Paper short abstract:

In "linear documentary land", we are trained to see stories wherever we look. Drawing on my ethnographic study of Korsakow, this paper seeks to illustrate the potential of multilinear actor-network designs for challenging narrative as primary organizing principle in the appropriation of actuality.

Paper long abstract:

In "linear documentary land", we are trained to see stories everywhere we look. However, as noted by Grasseni and Walter (2014 on Digital Visual Engagements), digital affordances encourage reflections upon this particular "schooling of the eye", the power relations it is embedded in as well as the creation of counter-practices for ethnographic analysis and representation.

Florian Thalhofer's Korsakow System offers an alternative format for engaging with the world. As software for creating interactive, rule-based nonfiction, it enables filmmakers to curate audio-/visual material in a multilinear way rendering the construction of an overarching narrative obsolete. The software's algorithm invites makers and audience alike to notice possible connections and rhythms amongst multiple facets of the material.

Adrian Miles, one of Korsakow's strongest advocates, uses the software for thinking and teaching interactive documentary as "the enabling, discovery and choreography of a network of things" (i-Docs, 2016). Drawing on my ethnographic study of a group of media practitioner-researchers who produce knowledge through their creative practice with Korsakow, I investigate how multilinear "actor-network designs" (Storni 2015) challenge narrative as primary organizing principle in the engagement with the messiness of the world.

On the level of reception, however, the promising theoretical notions discussed above remain mostly unrealized at this point: the empirical data suggests a lack of literacy, interest and meaningfulness in audience engagement with Korsakow. Thus, my own research and teaching practice with Korsakow aims at facilitating further insight into the potentials of reassembling visual knowledge dissemination through multilinear spaces.