Tuning and sensing with Korsakow: the ecocritical potentials of multilinear nonfiction

Abstract

ABSTRACT The world is precarious and changing, yet we continue to find ways to order and understand these entanglements; taming the complexity out there. In linear documentary, shots by necessity need to be ordered and fixed by the edit, whilst some shots do not make the cut at all. Due to the affordances of the online network, multilinear documentary allows multiple possible arrangements of audiovisual nonfiction content without the time restrictions to leave content out. How can we conceive an audiovisual nonfiction practice which senses the entanglements of the fluxing world around us? Over the past six years I have been experimenting with the affordances of the Korsakow authoring system to make multilinear nonfiction. Korsakow works with fragments of audiovisual content and allows multiple possible relations to form between parts. Through the development of two major projects, I have found Korsakow offers a way of maintaining the world in fragments as soft multiple relations, reflecting an ecocritical world as entangled continually doing things. By sketching out the practice I developed through this body of work, I will propose that Korsakow provides an audiovisual nonfiction tool to tune into and sense the indeterminate patterns and rhythms of the world.