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Principles of Interaction Design for Interactive Documentary Makers
Written by David Tames on February 13, 2013
Filed Under Books, Design, Documentary, Featured, Filmmaking, Media Literacy, Mobile devices, New Media, Web

Content production methodologies are converging with the strategies and tactics of interaction design. The latest mobile phones and tablets provide a wonderful platform for delivering intimate interactive documentary experiences. Where...  Continue Reading...

Fluid Screens, Expanded Cinema
Written by David Tames on December 15, 2010
Filed Under Art, Books, Critical Theory, New Media

Among my favorite books is Gene Youngblood’s Expanded Cinema, in spite of originally being published in 1970, it still offers a fresh perspective on the possibilities of new media art. Imagine a collection of essays that...  Continue Reading...

Cartographies of Time
Written by David Tames on December 4, 2010
Filed Under Art, Books, Narrative

I love St. Mark’s Bookshop, every time I go to New York I make it a point to make the trek to Third Avenue between 8th and 9th Streets and spend time browsing there, especially through the new book section, where I came across Cartographies...  Continue Reading...

A framework for thinking about cyberspace
Written by David Tames on December 1, 2010
Filed Under Books, Critical Theory, New Media, The Media

Daniel Downes suggests in Interactive Realism: The Poetics Of Cyberspace (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005) that it is people who construct social reality through their interactions, critiquing the “transformative turn”...  Continue Reading...

Spaces Speak, Are you listening?
Written by David Tames on November 29, 2010
Filed Under Books, Sound

In their book, Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?: Experiencing Aural Architecture (MIT Press, 2007) Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter remind us that we experience spaces not only through visual perception but also through our auditory...  Continue Reading...

Expanded Cinema: Still fresh after forty years
Written by David Tames on August 17, 2010
Filed Under Art, Books, Filmmaking, New Media, Sticky

A few months ago I pulled Gene Youngblood’s classic Expanded Cinema (E.P. Dutton & Company, 1970, available online) off the shelf and read it again. The pages in my well worn softcover edition were falling out, the glue...  Continue Reading...

Pearls of wisdom
Written by David Tames on April 23, 2010
Filed Under Art, Books, Design, Reviews

Back in February I attended a conference “Who’s Afraid of New Media” held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Wendy Richmond, who has recently published a book, Art Without Compromise* (Allworth Press, 2009), was...  Continue Reading...

The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative
Written by David Tames on February 12, 2010
Filed Under Books, Narrative, Reviews

I recently finished reading The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative by H. Porter Abbott (Cambridge University Press, 2nd. edition, 2008). This book is by far the best introduction to narrative currently available, encompassing the...  Continue Reading...

Fans, friends, and followers
Written by David Tames on April 2, 2009
Filed Under Books, Distribution, Filmmaking, Reviews, The Media

This week I had a chance to read Scott Kirsner’s new book, Fans, Friends & Followers, which provides a fresh guide to building an audience in the new media landscape. The book starts out by painting with broad brush strokes...  Continue Reading...

Inventing the Movies
Written by David Tames on July 31, 2008
Filed Under Books, Business, Filmmakers, Filmmaking, Interviews, Media Technology, Television, The Media

Some of the things I love about summer are weekend trips to the Berkshires, taking time off for a vacation, and all that means more time available to read books. On my summer reading stack this year was an advance copy of Inventing...  Continue Reading...

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