Nuclear Disaster: A Science Fiction Dystopia in Digital Storytelling

Introduction
Is future nuclear disaster predictable today? Maybe. Maybe not. The genre of this video, as I classify it, is science fiction horror. I am not making any conspiracy theory type predictions; this is a digital story first and foremost. The question at hand is: how will our technological advances impact the dystopia digital story’s plot line? I want to test the boundaries of the digital storytelling mode in utilizing text to form a mental picture, instead of relying on the “universal” language of viseral imagery. I use the genre of science fiction to transgress boundaries of truth, time and place, creating a digital no man’s land. Larry Friedlander explains in “Narrative Strategies in a Digital Age” that “It is a work of art whose purpose is to express. It is totally and thoroughly artificial. Each of its elements-space, time, objects, beings, and actions-can be selected, arrange and transformed for the needs of an aesthetic experience.” I envisioned a digital story unique in it’s treatment of our current political anxiety to produce fear and overwhelming dread by creating an anti-aesthetic experience through a nuclear dystopia.
In envisioning this horrific disaster, I ask my audience to reflect about their apathy in today’s political climate of hostile militarism and the war on terror’s state of high-alert. The rhetoric of crisis has effectively normalized the stringent public “safety” measures that the U.S. government orders us as citizens to comply with on a regular basis. I play with this well-known suspenseful feeling we share while living in times of economic distress and political crisis, war, nuclear proliferation. Through sound and text primarily, but also with select imagery, I define digital storytelling as Professor Alex Juhasz put’s it: “production of written text to exist on an online space.” When working with text in this video, versus photography, I play with the boundaries between video and hypertext for a digital story. I ask, can the same sensations of fear be produced through words as are produced by the images in the video’s “Born Free” by M.I.A and “The Raven” by Ricardo de Montreuil?
The central conflict and main emphasis of “Nuclear Disaster” is on the unknown future in which total nuclear war has destroyed the cyber-world we know today. I show no violence, no blood and no gore. The storyline is embedded with elements of alarm (“The city has been totally destroyed”) that heighten the viewers panic (“I don’t know if this is the end for all humankind”), and bring forth from the depths of the human psyche’s our fear of the unknown (“White supremacist World War III”/ “Corporate Take-over of U.S. Government”/ ending with “Hello?”). Hopefully, the viewer is transported from passification of the war on terror propaganda and made hyper-aware of what the extreme conclusion of a state of crisis could sound like.
My stylistic voice has a tone of urgency that propells the audience to read on further, regardless of the lack of imagery on the screen to elucidate what’s happening. I use a bomb alarm to heighten the tension in the story. The audio (sound, exclamatory text, noises, music) component of this piece sets the tone, mood, and style of writing. I have a monologue of text that sounds like a conversation because I attempt to incorporate the viewer’s responses into my dialogue. The text is formatted as a story but reads like a poem. The background noises give an aura that is mysteriously intense, fearful and suspenseful throughout only lifting up a bit to provide relief upon seeing my face on the webcam for a few seconds. I experimented with various combinations of noises, and single story lines together. Through text predominantly, I attempt to subvert conventions of linear time because the prospective future is a location created through dialogue, not spatial observations like in the video’s “Born Free” and “The Raven.” The text scrolling across the bottom of the screen intentionally parody’s CNN’s use of text similarly showen when giving breaking news updates.
Almost at the end of the clip, I inform the audience that I have a webcam and that I am trying to adjust it to see the outside; to see the world wide web after the destructive aftermath. Why? “The presence of the camera is a kind of passport that opens all doors and enables every kind of scandal possible.” Truly. The male gaze is subverted temporarily as I can “see” the audience before the internet connection is lost. Although the viewer sees me at the other end of the video screen, it is unclear if I can see them back. The point of this twist is to create a place to challenge the imagination of the viewers. Are the photographs of lights shown what they expected? What did my audience image a post-nuclear disaster world would look like? The viewer has been ‘cammed’ in the sense that I am having a dialogue with them as if they were on another webcam at some other location. In the end, the viewer only sees me to rupture the fantasy of what they imagine a post-nuclear disaster survivor to look like. My face is the only viseral comfort I give.
Digital Influences and Their Public Comments
A. Music video for the song “Born Free” by artist M.I.A and directed by Romain-Gavras. (2010) Photography Director: Andre Chemetoff. Producer: Mourad Belkeddar. Production Company: elnino.tv
a. http://vimeo.com/11219730
b. The zooming in and out of a white, U.S. military soldier is where the video opens and ends. It is clearly a critique of the military-industrial-complex for the exception of one minute detail. The soliders are abducting, torturing and murdering red haired-white people; not Afghanistani, Pakistani, Iraqi or Iranian people of color. This substitution of white people for people of color is no accident, ofcourse. The point is if red haired civilians were being massacred the way black haired civilians are currently being exterminated, then perhaps there would be major world outcry, like there was about the making of this video that depicts violence against whites by whites. U.S. soldiers are killing innocent noncombatants in Iraq/Afghanistan almost every day, while we still do not have an exit strategy on the horizon, and there is almost zero public anti-war demonstrations by the American people. I found this video to promote a push out of passification to create anti-war activist digital story.
c. For the making of this video, many bloggers have hypocritically intimidated M.I.A because she is used excessive violence against certain groups based on their physical appearance or for not having a strong ‘theme’:
i. Paxson Woelber : “I have to admit I laughed out loud at the first shot of the bus full of sullen ginger kids. It's like something from South Park. Also, the combination of the absurd symbolism of the redheads with the real American flag made the concept feel confused and kind of petty. If this is some warning against discrimination in general why single out America in particular? Alternately, if you want to criticize the United States, why not represent a case of real discrimination (god knows there are plenty to choose from)? I thought it was an interesting video (and MIA rocks) but conceptually just kind of blah.”
ii. Telemaak: “Sorry guys, I'm french, I've gone to college and I've probably known M.I.A. way before you have and I know she's keen on denouncing world's injustice but this time, I don't understand why she uses violence so much. Yes, the world is violent. Yes, it's sadly becoming more and more ordinary but why the hell keepin on thinking that showing it will calm the situation... When I look at all the comments, I'm quite deperate.. Stray Films, please start stopping telling people are idiots and then post a comment on mine.”
iii. jorge gonzalez graupera:M.I.A. will tell you she's against violence, yet she lends herself to a video like this where a child gets a bullet in the head. Furthermore, if you go to one of her shows you will hear machine gun samples every 30 seconds. Sorry folks, but I think this is bullshit; you can't have it both ways. This just further exacerbates the problem of violence and hatred in this world. In this day and age this kind of imagery reveals nothing and makes no kind of statement when you can go online and see actual footage (youtube.com/ watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0) of what the US military does to innocent people. Which brings me to ANOTHER point: The US is not the only aggressor in the world; In Africa black people slaughter and rape and in the Arab world Sunnis kill Shiites and vice versa. Etc., etc. Violence and hatred is a HUMAN thing, not an AMERICAN thing. So can we please stop with the double standard already? Enough is enough. Finally, from an artistic point of view, this video is way too heavy handed and "clever", trite and redundant (the track is pretty bad-ass sounding though). Anyway, just my opinion; please spare me all the hate e-mails and comments.
d. Other bloggers have come to M.I.A’s defense posting the following:
i. Matt DL: To Telemaak: MIA is not using violence in an exploitative way. She is showing [actually the director is showing] that violence is terrible and unacceptable. And he does this by turning the tables a bit on racial profiling. This video is the opposite of most Hollywood films because it is not pleasing or 'good' violence. I think it makes it's point quite effectively.
ii. Martin Maden :“Wow. Incredible video. Reminds me of the thousands of Iranian boys who walked to their deaths to clear the minefields during the war between Iran and Iraq.” matthiaskuentzel.de/ contents/ ahmadinejads-demons
iii. GageParker: “Wow some of you guys are pretty dense, this has nothing to do with ginger people being discriminated against. It is an analogy (you know being artistic and creative, and not being so literal) of how all kinds of groups are persecuted for being different. If that point was lost on you your not much of genius either. And no I do not think he had any intention of trying to be funny with this video. Who would watch this and start laughing?!”
iv. Brett Harvey: Jorge, with all due respect, your logic is flawed. You continue to iterate that there is a dissonance between this video's obscene violence and M.I.A's speaking out against violence. It seems odd that you would say this considering you just said the message was too obvious. I'm going to assume that you think the message is to shock people and warn them the dangers of a big, over-policed government being able to potentially commit unwarranted, heinous acts of violence. If that's the case, how could you NOT depict it in this manner? In what way would you convey the same message and themes? Also, just because you felt that the message was too obvious and utilized a cheap device doesn't mean that this won't impact other people. You're misusing the word gratuitous: this video is using violence for something more than the sake of the violent acts. While you may think that this may be a cheap device to convey a simple message, the violence is still not gratuitous. Why not make a statement about violence in general? Because the song and the video are making a statement about feeling oppressed by a big government. Why pick on the U.S.? Who knows? As an American, I personally wasn't offended by it and felt that the government depicted could have been as easily interchangeable with any other superpower (China, Russia, UK, etc), much in the same way that gingers could be exchanged for any other group of people (blacks, gays, Jews, etc) and still have a similar impact and meaning. Chalking this video up as simply a knock of of an action movie is an insult to the people who made this film, and to think that there was no message other than to glorify violence seems sensationalist itself.
v. Mr. J M Stevens:Yo, I didn't read your whole conversation and this point might have already been made but i just wanted to point it out. My interpretation of the video is an act of hacktivism (which m.i.a keeps going on about lately too) and it seems to be a reinactment of the video aired on channel 4 where tamil tigers where being shot by sri lankan soldiers... it seems to me like they have replaced the tamil tigers with ginger haired people... it also relates to all descrimination that occurs across the world... obviously channel 4 did not show the people getting shot but m.i.a wants to make an impact and show what actually happens in the world as sometimes people do need to see it... i could imagine she was pretty angry not only at the video but the fact that the government said that the video was fabricated etc....thats my take it anyway :)

B. “Ducked and Covered: A Survival Guide to the Post Apocalypse” Video written, directed, produced, and edited by Nathaniel Lindsay (Comic Relief!)
a. http://vimeo.com/8149690
b. “An instructional public information film desgined to assist the general population with surviving life in Australia after a nuclear war. Produced by the Australian Board of Civil Defense during the early 1980’s…”
c. On behalf of my audience, I included this video in my analysis for comic relief, parody and amusement. It also lended me with wonderful ideas for my storyline and plot.
C. “The Raven”-720 HD Video
a. http://vimeo.com/channels/86588
b. A film by Ricardo de Montreuil. Written by Ricardo de Montreuil and Antonio Perez. Produced: Ricardo de Montreuil and Eliz Eskeranli. Co-produced: Jesus Hernandez. (2010) Cinematographer: Andres Sanchez. Music: Angelo Milli. Special Effects: Aaron Burns. 3D Modeling and Animation: Juan Somarriha and Francisco Concha
c. Although I love the science fictional location of the video and the HD quality of the images, I found the piece to lack a sharp storyline. The main character has super-human powers and is able to remain at large by the end. Are we, the audience, left to speculate about how much longer the heroic fugitive can outlast the overbearing robotic Big Brother’s to conclude he will eventually succumb? Regardless, I found the work useful in crafting my own digital story. I looked closely at the comments as well as the video because it helped me find a voice. Here are some of the more interesting comments:
i. THE RAVEN FILM: “Thanks Ayz.It was shot on RED using Ultraprime lenses. The budget was $5k. And is based on a treatment I wrote for a trilogy.We shot it in Downtown LA in 2 days. You can see some production stills in The Raven facebook”: facebook.com/ pages/ THE-RAVEN-FILM/ 110828695622564?ref=mf
ii. Youssef Ezzeddine:
”hmm.. good work especialy on special effects and color correction..However, the script could be more interesting..whatever, good job.”


iii. Halivud Estevez: “I agree, good job, but flat "story". Good for a trailer, or pilot. If i was a producer, I would give you a screenwriter creative team.”
Conclusion
Overall, my digital story “Nuclear Disaster” is simplistic, the tone is urgent and the hypertext situated within an aura of crisis and a dystopian tale. In closing, I leave the audience wondering, suspencefully, if humankind has survived or if I will even survive. I refused to terminate a dystopia with a happy ending that leaves us all feeling cozy and safe. The world I have created in “Nuclear Disaster” is as Friedlander writes, “the world is both real and virtual, the story is both a human and a technological production and the user both makes and consumes the product.”