Columbia DSL - March Newsletter

Exploring new forms & functions of storytelling since 2013

Welcome to the Columbia Digital Storytelling Lab’s monthly newsletter. Established in 2013, the lab explores new forms and functions of storytelling. Through our programs, events, and prototypes we push at the edges of narrative possibilities.

Since 2017, we’ve been experimenting with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The lab’s prototype Frankenstein AI celebrated the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s seminal work by reimagining the Frankenstein narrative, recasting Shelley’s creature as a naive, emotionally aware, and highly intelligent “life form” - an artificial intelligence.

Over the past year, generative AI tools/platforms have exploded. Synthetic media is impacting multiple industries presenting a host of ethical, political and cultural challenges. This year the lab is exploring generative AI as a tool for world-building, problem solving and collective sensemaking.

---

DSL EVENTS

Monthly Meetup @ Film at Lincoln Center

Monday, March 20th, 6pm to 9pm
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. 144 West 65 Street, NY, NY

Creative Disruption - storytelling, experience design & AI

The Columbia DSL returns to Film at Lincoln Center for our first IRL meetup of 2023! Join us for an evening of storytelling, experience design and AI-augmented creativity.

The evening starts with a fireside chat with Campfire, a leading creative shop that has crafted immersive storytelling experiences for HBO, Amazon and Hulu as well as major brands and Fortune 50 companies. Founder and creative director Mike Monello and creative director Steve Coulson sit down with Columbia DSL’s Shar Simpson for a candid conversation about their creative practice. Afterwards, we’ll be experimenting with a number of AI-based tools.

This year, for the first time, Breakthroughs in Storytelling is expanding beyond its annual awards program. We’re moving to a multiple-day format that will include, in addition to the awards themselves, an industry summit in collaboration with Hub Montréal and Film at Lincoln Center as well as a virtual symposium featuring leading practitioners from around the world.

The program recognizes signal achievements across the broad spectrum of media that rely on digital technologies, including film, video, journalism, advertising, marketing, games, art, fiction, theater, virtual reality, augmented reality, and experimental narratives.

Digital Dozen Awards - online

Wednesday, April 5th, 6pm to 8:30pm Eastern Time

Breakthroughs in Storytelling Industry Summit

Wednesday, April 12th, 6pm to 9pm Eastern Time
Film at Lincoln Center - Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65 Street

Breakthroughs in Storytelling Symposium - online

Saturday, April 15th, 11:30am to 3:30pm Eastern Time

---

NEW WORK

Consensus Gentium

KAREN PALMER (Digital Dozen 2017)

Karen’s newest project is currently showing at SXSW.

“Consensus Gentium" is a powerful exploration into the implications of today's AI technology. It is an interactive film that integrates cutting-edge facial detection and AI, which transports audiences on a unique quest to discover what could come about if we succumb to unchecked surveillance. Using various tests, their dissidence or compliance is calculated, by monitoring data by the devices’ front-facing camera.” - SXSW program guide

---

LINKS

‘If you win the popular imagination, you change the game’: why we need new stories on climate

So much is happening, both wonderful and terrible – and it matters how we tell it. We can’t erase the bad news, but to ignore the good is the route to indifference or despair” - The Guardian

'Snow Crash' Author Neal Stephenson Says Future of the Metaverse Won't Require Goggles

"It seemed like a logical assumption at the time that would be the the output device" for the metaverse, Stephenson said. "But that's not what happened.” - Decrypt

Stable Attribution: A New Tool Could Ruin Generative AI, Or it Could Save it

“What is to be done? Many people have thoughts and feelings, and some people are now writing software to “fix” the problem. With big changes, Stable Attribution might conceivably play a role in an eventual path forward. But for now, it’s an all-out war.” - Jon Stokes

---

GET INVOLVED

Join over 1,400 practitioners from around the world working with story, design and code. The Columbia DSL’s prototyping community is place to learn and network. Gain access to resources, working groups, open source code and much more.

Volunteers Wanted

We’re looking for volunteers to help with the Breakthroughs in Storytelling Symposium. If you’re interested please email us at hello@digitalstorytellinglab.com