StoryStorm

The ‘StoryStorm Network’  was funded by AHRC CCN+ with the aim of developing collaborative, co-creative workshops to explore the ways stories are increasingly supported and shaped by digital technology.

Elements of storytelling frequently appear in research, from the germ of new project ideas, and the creation of hypotheses, to development through design processes, and towards new products and services. We also use storytelling for communication of our work, to peers, end users, the wider public and organisations. These stories appear in many guises, navigating tradition forms of writing, practice and critical enquiry, and creating wholly different experiences accessible in a new era of distribution. In fact, the very act of communication is fundamentally an act of storytelling and so the stories we fashion about ourselves to make sense of our life experiences are intrinsically linked to our identity and sense of self (Bruner, 2002), nation and help our understanding of the world.

Narrative and storytelling are as critical in today’s digital economy as at any other time, in history, and in order to address the Culture and Communities Network+ aims to understand ‘community and culture in a digital age’, we proposed storytelling – and emerging digital means of capturing and sharing stories – as a potential methodological tool for addressing the overarching empirical and collaborative interests. By creating the ‘StoryStorm Network’ we developed collaborative, co-creative workshops where stories were created, crafted, and retold. This was with a twofold aim: to explore the ways stories are increasingly supported and shaped by digital technology, with the rise of technologies such as hypertext, QR codes or virtual/augmented reality leading to new forms of narrative and to identify how storytelling in its digital and mediated forms might itself support the collaborative investigation within and between the CCN+’s themes and leaders, researchers, practitioners, stakeholders and communities. In other words, to investigate how storytelling could help researchers across CCN+ to achieve their aims and suggest strategies and technologies to support CCN+ and their stakeholders.

We organised a number of events across the UK including: Building an ‘Autobiography of Dundee’, November 2013;  York StoryStorm, March 2014; City Fictions Storystorm, Manchester, March/April 2014;  StoryStorm Workshop: Heritage Stories and Digital Technology, Glasgow, 5th June 2014;  StoryStorm Workshop, DIS2014, June, Vancouver; StoryStorm at Research Through Design, March 2015, Cambridge UK.

The ‘StoryStorm Network’  was funded by AHRC CCN+ with the aim of developing collaborative, co-creative workshops to explore the ways stories are increasingly supported and shaped by digital technology.

Researchers:

Mel Woods, DJCAD, University of Dundee

Dr Deborah Maxwell, Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh

Daisy Abbott, Digital Design Studio, The Glasgow School of Art

Dr Helen Graham, University of Leeds