Digital transformation of doing documentary: Committed documentary and the knitting of networks of co-creation

Abstract

What is at stake if the recent past and social atrocities are hidden by taboos? How can one break up established patterns of media making? How can ancient sociocultural infrastructures in combination with digital documentary promote campaigns to raise one’s voice and achieve social and political change? Taking The Quipu Project (2015) as a test-stone, we discuss the potential of documentary transmedia configurations to allow a hitherto silenced group of people in Peru to collaboratively tell their stories on-line and to promote action taking for justice on the ground. Bringing together Cizek’s notion of interventionist media making, Daniel’s concept of context-provision, Aston’s considerations on ‘emplaced interaction’ and the idea of co-creation, this contribution offers some propositions for a better understanding of emerging digital mutations in doing documentary and their potential for transformation, revisiting paradigms of collective wisdom and impact as well as a modified version of Gaventa’s power cube model.