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Multimedia photostories: the key to reach new audiences?

" Photostories - where photography meets multimedia storytelling " is an international conference in Rotterdam from 19-21 May, which gathered prominent pioneers to review the changes. They discussed key questions such as how to tell stories in this new environment, how to cope with the publishing industry's new needs and how to handle new technology.

In short, it gave a guide to surviving the media revolution, although it wasn't meant to evangelise about the best way to use new technology or which direction to take it in. Instead the audience was shown the options, told what worked best for the world's leading photographers and multimedia producers and left to make their own minds up.

What is multimedia?

How do we define a multimedia documentary? For Henrik Kastenskov, photographer, producer and founder of the Bombay Flying Club, a facility house for multimedia productions, it's not as simple as you may think.

"Some photographers seem to think a multimedia piece is when you shoot an image for a newspaper, and the 12 extra images you shot can be posted on the internet with an added Stones tune from your iPhone," he said. "No, it's not - that's crap." For Alexandre Brachet, e-producer at web-documentary maker Upian, multimedia is something more holistic. "It's a matter of semantics but yes, I think multimedia is a good word for what I do because there is internet, there is connected TV, there is mobile phones and slides," he said.

Magnum Photos' Bjarke Myrthu's interactive documentary The Enemy Within set the standard back in 2004. Using all the possibilities of new media, including photographs, sound, a storyline and graphics, it makes each element work hard for a living and really engages the viewer. As Todd Heisler, staff photographer for The New York Times and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for his 2005 work Final Salute, put it, new media documentaries can add to the viewer's experience, "helping the viewer to connect to the subject even more".

Postcards from Italy: Milan Pt.2 - Nicola Ratti | Fluid Radio

Nicola Ratti lives and works in Milan. He works as an architect in Gru Architetti, a multidisciplinary team. He runs the art / installation branch of the office. Together with Fatima Bianchi, he is the co-founder of FeN Bureau, an art entity for the production of video and sound installations…

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Q: How did you get onto electro-acoustic music?

NR: The first instrument I played was the piano. Alas, I “unlearnt” the grammar of music when I discovered rock music and I found a classical guitar at home, which I used to play, as if it was an electric guitar. In the 90s I was in a band called Pin Pin Sugar a “mathematical rock group”. At the same time, through musicians such as Giuseppe Ielasi, whom I first met at the local library, I became enamoured with experimental music. I found it mesmerising seeing people use unconventional instruments to produce interesting stuff, and I was captivated by the concentration of their sets and the way they used silence. It inspired me to create my own musical language and to venture out on my own. The first things I did were still very much guitar based. My latest album, though, 220 tonnes, released through Die Schachtel is the first work of mine where the guitar doesn’t feature.

Q: In what way collaborations are important to you?

NR: Collaborations have a formative value for me. I started collaborating with Giuseppe as Bellows releasing s/t in 2007 for the Swedish label Kning Disc. That album was a sum of its parts in the sense that it brought together what we did individually, whereas our latest album Handcut, (CD, Alga Marghen, 2010) is the result of “sonic research”. At the time, Giuseppe was based in Tübingen, Germany, and we used to experiment by placing a contact microphone directly onto vinyl as if it was a needle on a record. The mike picked up the tracks on the album in a distorted, but always interesting, way. All we needed to do was to record the sound onto magnetic tape. I then started to use the same technique in my solo work.

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