Imagining The City – Brisbane Short Stories revealed in an iPhone app
Imagining The City is a simple idea, simply executed and simply suggests where storytelling could go from here.
The iPhone app, produced by Queensland University of Technology, tags short stories with relevant Brisbane locations on an in-app map, allowing the reader to delve deeper into the creative geography of place. There have of course been similar ideas in the past – Blast Theory‘s Rider Spoke springs to mind, as does the wider psychogeographic movement – and, whilst this is an easy-to-interpret and straight-forward looking app, it hints at a wider opportunity, yet to be seized. There are thus far eight stories (which is sadly slight for a city as wildly imaginative as Brisvegas), concentrated in a tight radius. The tales are rightly short for reading off the iPhone screen, and – as a particularly nice touch – each also has the option to hear the story read by the author themselves.
There is a fantastic concept within this, and I hope that the next iteration will up the ante and deliver on the promise.