interactive multimedia

In 1997/8 I co-created a ground-breaking CD-ROM. (The Art Of Singing JHM/Notting Hill, BIMA (British Interactive Multimedia Association) Award winner 1998 )

The aim was to combine games-based entertainment with the facility for deeper, wider exploration of facts and conceptual analysis.

Our starting point was an exploration of intuitive navigation and non-linear narrative. These are often seen as unique to interactive digital product but, in fact, you find them in every art form - my favourite example in literature is Sterne’s Tristram Shandy.

Collaborating with programmers whose dominant language is maths-based is good discipline for a wordsmith. On The Art Of Singing things were complicated by yet another language, music notation. (There was an interesting moment when the notes of a piece by Mozart were rearranged by a designer to whom they were just visual images, not symbols for sounds.)

I co-created the disc’s concept and visual interface, conceived and scripted non-linear, dramatic audio and video material, and wrote the 120,000 word text database. Subsequently I worked on localising the disc for Japan. The translation and associated cultural issues were complex and required constant refocusing on what we intended to say.

I also worked on concepts and interactive audio script for The Evolution of Life, Richard Dawkins Notting Hill CD-ROM (1997).