(image courtesy of tobybarnes on Flickr)

Chris and I both went along to The Story on Friday, a conference (really more of a gathering) about stories and storytelling organised by Matt Locke. The speakers were wonderfully varied and interesting.

(image courtesy of Conference Basics on Flickr)

At the beginning of the day, Margaret Robertson, our host, very kindly gave us permission to close the laptops and put away the mobiles so that we could just listen. It set the tone for the day and began a theme–which for me ran through most of the speakers–about the fleeting nature of experiencing stories.

Here are a few things that stuck:

Matt Adams from Blast Theory talked about Ivy4Evr, a story told via SMS sent to the mobiles of willing participants. One of the interesting things he talked about was what happened when this fictional story intermingled with the stories of the participant's friends and family via their mobile phones; if done with care and detail, it can result in a story experience that feels real and personal.

(image courtesy of Conference Basics on Flickr)

One of the most impactful speakers for me was Karl James, who talked about the importance of listening. He runs the Dialogue Project, essentially collecting stories from people. As opposed to a journalist on the hunt for a story, he acts more as an enabler of stories, setting the right conditions so that stories can grow.

Sculptor Cornelia Parker gave an interesting talk through some of her work, which consists mostly of using found objects and playing with, subverting or changing the stories attached to those objects. She has a great sense of humour about her work, especially when she mentioned buring Roman coins in America and seriously confusing the people of the future who will uncover them.

Martin Parr spoke with great richness about his work. As Chris pointed out, he can tell the story of every photo and everyone in the photos; he uses the images as touchpoints for talking about his experiences in the places they were taken. Listening to him, you feel as though the photo only gives you part of the story, and it isn't complete until you hear him talk about it.

Another hightlight was Mary Hamilton talking about Zombie LARP, which she called a story machine. Like Karl's talk, Mary talked about the Live Action Role Play project in the context of setting the conditions ripe for people to create their own stories, which are much more interesting than any stories they could try to think up.

And let's not forget The Pedicurist, a monster created by the audience with the help of the wonderful Ministry of Stories.

(image by Documentally)

Some of my favourite writeups of the day are here and here (plus super-great sketch-notes by Eva-Lotta Lamm), and photos here.