At the Crossroads of the Documentary and the Web - Text 6
As a result of this assemblage of heterogeneous materials and this interactivity, the user’s path has gaps and proceeds by fragments. Even in works which display a timeline with a simple path forward, the work’s branches open up multiple capsules one can decide to follow or not. At the end of the navigation, users will have probably left behind them more gaps than the possible paths they tried out. A non-linear structure has always existed in the essay film tradition and in the early years of all those movements in film history whose name begins with “new,” neo,” etc. In webdocs, this non-linearity carries with it an even more radical conception, as the work’s sections, as fragmented as they are, can never enter into relation with the viewer. We must see this characteristic, neither a quality nor a defect, as part and parcel of the institution of which these works are a part – meaning the Web – and as demanding to be explored and problematized. What does it mean to explore a subject which derives from reality, to spend a lot of time studying it, to invest time in its découpage and scripting for the Web, while being aware that even the ideal viewer will not go through it all?
