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Just like Mission Control was formed from nothing
to explore space –
The dream here is similar –
Creating the environment, now, for the new exploration of story.
As media artists, we have to
make moons to gaze at
& worlds to wonder in. Offer that kind of opportunity
for others to gaze.
To see beyond ~
Hi. I’m Jen.
I’m a storyteller and the “Flight Director” of our dream “mission control” – Wingspan Sound.
I was recently talking with my friend and Physicist – Brian Taylor – about the underestimated role that media and stories play in our lives. During this creative conversation, Brian shared the following observation –
“Attention is precious, and we give it away for nothing and get nothing in return. People don’t understand that. It’s so easy to steal it, and yeah…waste so many lives. I don’t know if that’s a science, a society, or an arts statement, but…”
We agreed it was all three.
We agreed it was time to explore new stories in new ways.
We agreed that the role story plays in our lives is far more significant than often talked about or addressed in the fields of art and science, and these fields are in service to society.
We explored questions together, like: how does media/story interact with attention/reality?
And with that question came another – what is the role of story going to be as we move forward into creating media with AI and technology? Or when AI makes media on its own?
As physics has shown us – where we place our attention is our reality.
Attention is one of the greatest resources we have.
Brian highlighting this encouraged me to go deeper…
As the media architects of Wingspan Sound, a word that has been fundamental for us as we build content is reciprocity – the appreciation and consideration of media as a reciprocal engagement and event.
Simply put, media is a human-made wonder of the world – much like nature in what it offers and how it moves through our lives… how we move with it… in our lives…
Like a tree provides us oxygen, and we effortlessly reciprocate with carbon dioxide — media too can offer a similar reciprocity if it is seen for the potentials it holds to enhance who we are – when engaged with – as the wonder it is.
With media, it is like we are holding the northern lights in our hands…
And it’s practical. The purpose of any type of media is to transmit and/or receive communication.
Breathing out and breathing in…
You give media your attention, and it gives you doors to yourself.
Story itself is a communication device, perhaps our most ancient technology and, in our world today, stories endlessly hold our attention, in every way, everywhere we go, all the time.
As a lifelong actor and storyteller, I’ve come to realize the following…
Something very beautiful happened with story when we were young.
(And there really are no words for it, but I will do my best…)
Participating in a story IS exploration.
As children, we knew this…
A spacecraft is a vehicle that takes us out into space to explore space.
A story is a vehicle that takes us into ourselves to explore self.
There really is nothing passive about engaging in stories other than the fact we’ve given that idea our attention. If we choose it to be an active and reciprocal event, then it is.
The door is always open…
When artists develop stories, we are architecting worlds – worlds we spend time in and characters we spend time with.
We often talk about the advancements in technologies to bring story forward, new effects and opportunities in sound, visual advancements, and immersive technologies – but the exploration and application of story itself as a technology, as a quality means of communication and WHAT it is communicating, seems undervalued somehow.
It is my hope to lean into these kinds of considerations – Lean. Way. In. – with scientists and engineers, with other artists and collaborators – while we architect imaginary story driven media that is captivating, character rich and wonder inducing.
“Wonder inducing” were Brian’s words after listening to our Enthusiasm Trailer. (The trailer can be found on our Patreon page.)
It was a remarkable experience to explore questions and curiosities with Brian – the scientist and the artist talking together in combined vision, willing to bend and stretch beyond ideas of how things would and should work from either of these titular viewpoints.
Of course, each of us is really both of these things, however subtle or pronounced this may be, but the service to our conversation came in our acting out these roles for the purpose of exploring and leaning into the unknown.
And the unknown is a vast expanse – out into space – and into ourselves –
We often go to media itself for this very reason – to support ourselves in the “unknown” moments of our days.
It’s like going to a friend – whether it’s television, movies, books, or audio – we know to go there because something very beautiful happened with story when we were young.
As children we had a different kind of access, our minds and physiologies were more open, more willing – willing to let go, to bend into the transmission of words, sounds or visuals. There was an ease about it and a willingness to be a detective of reality while allowing the wash of wonder and confusion to move through our systems without getting caught in categories.
And yet, stories often stayed with us.
Characters can walk with us, as friends, through life…
I’m now thinking of some of the characters that have been with me since childhood.
When I revisit their stories now, I still discover new areas of myself, bridges to and through myself, insights, and wisdoms – windows – in the architecture, in their stories, now.
Play with me, and take a moment to think of some of the characters that have been with you throughout your life.
Perhaps you have navigated your world with them, cried with them and celebrated something mind-blowing or paradigm-shifting with them.
We might say, oh that was just a story, but that line of logic means nothing to a nervous system that is not logical. Attention is Attention.
And even if it’s a challenging story, there can still be joy – joy beyond and including circumstances that could never fully define who these characters are.
Each stream of joy we acknowledge and consciously bring into this world is of great value. I feel we can no longer underestimate this.
Especially now. We are teaching AI about this through everything we do.
We are putting these things in AI as well.
With these considerations, we have made this page, and –
This page is a telescope.
It is a call to envision an ever-widening relationship with the imagination –
through the lens of story –
in the multi-phenomenal, and endlessly elastic, context of media.
It kind of blows my mind how an entire world of story can exist on a simple stream of digital media.
And what goes into making this stream of a world? – hundreds, if not thousands, of collaborative elements and people. So much must come together. There’s all of this wild and generative collaboration, and then when it’s made, it goes invisible… into a state where it does not exist unless experienced, watched, read, or listened to. Unless observed. Where is it? Ha!
It is invisible until perceived, until we put our attention on it.
And there are millions upon millions of these threads and streams – and they are worlding and weaving – to make an astounding and unquantifiable living tapestry – all around – and out of sight.
Sounds like a wild fiction story in itself, right?
Wingspan Sound’s first digital world, Culmination Genesis, is currently in development and will be one thread to pull on – to put attention on – for who knows how long.
It could be decades down the line…someone might somehow stumble on our digital string in ways we couldn’t even imagine now and – having no idea who we are, nor caring for that matter – this someone might hear a communication – a transmission – that shakes them up, opens a door or offers a seed of newness.
I think about seeds very differently now. What are the seeds we are planting in the digital orbits to communicate with humanity in a long-lasting way? What are the stories we are intentionally leaving behind?
I can’t help but ask. I don’t even know how not to ask.
Where we put our attention is our reality.
And –
How Wingspan Sound makes our content, and what goes into it, is as important to us as the content itself.
These kinds of considerations and creative conversations are in the media, even if you don’t see them with your eyes or hear them with your ears. Every intention, bit of laughter and willingness to bend into the unknown is in the media.
It is media as telescope, as walking stick, as access point.
This is where we are putting our attention.
With a pocket full of characters and a heart for exploration,
Jennifer McKenna
And the Wingspan Sound collaborators –
museaiam 