on Ivvavik can be found at
http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/yt/ivvavik/index_e.asp
During my session on day 1, I use Proboscis’ Storycubes to prompt conversations between audience members about particular aspects of innovation. The six themes of innovation we looked at where: the aims of innovation; measures of successful innovation; changes to social practices; the resistances to these changes; Actions to reduce these resistances, and ‘black box’ tools to support these process.
The results of these conversations were captured on each of the cube faces and these are being shared on the Futurelab website (the last link under my session) along with other outputs from the conference. It makes for really interesting browsing – being given an insight into the micro conversations at the conference that we can’t or don’t normally have access to. It also provides an interesting way to reflect on the shared viewpoints of the people at the conference – as well as highlighting the differences.
Proboscis designed a simple instruction card to be distributed with the StoryCubes to the delegates (see our StoryCube design services for details), who built up a ‘landscape’ of StoryCubes on a table in one of the conference’s public areas.
About : Bibliography v.01. This bibliography gathers together all of the sources used to generate stories for the Balkanising Bloomsbury project for the Case Study Residencies. It is an iterative, rolling process – i.e. each time a new story is uploaded through the Diffusion Generator, the bibliography will be updated and a new version will be published.
Published November 2007
Tony White is a writer. He is the author of novels including Foxy-T (Faber and Faber), and the non-fiction work Another Fool in the Balkans (Cadogan). Editor and co-editor of the fiction anthologies Britpulp (Sceptre) and Croatian Nights (Serpent’s Tail/VBZ). Tony White has edited and published the artists’ book imprint Piece of Paper Press since 1994 and contributed to numerous magazines and journals – he is also literary editor of the Idler magazine. Tony is currently working on another novel and undertaking research into creative writing in interdisciplinary and research contexts which is supported by Arts Council England through Grants for the Arts.
About : The Scene is part of the Balkanising Bloomsbury project for the Case Study Residencies – these are fragments of a novel-in-progress. The story was created by cutting up, remixing and re-narrativising fragments from various sources including Eleanor Benson, E.M.Forster, Anthony Hope and the author.
Published November 2007
Tony White is a writer. He is the author of novels including Foxy-T (Faber and Faber), and the non-fiction work Another Fool in the Balkans (Cadogan). Editor and co-editor of the fiction anthologies Britpulp (Sceptre) and Croatian Nights (Serpent’s Tail/VBZ). Tony White has edited and published the artists’ book imprint Piece of Paper Press since 1994 and contributed to numerous magazines and journals – he is also literary editor of the Idler magazine. Tony is currently working on another novel and undertaking research into creative writing in interdisciplinary and research contexts which is supported by Arts Council England through Grants for the Arts.
About : Hyde Park is part of the Balkanising Bloomsbury project for the Generator Case Studies – these are fragments of a novel-in-progress. The story was created by cutting up, remixing and re-narrativising fragments from various sources including the Richard Burton translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Karl Marx, Robert Taitt and transcripts from the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Hyde Park was written for Barbara Campbell’s 1001 Nights Cast project.
Published November 2007
Tony White is a writer. He is the author of novels including Foxy-T (Faber and Faber), and the non-fiction work Another Fool in the Balkans (Cadogan). Editor and co-editor of the fiction anthologies Britpulp (Sceptre) and Croatian Nights (Serpent’s Tail/VBZ). Tony White has edited and published the artists’ book imprint Piece of Paper Press since 1994 and contributed to numerous magazines and journals – he is also literary editor of the Idler magazine. Tony is currently working on another novel and undertaking research into creative writing in interdisciplinary and research contexts which is supported by Arts Council England through Grants for the Arts.
booktwo.org Notebook » Paper eBooks [...] author of one of my favourite books, Foxy-T, and literary editor of The Idler, has just published a series… Comment posted on 11-14-2007 at 14:01
About : Do You Hear That? is part of the Balkanising Bloomsbury project for the Generator Case Studies – these are fragments of a novel-in-progress. The story was created by cutting up, remixing and re-narrativising fragments from the Richard Burton translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Joshua Partlow and transcripts from the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Do You Hear That? is one of three stories written for Barbara Campbell’s 1001 Nights Cast project.
Published November 2007
Tony White is a writer. He is the author of novels including Foxy-T (Faber and Faber), and the non-fiction work Another Fool in the Balkans (Cadogan). Editor and co-editor of the fiction anthologies Britpulp (Sceptre) and Croatian Nights (Serpent’s Tail/VBZ). Tony White has edited and published the artists’ book imprint Piece of Paper Press since 1994 and contributed to numerous magazines and journals – he is also literary editor of the Idler magazine. Tony is currently working on another novel and undertaking research into creative writing in interdisciplinary and research contexts which is supported by Arts Council England through Grants for the Arts.
booktwo.org Notebook » Paper eBooks [...] of one of my favourite books, Foxy-T, and literary editor of The Idler, has just published a series of… Comment posted on 11-14-2007 at 15:37
About : Bottle Orchestra is part of the Balkanising Bloomsbury project for the Generator Case Studies. – these are fragments of a novel-in-progress. The story was created by cutting up, remixing and re-narrativising fragments from various sources including E.M.Forster, Jan & Cora Gordon and transcripts from the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Published November 2007
Tony White is a writer. He is the author of novels including Foxy-T (Faber and Faber), and the non-fiction work Another Fool in the Balkans (Cadogan). Editor and co-editor of the fiction anthologies Britpulp (Sceptre) and Croatian Nights (Serpent’s Tail/VBZ). Tony White has edited and published the artists’ book imprint Piece of Paper Press since 1994 and contributed to numerous magazines and journals – he is also literary editor of the Idler magazine. Tony is currently working on another novel and undertaking research into creative writing in interdisciplinary and research contexts which is supported by Arts Council England through Grants for the Arts.
London Lit Plus | Listening Post Writing Workshop with Tony White [...] published on-line in the Diffusion Generator ebook format, e.g. ‘Bottle Orchestra’ at http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=191 geopress_addEvent(window,"load", function() { geopress_makemap(1321,"Science [...] Comment posted on 7-2-2008 at 10:41
booktwo.org Notebook » Paper eBooks [...] one of my favourite books, Foxy-T, and literary editor of The Idler, has just published a series of extracts… Comment posted on 11-14-2007 at 13:56
About : Ahead in the Line is part of the Balkanising Bloomsbury project for the Generator Case Studies. The story was created by cutting up, remixing and re-narrativising fragments from various sources including the Richard Burton translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and transcripts from the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Ahead in the Line was written for Barbara Campbell’s 1001 Nights Cast project.
Published November 2007
Tony White is a writer. He is the author of novels including Foxy-T (Faber and Faber), and the non-fiction work Another Fool in the Balkans (Cadogan). Editor and co-editor of the fiction anthologies Britpulp (Sceptre) and Croatian Nights (Serpent’s Tail/VBZ). Tony White has edited and published the artists’ book imprint Piece of Paper Press since 1994 and contributed to numerous magazines and journals – he is also literary editor of the Idler magazine. Tony is currently working on another novel and undertaking research into creative writing in interdisciplinary and research contexts which is supported by Arts Council England through Grants for the Arts.
About : Gobbledegook is part of the Balkanising Bloomsbury project for the Case Study Residencies. The story was created by cutting up, remixing and re-narrativising fragments from various sources to tell a completely new story. Sources include Alan Burgess, Lawrence Durrell and transcripts from the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Further titles and the first version of a rolling, iterative bibliography for the whole series will be published shortly.
Published November 2007
Tony White is a writer. He is the author of novels including Foxy-T (Faber and Faber), and the non-fiction work Another Fool in the Balkans (Cadogan). Editor and co-editor of the fiction anthologies Britpulp (Sceptre) and Croatian Nights (Serpent’s Tail/VBZ). Tony White has edited and published the artists’ book imprint Piece of Paper Press since 1994 and contributed to numerous magazines and journals – he is also literary editor of the Idler magazine. Tony is currently working on another novel and undertaking research into creative writing in interdisciplinary and research contexts which is supported by Arts Council England through Grants for the Arts.
booktwo.org Notebook » Paper eBooks [...] author of one of my favourite books, Foxy-T, and literary editor of The Idler, has just published a series… Comment posted on 11-14-2007 at 13:56
Proboscis is developing new design services for StoryCubes:
StoryCube Packs for Conferences & Workshops: for organisers to distribute to delegates as an evaluation tool, or to stimulate discussion and debate. Proboscis will design and produce a pack containing up to 200 StoryCubes and 200 customised handouts for distribution to delegates. Please contact us for pricing.
Workshop Facilitation: Proboscis can facilitate StoryCube workshops at conference and events for brainstorming, discussion and evaluation sessions. Proboscis will design and provide custom handouts for delegates, all the necessary StoryCubes and will facilitate the workshops themselves. In addition we will document and evaluate the workshop as part of the service. Please contact us for pricing.
Personalised StoryCubes: Proboscis can design and manufacture individually designed StoryCubes – e.g. for marketing campaigns or communication projects – in small or large numbers of individual or multiple StoryCube designs. Please contact us for pricing.
Licensing: For customised designs and volume ordering (such as museum education programmes, workshops etc) the StoryCube design may be licensed to take advantage of local manufacturing economies. Please contact us to discuss your requirements.
For some examples of how StoryCubes have been used in conferences, workshops, corporate, training and educational settings please visit our Flickr Group.
At Proboscis we use StoryCubes as poetic and playful devices for exploring ideas in three dimensions, allowing us to reveal different perspectives and make new connections and associations. We also use them as an engagement tool in our public projects, where they are particularly helpful in enabling groups of people to build shared narratives that allow them to see new perspectives. Here are some ideas for how you might use them:
as a brainstorming tool to help people share and discuss ideas in workshops, conferences and creative labs
as an evaluation tool to build up multi layered and multi faceted responses to an event (conference, workshop, performance etc)
as mnemonic devices helping participants recall activities and outcomes of workshops and mentoring sessions
in school projects to help students collaborate on group work, enhance negotiation and debating skills and develop tactile and spatial construction skills
in community projects for intergenerational work – helping people see each others’ perspectives on shared issues
StoryCubes are very effective with young children: make your own alphabet and number cubes or create StoryCubes with photos of friends and family to assist recognition and memory skills
for storytelling games – where each participant adds elements of a story to their cube and take turns in telling a story from the visible elements of a group of StoryCubes
for storyboarding: use the StoryCubes to help organise storylines for writing, animations or films.
Kevin Flude‘s main interests are the history, archaeology and Museums of London. He has been proprietor of And Did Those Feet (Cultural Heritage Resources) since 1982. It has allowed him the opportunity of working in a variety of fields in the Heritage world. He is currently Director of the Old Operating Theatre Museum in Southwark; Associate Lecturer at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts, London and Worcester University and Course Director for the Elderhostel programme in London which provides study tours. lectures and walks on the history, archaeology architecture and art of London.
About : Eloise took part in a Writing Workshop for young writers run by Proboscis in July/August 2007. This eBook is part two of a gothic tale of ghosts, prisoners, schoolkids and cannibalism!
Published October 2007
Eloise Mitchell is studying for her GCSEs and lives in Cambridgeshire.
About : Eloise took part in a Writing Workshop for young writers run by Proboscis in July/August 2007. This eBook is part one of a gothic tale of ghosts, prisoners, schoolkids and cannibalism!
Published October 2007
Eloise Mitchell is studying for her GCSEs and lives in Cambridgeshire.
About: the first in a series of eBooks created by Paul Goodwin as part of Proboscis’ Generator Case Study Residencies. This eBook acts as a catalogue for the Peckham Rising exhibition curated by Paul.
Published October 2007
Paul Goodwin is a writer, curator and urban researcher. He is director of the Re-Visioning Black Urbanism Project based the Centre for Urban and Community Research, Goldsmiths, University of London. The project explores new modes of inhabiting, imagining and making cities from progressive black and culturally diverse perspectives by organising exhibitions, film screenings, lectures, seminars and publications. Paul is also a creative consultant for IniVA‘s (Institute for International Visual Arts) Mapping Project and a member of the Franco-British Council for whom he co-organised (with Bonnie Greer) an international symposium on the “Challenges of Cultural Diversity in the UK and France” in November, 2006. Paul is currently in the process of setting up a new strategic urban intervention office and think tank with the architect John Oduroe that will launch in London in 2008.
Abstract: the first of a series of eBooks created by Michelle Kasprzak as part of the Generator Case Study Residencies. Michelle is interviewing contemporary art curators about their practice for her blog on curating: www.curating.info
Published September 2007
Michelle Kasprzak is a curator, writer, and artist. Since winning the InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre Emerging Electronic Artist award early in her career, she has exhibited her work throughout North America and Europe, and has been featured in numerous publications and on radio and television broadcasts syndicated worldwide. She completed her MA in Visual and Media Arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal in spring of 2006, and later that year was awarded a curatorial research residency at the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art (NIFCA) in Finland. She has published essays on art in CV Photo, Spacing, and Mute, and her most recent curatorial project was Otherworldly, a video programme that is currently touring urban screens around the globe. Michelle is currently based in Edinburgh, and is the Programmes Director of New Media Scotland. michelle.kasprzak.ca, www.mediascot.org, www.curating.info
StoryCubes are a tactile thinking and storytelling tool for exploring relationships and narratives. Each face of the cube can illustrate or describe an idea, a thing or an action, placed together it is possible to build up multiple narratives or explore the relationships between them in a novel three-dimensional way. StoryCubes can be folded in two different ways, giving each cube twelve possible faces – and thus two different ways of telling a story, two musings around an idea. Like books turned inside out and upside down they are read by turning and twisting in your hand and combining in vertical and horizontal constructions.
How can StoryCubes be used?
At Proboscis we use StoryCubes as poetic and playful devices for exploring ideas in three dimensions, allowing us to reveal different perspectives and make new connections and associations. We also use them as an engagement tool in our public projects, where they are particularly helpful in enabling groups of people to build shared narratives that allow them to see new perspectives. In this way they assist with storytelling and discussion in conjunction with bodystorming and other research processes that we use.
We have found StoryCubes to be very effective in stimulating group discussions and have used them successfully in our work in schools (see our Everyday Archaeology project). The process that a group of people engage in when building a StoryCube ‘landscape’ creates a tactile and tangible environment for negotiation and sharing, for seeing the different implications and connections that the stories we tell have from the perspectives of others.
Proboscis | Diffusion » Blog Archive » New! Improved! [...] and collaborations which take place around the DIFFUSION eBooks, the DIFFUSION Generator and the StoryCubes. On this site you… Comment posted on 11-10-2007 at 10:21
samizdat for the digital age DIFFUSION eBooks are shareable paper books that are free to download, print and make up (in A4 and US Letter PDF formats). Designed for viral distribution at almost no cost to readers, Proboscis regularly commissions new writing and creative publications which broaden discussion and debate around themes relating to our own projects and research. Proboscis also provides online design schematics, welcoming anyone, anywhere to adopt or re-interpret the format for their own uses.
Sharing Creativity
By using the internet as the distribution mechanism, DIFFUSION eBooks are accessible to a diverse readership across parts of the world that it would not be economical, or physically possible, to distribute traditional books to. Readers are encouraged to share the eBooks electronically or as material objects. DIFFUSION aims to bridge analogue and digital media by taking the reader away from the computer screen and engaging them in the process of making with their hands. Through the physical act of making the eBook, a dynamic is created that blurs the distinctions between producers and consumers.
Proboscis | Diffusion » Blog Archive » New! Improved! [...] all of the various projects, publications, authors and collaborations which take place around the DIFFUSION eBooks, the DIFFUSION Generator… Comment posted on 11-7-2007 at 04:14
About : Critical Infrastructure is a walking/field guide intended for people who, as they move through the built urban environment, want to see and better understand infrastructure – and what stories these systems tell. The project was conceived during my time as an artist-in-residence at The Banff Centre New Media Institute.
Published August 2007
Jeff Maki is an artist and researcher based in New York City. Formally educated as an information technology professional in a liberal arts context, his work continues to exist in the arts, centered around technical and social systems. His tools and experience range from computer programming to spatial data analysis; photography to ethnography.
Diffusion is brought to you by Proboscis, a non-profit organization. Support our work with a secure donation by credit card or Paypal:
You may prefer to support us by purchasing a pack of StoryCubes to make your own story landscapes with – for storytelling projects, workshops, education or evaluation activities.
