Sammendrag
The iPad serves as a platform for a growing number of interactive picturebook apps. Many of these stories are ‘digital immigrants’, adaptations of printed picturebooks. Others are ‘digital natives’, aka digital first apps, stories genuinely developed for touchscreen tablet computers.
The paper investigates The Artifacts (2012), a digital first app by Lynley Stace. It tells the story about Asaf (12), who loves to collect things of various sorts. When his family moves to another house, he loses his collection of material objects. Then he retreats into his own imagination, and he starts collecting memories instead. In the following, a substantial part of the story takes place inside Asaf’s head. What is now being constructed in The Artifacts are objects and experiences formed by Asaf’s own mind, creating his ‘mindscape’. Years later, Asaf leaves home as a young adult, carrying a collection of memories, experiences and reflections which surpass any assortment of physical possessions. Material objects may provide pleasure, but what matters even more to Asaf is what’s going on inside his mind. The Artifacts may be read as a Bildungsroman, where the central character comes of age and matures throughout the timeline of the story.
The Artifacts app forms a linear narrative appearing on 21 hand-drawn scenes or tableaus. It has a voiceover, but the narration relies on relatively few words. The paper discusses how The Artifacts story is narrated on the iPad platform, utilizing the multimodal and interactive touchscreen affordances.
Vis fullstendig beskrivelse