Reimagining book concepts for digital audiences

How Grief is The Thing With Feathers inspired a virtual reality story.

James, Ben and Kiernan, Anna (2017) Reimagining book concepts for digital audiences. In: London Book Fair, 14-16 March 2017, London. (Unpublished)

Abstract / Summary

Ben James brings installation and experience design together with emerging technologies to create narrative-led environments. Anna Kiernan has a background in publishing and researches reading communities.

After reading Grief is The Thing With Feathers, Anna and Ben decided to bring together their very different skill-sets to explore the narrative digital potential for grief.

The outcome is, ‘And the memory fills all space’, a VR experience designed in collaboration with Charles Harrop-Griffiths, which is intended to reframe how we understand and communicate grief.

The immersive process of taking a journey through grief via virtual reality is just one way that a book concept can engage different audiences. Potentially, VR might appeal to hard-to-reach readers and provide a gateway for engaging with literary texts via a non-literary context (VR). VR could also provide exciting opportunities for promoting new titles.

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