Cambridge, Massachusetts: Storytelling is perhaps as old as civilization itself, and much like the latter, it has evolved over time. Weathering tech storms from the Internet and mobile world, the art form has mutated, but survived. So on 18 November, when the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, announced setting up of a new Centre for Future Storytelling, there were mixed reactions, partly owing to the lab’s reputation for being “futuristic” and also because of people’s strong attachment to the art of storytelling itself.
Technology tales: Ramesh Raskar of the Centre for Future Storytelling showing some of his new-age cameras. Seema Singh / Mint
But one of the co-directors of this new centre, Ramesh Raskar, who recently joined MIT from Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories and also heads a group called Camera Culture, argues that Media Lab is not futuristic and is often thought to be so because it tries to create completely new things, rather than work on incremental technologies.
In an interview, he explains what this centre, with a $25 million (Rs121 crore) funding from Plymouth Rock Studios, intends to do and how he thinks the entertainment business in India could leapfrog to an entirely new model with “interactive” and “social” storytelling. Edited excerpts:
So, what is the future of storytelling?
We want to make sure storytelling is democratized, social and improvisational, and for that we want to create tools and platforms that can be diffused into society. Steven Spielberg and James Cameron became who they are, the great storytellers, because they had access to the right resources and were surrounded by the right people. Compare that with the music industry, which until recently required that you have the studio, equipment et al. to release your CD. But that has changed now…you can put your CD on MySpace and become famous overnight. How can we do that for storytelling, moviemaking…
Where does YouTube fit in all this?
YouTube is an example of part democratization but most of the clips don’t have the context. By creating new tools we can empower individuals to become master storytellers, whether for the audience of one or a billion. The audience of one could be your daughter, and the story could be fiction (trying to put her to sleep) or real (sharing some experience with her).
What leap in technology would this require?
It could be as simple as you take your flight back to Bangalore and your baggage is delayed, which can be pretty annoying as it happens but could make for a good story once you settle and decide to narrate to your family. But now you don’t have the tools to do this. If we had a camera that was taking the movie all the time, maybe your bag was smart enough to know where it went and so on, then you have this much networked environment which is automatically writing the story. Technology does the bookkeeping and additional software pieces together the story.