NONLINEAR NARRATION

Bill Seaman begins telling a story: "When i was 17 years old.... " there are a couple of other people telling stories from the time they where teenagers. Who should be next? The user decides. Christian, Ken or Toni. They all want to tell a story about the time they were young, or about the first time they drank alcohol. If someone tells a story about drunk driving, links will pop up, leading to other people with a story or statement on drinking and driving. That way the user can browse through the pool of stories.

This means, that different people watching the [korsakow syndrom] will probably see the same stories, but definitely in a different order.

It is a simple hyperlink structure, but hey, it works! I've used nonlinear navigation in other works, such as [small world] (1997/1999).

THE WAY YOU SEE THE WORLD

A glance of a billboard, the headline of a newspaper at a gas station, the voice of a politician captured in your head while zapping through TV channels, all those little stories, impressions, bits of information form our view on the world. Some try to add thinking, but in my opinion our view on the world has much more to do with random impressions than we are willing to admit. (This by the way is the reason why commercials are so successful, even the stupid ones.)

ZAPP

Pretend you are watching television, and on all channels are different programs on one topic: [alcohol].

You don't like the guy complaining about his lost youth? Zapp him away, go for the next program, and hey, its a music clip, could be a beer commercial!

At the moment there are about 150 films (1-3 min. long) in the system. a data base generates the links, based on the content of the films.

TWO PARALELL FILMS

Browsing through the [korsakow syndrom], you will always see two films, playing at the same time. The film you have chosen, and beside that a filmloop, illustrating the main film. Next to Bill talking about his youth, you might see a field of flowers. Another viewer will see a different illustrational film - people getting drunk on the street, for example. The illustrational film is picked by the database, based on the content of the main film and its possible interpretations.

AGAIN: THE WAY YOU SEE THE WORLD

Boris Jelzin, former Russian president is drunk. At an official visit in Berlin he sings with an orchestra of schoolgirls. Funny scene. You see people having a party in the illustrational film. Another time the database chooses another illustrational film. This time, next to the drunk president we see tanks firing, a scene from the chechnyan war. Different interpretations of the same footage....

It is not just me, as the author of the [korsakow syndrom], who chose these two possible combinations. What I did was: I categorized the films. The system then puts the films together, based on that information.

What I want to achive is that different people, seeing the same films, will see the not only see the scenes in a different order, but also get different interpretations.

SYSTEM

The [korsakow syndrom] is not only a nonlinear documentary, it is also a system to tell stories in the described manner. You could easily replace the alcohol films with films on any other topic. All that is needed is to categorize the new films with the database system, and it would work again in the same way.

It is as easy as adding new films, or replacing films in the system.
More info about the Korsakow-System.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

The [korsakow syndrome] is quite a big cat. At the moment it weights as much as 5 GB, and it tends to get even heavier. At present it exists in a Mac version, and requires at least a g3 to run smoothly. if you are interested in seeing the [korsakow syndrom] let me know. It's available on a firewire hard drive.

At the moment, the [korsakow syndrom] is mixed language, some films are in German and others in English.