TEN NEW
YEARS OF
FRONTIER
STORYTELLING IS AN ANCIENT PRACTICE THAT CONTINUES TO REFLECT AND SHAPE THE WAY WE EXPERIENCE OUR WORLD, UNDERSTAND OUR TIMES, AND CONNECT WITH OTHERS. AND AS TECHNOLOGY HAS EVOLVED, THE MEDIUMS THROUGH WHICH STORIES ARE TOLD HAVE EXPANDED FROM ORAL TRADITIONS AND PAINTINGS ON CAVE WALLS TO RADIO TRANSMISSIONS AND FILM. NEW FRONTIER IDENTIFIES AND CELEBRATES THE CREATORS WHO EXPLORE THE OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN THE NEWEST TECHNOLOGIES TO PUSH THE EDGES OF THE ORIGINAL STORY CONCEPTION AND CRAFT AND TO INVITE THE AUDIENCE TO EXPERIENCE STORIES AS NEVER BEFORE.
2007
NEW FRONTIER DEBUTS AT THE SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL New Frontier starts as a showcase for work emerging from the intersection cinematic storytelling, the art of high-concept visualization, and new technologies marking the reinvention of our media architecture.
2008
FINE ARTISTS FIND A HOME AT NEW FRONTIER In 2008, the program begins to attract top-tier fine artists such as Doug Aitken, Jennifer Steinkamp, Hank Willis Thomas, Marina Zurkow, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, and Cory Arcangel.
2009
STORYTELLING WITH DATA Data intelligence, art, and storytelling converge through the breakthrough project WE FEEL FINE by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar. Culling data from a large number of blogs, the project creates a database of millions of human emotions. A beautiful and smart interface allows the visitor to search the feelings in playful and metaphorically rich ways, revealing a macro view of our collective emotional landscape.
“MINORITY REPORT”-ESQUE HAPTIC TECHNOLOGY ENTERS THE STORYMAKING PROCESS
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Media scientist John Underkoffler and Oblong Industries choose New Frontier as the place to premiere their new operating system. Gspeak is presented through the editing app TAMPER, enabling the editors to create cinematic worlds through a gestural interface.
2010
PARTICIPATORY STORYTELLING YIELDS NEW BUSINESS MODELS As the digital revolution continues, film and television audiences begin turning toward Internet-enabled platforms and devices. With the accessibility of in-home streaming, mobile viewing, and interactive experiences that integrate content with social media, Festival audiences begin to see New Frontier as offering a glimpse of what the future may hold. The New Frontier lineup includes Joseph Gordon Levitt’s HitRecord, a social and digital platform that invites its members to create work ranging from poems to films in a collaborative environment. As individual users purchase the work, creators share in the profits, and HitRecord becomes among the first platforms to establish a creative digital community and a business model that connects creators directly to consumers.
2011
NEW FRONTIER STORY LAB LAUNCHES The dynamic work presented at New Frontier inspires Sundance Institute to deepen its support for the storytelling pioneers working with new mediums and methodologies. The first Sundance New Frontier Story Lab is held in October at Sundance Resort. Focused on developing resonant stories within the context of emerging technologies, the Lab brings together technologists and storytellers of all disciplines, and establishes a space for developing storymaking language, best practices, and techniques for new mediums. Among the projects supported during the first Lab are: QUESTION BRIDGE: BLACK MALE, 18 DAYS IN EGYPT, and KILL SHAKESPEARE.
WEB-BASED INTERACTIVE FILM With the release of WebGL (Web Graphics Library), interactive 3-D computer graphics can be rendered directly through web browsers, creating exciting new capabilities for URLs. And while user-generated content continues to take hold, transformative work like The Wilderness Downtown, ROME, and The Johnny Cash Project demonstrates the unique role of artists as creators of interactive storyworlds that may be highly customized, reciprocal, and break out of the single-frame paradigm.
TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING AND ALTERNATE REALITY GAMES MATURE Although the term “transmedia” is established in the 1990s, it doesn’t gain traction until 2003, when Henry Jenkins published “Transmedia Storytelling.” In 2011, independent artists and companies like 42 Entertainment, Fourth Wall, and Starlight Runner are actively experimenting with Massive Alternate Reality Games and transmedia stories. New Frontier curators invite Lance Weiler’s PANDEMIC 1.0 to appear at the Sundance Film Festival. It is the first work to bring together film, live action role play (LARP), social gaming, and data visualization. Leading with a short film, Weiler’s piece invites online pariticipants to join Park City audiences to overcome the virus and uncover the detritus left behind. Found artifacts grant entry to a private DJ Kid Koala party. The piece marks New Frontier’s foray into facilitating architechtural engagement with cinematic work that extends beyond the confines of a given room or building.
2012
BIRTH OF A MEDIUM, VIRTUAL REALITY New Frontier curator Shari Frilot visits Nonny de la Pena’s research lab at USC, and experiences virtual reality (VR) for the first time. De la Pena’s HUNGER IN LOS ANGELES brings viewers directly into an eyewitness account of an incident on a food bank line at the First Unitarian Church in L.A. Impressed by its emotional resonance, Frilot invites de la Pena to present the piece at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The invitation prompts de la Pena’s intern Palmer Luckey to create a mobile version of USC’s VR headset, which becomes an early manifestation of Oculus Rift. This marks the beginning of the multi-billiondollar “gold rush” among the technology, gaming, and film industries to bring viable virtual reality to the masses.
REINVENTION OF THE EBOOK At the New Frontier Story Lab, two projects redefine the book as a storytelling medium. THE SILENT HISTORY is a groundbreaking novel, written and designed specifically for iPad and iPhone, that uses serialization, exploration, and collaboration to tell the story of a generation of unusual children – born without the ability to create or comprehend language. An interactive documentary that can also be defined as a next generation eBook for tablets, TOUCH examines the demise of print and other forms of tangible culture.