1. of day, of night

“of day, of night” ( 2002) is a major interactive narrative/ electronic hypertext operating at the intersection of narrative and interactive forms. Funded by the Australian Film Commission (now Screen Australia), the project integrates video, sound, still image, and textual elements into a rich interactive narrative environment.

In “of day, of night”,  a woman, Sophie, has lost the ability to dream. She sets a series of creative tasks in order to start dreaming again; such as finding and collecting objects from a series of locations on a map, imagining their histories, and rearranging the objects, within the “day” part of the work. As we navigate “of day, of night”, the objects, memories and imagined histories collide, and we gain access to “night”, where a set of dreams arise from the fused threads of image and narrative.

“of day, of night” has been recognised for its rich visual and aural landscapes, strong sense of narrative, and innovative fusion of filmic, textual, graphic and audio elements. It has been widely exhibited internationally (including ISEA Japan, Experimenta Australia, Digital Storytelling Festival, USA, Viper, Switzerland ), and won high commendations in significant peer reviewed national digital media awards (Festival Awards for Literature- Mayne Award for Multimedia 2002, AIMIA Awards 2003- Highly Commended- Best Arts, Lifestyle and Non Profit).

“of day, of night” was discussed extensively in Hans.K.Rustad’s “A Four Sided Model for Reading Hypertext Fiction” published in the peer reviewed Hyperrhiz.06: Visionary Landscapes, Spring 2009. hyperrhiz.io/hyperrhiz06/essays/a-four-sided-model-for-reading-hypertext-fiction.html

Megan Heyward is the original writer, director, producer, graphic designer, video editor, compositor, and programmer of the work. Sound design by Sophea Lerner, music by David Claringbold, advanced programming by Sohail Dahdal, additional compositing by Chris Caines.

“of day, of night” continues to be included in major electronic literature exhibitions and conferences such as ELO 2012- “Electrifying Literature : Affordances and Constraints” at West Virginia University, June 2012 and at MLA 2013- “Avenues of Access: An Exhibit & Online Archive of New ‘Born Digital’ Literature” in Boston, January, 2013.

Mac OSX / Windows version available from Eastgate at  http://www.eastgate.com/catalog/OfDayOfNight.html. However, I believe it no longer runs on current Mac OS.

“of day, of night” was programmed in Director for CD-ROM, and is not currently available in an online version. However, these two off-screen recordings at the bottom of this page show a fast tracked “navigation” of the project, to demonstrate how the project looks / feels on a computer :-

Of Day Of Night 1- intro & excerpts as off-screen recording from Megan Heyward on Vimeo.

Of Day, Of Night 2 :- stories and dreams as an off-screen recording from Megan Heyward on Vimeo.

Selected online reviews:http://www.markbernstein.org/Mar0601/PietersonOfDayOfNight.html

http://www.markbernstein.org/Jan0701/OfDayOfNight.html