“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, the project integrates video, audio, stills, and textual elements into a rich interactive narrative environment.
In “of day, of night”, a woman 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, imagining their histories, and rearranging the objects. As the user traverses the work, objects, memories and histories collide, and 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).
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” has been included in the forthcoming Electronic Literature (ELO 2012) media arts show in the US in June 2012. dtc-wsuv.org/elit/elo2012/elo2012/Welcome.html Mac OSX / Windows version available at http://www.eastgate.com/catalog/OfDayOfNight.html. (And, yes-it still runs well on Mac OSX).
“of day, of night” was programmed in Director for CD-ROM, and is not currently available in an online version. However, an off screen recording of excerpts is available here:-
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.
Swing ; Forest ; Dream Return
A very considered essay on narrative in “of day, of night” by Hans.K.Rustad, Hedmark University College, Norway in Hyperrhiz.06: Visionary Landscapes, Spring 2009. “A Four Sided Model for Reading Hypertext Fiction”. http://www.hyperrhiz.net/hyperrhiz06/19-essays/80-a-four-sided-model
a map of sorts, an handful of objects, a problem with dreaming
hope lies to the northeast
Selected online reviews:http://www.markbernstein.org/Mar0601/PietersonOfDayOfNight.html
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