Approaching Participatory documentary networks and networking

Abstract

This contribution conceives of interactive documentaries as relational configurations – as a nexus of discourses and practices. By building theory from practice (i.e. two case studies of interactive documentaries), the axioms of Actor Network Theory will be related to actually ‘doing documentary’ like e.g. interventionist media making (e.g. as delineated by Cizek in her Manifesto for Interventionist Media) or Zimmerman and DeMichiel’s reflections on open space documentary. We suggest moving from Actor Network Theory to an Interventionist Networking Methodology and thinking of emerging documentary assemblages not only in terms of hybrid transdisciplinary, transprofessional networks but pragmatic worknets. This can lead to a better understanding of how to deal with unpredicted developments in participatory interactive documentary making in which networking, different agendas and active intervention are foregrounding.en partant