Storytelling in the digital age
By Matthew Battles | 07.10.09
In this digital age, it’s no secret that writers are scrambling for ways to make new the ancient art of storytelling. I’m taking part in a project that merges the addictive consumer frisson of the online auction with the warp and verve of a cutting-edge literary magazine.
Significant Objects, a project dreamed up by New York Times columnist Rob Walker and intellectual impresario Josh Glenn, asks writers to compose stories inspired by souvenir ashtrays, novelty figurines, and other tchotchkes picked up at flea markets and tag sales.
Walker and Glenn put the items up for sale on eBay; winning bidders get the significant object and a printed copy of the story it inspired; writers receive the proceeds of the sale. Contributors include “Jamestown” author Matthew Sharpe, novelist Lucinda Rosenfeld, and critic and historian of photography Luc Sante (the object of my own story, a Candyland maze game, went up for auction earlier this week; the current high bid is $8.50).
While Significant Objects may seem like a curious way to promote writing, it’s really a cunning experiment in the nature of value and consumer society. Invested with new significance by its attendant fiction, an object may increase its market value.
So far, the results are modest but positive: most of the objects have received bids above their original prices (around a dollar, give or take). But hey, bidding’s still on!
Matthew Battles is a freelance writer in Jamaica Plain, Mass.
Comments
2. renee hand | 07.18.09
There is still nothing that connects like the human voice. I am a storyteller, member of the s.t. guild and retired librarian who still does volunteer work. A good storyteller still gets attention like nothing else does. It’s the live human contact and the interaction. Unfortunatgely much of that is lost as kids get addicted to the digital screen. I’ve also taught ‘reading to your child’ to parents who lost children to foster care. They did not know how you can connect with your children by simple storytelling. Keep that human voice alive or we all perish.
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1. Tim Hall | 07.10.09
Hi Matthew,
I’ve been a fan of Rob Walker’s work for a while, and this is a great idea. There was also a member of OutsiderWriters.org who recently auctioned a spot in his new novel on eBay, for something like $150 or so. I like ideas that explore the connection between art and commerce.
I’ve also been trying to re-imagine ’storytelling in the digital age’ and thought you might be interested. My latest effort is a “text comic” that was commissioned and is now being serialized at ACT-I-VATE. Would love to get it and the site more coverage (of course) or hear your thoughts. You can check it out here: http://act-i-vate.com/creators?id=47 and click the “Uplift The Positivicals” image, or find my name under “creators” at act-i-vate.com — just another twist in our multi-everything age.