Storefront at 359 Canal St. Part of OnCanal an initiative by Wallplay

Last year at the Tribeca Film Festival something mysterious took place at 359 Canal Street. For those who stepped off the sidewalk and into the boarded-up storefront, a threshold to another world awaited. The 1,400 sq ft space which sat empty for over 20 years was transformed into an immersive storytelling installation. Set within the aftermath of a blaze, participants worked together to determine the cause of a tragic fire by sifting through the charred remains. Inspired by true events in my life, Where There’s Smoke details the connections between two mysterious fires that devastated our family and my father’s battle with cancer.

Like much of the work I’ve made over the course of my career, Where There’s Smoke is difficult to classify. It mixes documentary form with immersive theatre techniques, escape room mechanics, participatory design and emergent technology. At its core, the project is a generative work that presents a different experience at every showing and yet it doesn’t exist without direct interaction from its participants.

Since 2013, Columbia DSL has been developing open methodologies and creative frameworks for those interested in exploring new forms and functions of storytelling. At the lab, we’re committed to experimentation and documentation. The following case study is the first in a series focusing on projects that were produced outside Columbia DSL but make use of the lab’s methodologies and frameworks.

The following case study provides a detailed overview of the project. Included are design documents, access to source code and details on what it took to make the Tribeca Film Festival installation a reality. The documentation and code at the core of Where There’s Smoke is released under a creative commons license for others to share and remix.

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The case study is an in-depth look at the design and production of “Where There’s Smoke” at the Tribeca Film Festival

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Embedded version of the case study. Rollover with your mouse and use the arrows to left and right to navigate

Click here to see the Case Study.

*Please note that the case study is a large file that includes embedded video, pdf documents and photos.

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Special Thanks to everyone who helped to make the Tribeca Film Festival installation possible!

Upcoming Columbia DSL events and opportunities

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The Columbia DSL’s “Digital Dozen: Breakthrough in Storytelling Awards” returns this Spring. This year marks the 5th anniversary of the Digital Dozen. The event will be held on Tuesday, May 12th at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Film at Lincoln Center. For more details click here.

COLLABORATORS WANTED: Become part of Columbia DSL’s prototyping community

1. We host a monthly Columbia DSL Meetup at Film at Lincoln Center in NYC — http://meetup.com/columbia-dsl
2. Come explore new forms and functions of storytelling with creatives from around the world. Columbia DSL invites you join our new global prototyping community — https://columbiadsl.mn.co/landing

The Columbia University School of the Arts’ Digital Storytelling Lab (aka Columbia DSL) designs stories for the 21st Century. We build on a diverse range of creative and research practices originating in fields from the arts, humanities and technology. But we never lose sight of the power of a good story. Technology, as a creative partner, has always shaped the ways in which stories are found and told. In the 21st Century, for example, the mass democratization of creative tools — code, data and algorithms — have changed the relationship between creator and audience. The Columbia DSL, therefore, is a place of speculation, of creativity, and of collaboration between students and faculty from across the University. New stories are told here in new and unexpected ways.

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