Navigating history: Aesthetics and appropriation and the interactive web documentary Freedom’s Ring (2013)

Abstract

The article focuses on web documentaries as a form of interactive historiography by presenting a case study on Freedom’s Ring (2013), a multi-media-based animation of Martin Luther King’s speech ‘I have a Dream’ published in Vectors. Taking both the production and the reception side into account, the article addresses the constitution of knowledge ‐ or rather aesthetic experience ‐ through artistic research practices. In doing so, it reflects upon the concepts of authorship, copyright and participation. Due to its numerous sources, the navigation system, the artwork, its referentiality and variability, it is made the case that Freedom’s Ring challenges history as a ‘grand narrative’ by creating a subjective point of view and putting the user in the position of an activist. Web documentaries are regarded as part of an epistemic and sociopolitical development, in which artistic and academic methods merge.