Birdhouse Interactive is a creative studio and platform housing digital reading experiences of animated poetry. It is a web-based platform through which audiences can engage visual digital artist books, namely multimedia narrative poems that are navigated within a digital context. The platform blends literature with visual art as well as information design practice in creating digital narratives.
Given that my creative research practice is primarily concerned with the combination of poetry, animation and interactive media, I continuously explore how the digital artist book medium is able to enhance the ways in which audiences navigate digital narrative content. Considering the haptic nature of interactive narrative content, I am conscientious in applying the best practices when designing multi-modal and sensory user experiences. My work interrogates the concern of how we share our lived experiences through digital stories; this is the key concern that forms the backbone of my visual art practice. In working with the digital artist book format, I am always eager to learn how new technologies can be used to compliment modes of digital storytelling. I go about this process though iterative experimentation, play and creativity.
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I am Tebogo Boikanyo Matshana and I'm using visual art, illustration and 2D frame-by-frame animation towards interactive narrative design.
I have a deep reaching love for storytelling, be it through digital animation, illustration as well as design; sharing a story sincerely has always been at the core of my creative practice.
I have a background in the fields of Graphic as well as Interactive and Production Design. Having completed a postgraduate degree of a Master of Arts in Information Design , I have cultivated an awareness of the value of visual rhetoric. Applying critical thinking when working with text and image inspires me to be intentional in every project I undertake and collaborate in creating.
I wonder... how the combination of creative and interactive visual art along with English literature, is able to permeate and enhance digital learning practices ?
How can interactive digital content encourage users to engage with visual information in a mindful manner?
Inspired by the premise that we learn when engaging information as stories, I trust that viewers and readers are better equip to holistically retain information when interacting with it; the Birdhouse Interactive platform affords me the opportunity to create, share and explore solutions that honour this particular sensibility.
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Having had hands on experience in the context of an art museum and centre for artist books, I have learned that there is a myriad of ways one can visually communicate with a reader and an audience. I have learned that, similar to the artist book form, a user interface can be described as a trojan horse in that it requires the user’s participation and engagement in order to communicate its meaning. More to this, considering the reader's experience is always paramount when layering multimedia materials towards creating meaning. Artists books and digital visualisations are user centric by nature, the possibilities are endless. This is the approach I apply when digitally constructing information, particularly when working within the context of innovative hypermedia platforms.
Digital Interactive Poetry
The digital artist's book Three Bird Poems contemplates some of the cultural values embedded in Setswana oral poetry and grapples with how the oral tradition of performing poetry offers a proverbial lens into themes that may have once been cultural norms. The poem Koagodira for one, recalls a time when birds and people were believed to communicate with one another, mutually protecting and guiding one another. The audiovisual transmutation of the oral poem foregrounds the narrative of the symbiotic relationship between people and birds. This gentle poem story calls to mind elements of fantasy in storytelling. The work asks: how might this come alive when digitised? Through parallax animation, such moments are visualised as moving freeze frames, interestingly preserving oral memory through digital motion.
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Pekwa, celebrates the falcon, imaginatively interpreting the text, the multimedia poem plays with the words as conceptual entry points to interactive experiences, who is the little girl referred to in the poem? How might her movement embody the falcons ability to fly? How might this be explored visually? The poems offer opportunities for exploration through the layer of interactivity. The interactive poem titled Nnonyane tse pedi (which translates to Two birds) is a short nursery rhyme that doubles as an oral poem in Setswana explored through digital interactive design. In my reading, the oral poem which talks about two birds coming and going opens up room for thematic thought and interpretation, who are the two respective birds; where would they be going ; why would they return? Thoughts around immigration, homing and belonging come to mind. What does it mean to occupy a liminal place of coming and going? Perhaps human experiences are mirrored in avian experiences of global movement.
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As digital artefacts intended to document oral poetry in digital format, perhaps these short poems invite us to the threshold of inquiry. Intended as an exploration of ergodic literature theory in practice, the interactive poems invite readers to navigate the oral poem by actively engaging the objects, texts and elements in the respective storyworlds. While the digital artefact invites interactive navigation, the physical artist’s book offers a contrasting moment of meditation through quietude. The artist’s book convening compositions with and without text offer glimpses of the fantasy worlds described in the poems. Printed on seed paper the artefact calls to mind the footsteps of birds treading the earth lightly, coming and going, guiding. Birds are all around us, often in the background, resilient creatures, engaged in the task of building, homing, communicating in code. Visually and metaphorically the work is concerned with what we can learn from birds.
A poem can open a door to one’s own lived experience by reflecting someone else’s; moreover, engaging a poem can feel like being entrusted with a secret. My artistic practice involves a process where I write poetry, illustrate the text and then animate the final narrative poem using 2D frame-by-frame animation techniques. I work dominantly using Adobe Photoshop when creating illustrations and artworks. I aim to further enhance the text by creating interactive animated versions of the poem, in this process, I often make use of Adobe Animate. Additionally, I transform original short stories into digital interactive graphic novel content.
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Songbird on the Sea
This interactive illustrated anthology is concerned with the notions of belonging, drowning, rowing and navigating the ocean of one’s inner most experiences. These key thematic concerns are explored through the two characters of a bird, namely a blackpoll warbler and a woman. The woman is represented in doubles, her selfhood is visualised as an autonomous entity that concurrently lives outside of, beside and within herself. The work contemplates the idea of the innermost circle of belonging to one’s own selfhood, singularity and sovereignty.
I am...
The animated interactive poem I am... is a narrative about the transcendence of the external. It is a narrative about creating a home and safety within oneself, connecting with one's innate value and the infinite link to all that extends beyond oneself.
a blackbird makes a sound ( second edition)
A blackbird makes a sound (the second edition) is re-titled Birdsound. The interactive poem is a digital animated reading experience that brings to the fore the concept of self affirmation through sound.
Previous works
