Storytelling Archives - Senongo Akpem

June 21, 2019

Digital Diaspora: Building a New African Storytelling Tradition

A new wave of storytelling in Africa and the Diaspora is reinterpreting and globalizing narrative traditions, using digital tools and the power of the internet.

Being a creator in the African Diaspora means looking back. We look back at the stories we heard from our elders. As a child of the Tiv tribe in Nigeria, I heard a lot of folk-tales- they were about animals, humans and sometimes magic. In that classic Nigerian narrative tradition, people performed these stories during festivals, dressing up in costumes, assuming the identity of the characters, immersing the audience in the narrative. As a member of the Diaspora, looking back at these stories, and holding them tightly.

South African Ethnographic Study Drawings from 1872

I found these drawings by Gustav Fritsch recently while doing some other research. In this paper by Andrew Bank of the University of the Western Cape, we learn that "Fritsch indicated right at the outset of his expedition that his aims were 'ethnographic' and 'anthropological' ... and the collection of a portrait portfolio of 'natives' ('eingeborenen') was the most important aspect of this project". Note that the men and women are drawn with no background or context- this was a deliberate act on the part of Fritsch and other ethnographic portrait artists. Quite a few of these were drawn after photographs, but because of the clunky photographic setup and chairs needed for the subjects, "the background or the context has been painted out of the negative, thus stressing the de-contextualized nature of the subject."

As with all art, they are interesting once you understand the background in which they were made.

May 20, 2015

Pixel Fable Featured on The New York Times

Imagine my surprise when I woke up last month, to a Google Alert about Pixel Fable in the New York Times! The project has been a long-running one, and has allowed me to stretch my illustration and dev skills. So I was very happy to see it featured in April, as part of a story about interactive children's apps.

You can read the article here, and purchase a subscription to the iPad app.

April 20, 2014

Transmedia Storytelling Tools

Over the past few year, I've been exploring transmedia and non-linear storytelling. Transmedia storytelling is the practice of telling a story across multiple platforms and formats. It follows the distributed, non-linear way the web is set up, with hyperlinks and content split across multiple sites, and is a radically different way of telling stories.

Part of my research has been on the tools we can use to do this. I've listed a few below. Hopefully you can use a few of them to start telling new kinds of digital stories.

Images and Multimedia Platforms

Thinglink allows you to create interactive images by adding popup interactivity. Spread out across multiple images, this could be a really interesting way to explore a story.

Klynt is a webapp that allows you to create rich, multimedia content. It is a paid platform, but has a good set of features and integrations.

Meograph is another multimedia content tool, but has a smaller feature set.

Cowbird is a storytelling community. It uses a very simple set of interactions to tell human interest stories. As part of a larger narrative, it would be a very good way to explore a characters motivations or inner thoughts. A Jonathan Harris project.

Aesop Story Engine is a WordPress theme that uses a variety of plugins for different story content. This gets very close to the atomic narrative content I discussed in my FOWD talk in London.

Zeega is another multimedia content tool. The emphasis on audio and gifs makes it accessible for the modern web.

StoryCorps is a platform for telling personal stories. It is focused on the American experience, and offers a great model for audience-led personal narrative.

Twine is an open-source tool for telling non-linear, hyperlinked stories. It is one of those pure web tools, and does not rely on extensive functionality or tools to work, but is kind of inaccessible for those with no technical background. For an example, see Transit

Mapstory is community focused on sharing data and knowledge. The emphasis here is on spatial, open-source data. This model could potentially be used in other contexts, such as to create starmaps, or other fictional narrative content.

April 12, 2014

Webvisions Portland 2014

Ill be speaking and holding a workshop at Webvisions Portland in May. If you're in the area, I'd love to see you there.

My talk is called Hyperlinks and Storyarcs, and will be about non-linear storytelling on the web. You can read more about it on the Webvisions blog.