Brooke Leave Home is a personalized film designed to engage a non-expert audience with open data about the support young adults receive when leaving the care system in England. The film draws upon a range of video-based data storytelling techniques to present each viewer with a personalized perspective on the topic based on data from their own local area. We present the film's design and describe how its storytelling techniques were developed to support viewers in understanding, and fostering empathic connections with, the data sources featured and the implications they have for care leavers. We also present a study with 47 viewers, which explores how these techniques were experienced and how effective they were in aiding engagement with the data included and its meaning.
Exploration of the search space through the optimisation of phenotypic diversity is of increasing interest within the field of evolutionary robotics. Novelty search and the more recent MAP-Elites are two state of the art evolutionary algorithms which diversify low dimensional phenotypic traits for divergent exploration. In this paper we introduce a novel alternative for rapid divergent search of the feature space. Unlike previous phenotypic search procedures, our proposed Spatial, Hierarchical, Illuminated Neuro-Evolution (SHINE) algorithm utilises a tree structure for the maintenance and selection of potential candidates. SHINE penalises previous solutions in more crowded areas of the landscape. Our experimental results show that SHINE significantly outperforms novelty search and MAP-Elites in both performance and exploration. We conclude that the SHINE algorithm is a viable method for rapid divergent search of low dimensional, phenotypic landscapes.
This paper introduces a generic (i.e. production-independent) framework for OBM storytelling. Aiming to function as a complete end-to-end (from conception to realisation) reference for authoring OBM narrative content, it proposes an integrated model that includes the three essential levels: conceptual, technological and aesthetic. At the conceptual level, we introduce a set of abstractions which provide a unified reference for thinking, describing and analysing interactive narrative structures of OBM content. Their recursive nature make our model stand out in terms of its power of expression. These abstractions have direct one-to-one operational counterparts implemented in our productionindependent authoring toolkit Ð Cutting Room. This ensures that any specific story design within the proposed conceptual model is directly realisable as an OBM production. This isomorphic relationship between the abstract concepts and their operationalisation is another distinguishing aspect of our overall proposition. We have validated the model at the aesthetic level through the production of the interactive film What is Love?, experienced by over 900 people at the media art festival Mediale 2018 in York, UK, and evaluated through a dedicated questionnaire by 94 of them. As the foundations of OBM storytelling have not yet been established, we trust this paper constitutes a significant milestone in its development.
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