Worldbuilding, mythmaking, over-design: these are just some of the terms that characterize the emerging world being dubbed "transmedia storytelling," a concept best explained by Henry Jenkins, who in 2006 described transmedia in a book titled Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. The book outlines the cultural shifts that affect media production, highlighting, for example, the increased role of fans, who now form social and creative communities around certain kinds of works (such has the Harry Potter franchise). Jenkins notes that the aesthetic goals of convergence culture projects include serving as "cultural attractors" by bringing people together, and as "cultural activators" by providing opportunities for participation. Works that combine attraction and activation might also offer raw materials for continued fan remix, as well as a means for monitoring and amplifying these activities so that fans gain recognition from peers. Even in this very simple, four-part elaboration, it's clear that the work of "authoring" in convergence culture is vastly different from simply writing a great book or movie script. Jenkins, along with his colleague Denise Mann, will host an all-day symposium tomorrow at USC titled Transmedia, Hollywood: S/Telling the Story to talk about the implications of this new form of creativity, asking, for example, if this is an entirely new way of thinking about storytelling, as well as, simply, how do you imagine, design and create these sprawling story worlds that move from one medium to the next? (Image: from the cover of Convergence Culture

Distraction, attention and boredom: how do you feel about watching videos or films in the museum? This question will be addressed by artists Stan Douglas and LA-based Sharon Lockhart, who will be joined by media theorist Vivian Sobchack and curators Rita Gonzalez and Alex Klein for a consideration of duration in contemporary time-based media at LACMA next Tuesday night. Both Douglas and Lockhart have grappled with this issue in fascinating ways, both as conceptual elements within their work, and as considerations for the gallery-goer, who more and more often encounters artworks that ask us to rethink traditional gallery habits. Theorist Helga Nowotny describes contemporary time as an extended present: everything is about the now and we move rapidly from project to project without the ability to imagine a future because the horizon of time no longer exists. In the museum space, then, finding a dark room with moments for reflection is both rare and precious. In addition, it's clear that traditional boundaries separating media practices are blurring. Lockhart's Pine Flat, for example, takes shape as a feature film composed of 12 unmoving 10-minute shots, but has also appeared in the form of a book, a moving image installation and a gallery show of photographs. All four forms question their status, and you can't help but wonder about the specificity of individual media forms while staring at often unmoving images on a screen, or at stills of moving images captured in a book. What is time, then, and duration in these contexts? It should be a good discussion... Image: from Pine Flat

"I was listening to 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' in the car one day, and I got out of the car and - when I was a kid I was a jump-roper - and Kelly was in the yard and I said, 'Don't you think "Subterranean Homesick Blues" sounds like a jumprope song?'" That was LA-based film and video artist Diana Thater in 2006 just before that year's Whitney Biennial opened talking about her collaboration with T. Kelly Mason on Jump, a 16-minute film featuring a band (headed by Mason) playing Bob Dylan's song in 16 different musical styles while a group of teens jumps rope. I've always liked the story because it offers a glimpse of Thater's process, which is at once whimsical and rigorous, two adjectives that also describe her more recent project, Between Science and Magic currently on view as an installation at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Two clattering projectors project two versions of the same endeavor in the cavernous main gallery of the museum. The films together show magician Greg Wilson pulling a rabbit out of a hat; we see two different camera operators, and the trick, and the process of capturing it, along with its screening, are united, dismissing the usual separation of capture, projection and reception. As a viewer in the theater, we occupy several "sites," watching the trick, the filmmaker, and even the theater where Thater screened and then reshot the projection. Sitting in the dark, listening to the noisy projectors, you can't help but try to put the pieces together. Thater's work invariably invokes this kind of curious pleasure, in part because she unabashedly mixes smart ideas, reflections on her medium, and the pleasures of our world - a great song, jumping rope, magic, movies - in works that are like elegant, delightful media essays.

Augmented reality promises to enhance our environment with informational overlays, merging the physical and the virtual. On the plus side, AR can provide information when and where we need it. On the downside, that "information" will most likely be advertising, or so suggests designer and filmmaker Keiichi Matsuda, who, about a month ago, posted a video titled Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop, a witty depiction of a world rife with too much information. The video went viral, maybe because it struck a nerve, or maybe just because it's so visually compelling. ReadWriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick called it "both very cool and very frightening," while the invariably insightful Greg Smith on his blog Serial Consign noted, "After suffering through countless optimistic/uncritical AR vignettes it is great to see one with a sense of humour." While the video's vision of the future pushes way beyond the graphics-enhanced worlds we've seen before, it's also part of a genre of shorts that critiques our inundation in logos and promos by making them a key part of an overall aesthetic. It's hard not to find both pleasure and pain in these projects, the pleasure of visual excess and the pain of the knowledge of info-promo glut.

Iranian art and culture are currently at the forefront of American media. Tyler Green on his Modern Art Notes blog a few days ago posted a piece titled "Dissent, Life in Iran and the Arts," on recent examples of shows dedicated to Iranian art. The post in turn points to Claire Messud's contribution to the New York Review of Books' blog titled "Revealing the Real Iran," in which the critic argues for the value of fiction in helping articulate a culture's true identity. "Fiction and poetry work differently from history or autobiography, opening to us the interior lives, the unrecorded ephemera and minutiae of people and their places," she writes.

The young Iranian artist, writer, producer and occasional curator Bita Shafipour is working to support an understanding of contemporary Iranian culture in Los Angeles with a project titled Society of Cinema and Arts, or SoCiArts, which is an online community for socially conscious artists. A recent graduate of USC's School of Cinematic Arts, Bita also runs a small production company dedicated to producing socially conscious multi-media shows designed to promote the artists on the SoCiArts site. "Our goal is to create a platform for like-minded people to come together as a community and celebrate the arts and think about what matters in our society." Why is this so important to Bita?

"My generation never saw the revolution in Iran," explains Bita, "and because we grew up during the war, we saw the worst side of Iran. But we were also connected to the West through the Internet and media, and I think this has helped this generation create different art forms, and to find different ways to get their ideas beyond Iran."

Based in Santa Monica, the SoCiArts production company was launched in September 2007 by Bita and her partner Arash Kolahi. That year, they produced an art exhibition called "Souvenirs From Iran," a sold-out concert at Disney Hall (for Homay and the Mastan Group, "the most controversial and socially conscious classical ensemble from Iran," explains Bita), and two sold-out screenings at the Landmark Pico for the film Tehran Has No More Pomegranates.

"The productions were really the motivation to create the online community, to keep the connection alive virtually," Bita explains. "These events also created the opportunity for me to work with the Craft and Folk Art Museum and co-produce 'Exploring the Other Through the Lens of Iason Athanasiadis,' an incredible photo journalist who was later arrested in Iran during the June disputed election."

The online component of SoCiArts was launched just over a year ago, in December 2008, and Bita and her partner have been even busier since then. During the recent uprising in Iran, for example, Bita co-curated with Building Bridges an exhibition titled "Fly With the Cage" for Phantom Galleries and Edgar Varela Fine Arts, which was on view between July 10 and August 1, 2009. "We wanted to do something more than protest at the Federal Building," explains Bita. "We wanted to create a friendly atmosphere where people could come and talk about what democracy in Iran really means."

SoCiArts has also hosted an online film festival and competition, sponsored by the Farhang Foundation, and is currently seeking submissions for a 2010 festival. Titled the Farhang Foundation Short Film Festival, the event seeks music videos - interpreted broadly - about any aspect of Iranian culture, including its arts, history, crafts, geography, cuisine or lifestyle. Submissions from Iranian and non-Iranian artists are welcome, and the deadline for submissions is February 22, 2010.

Bita notes that last year's festival received far more submissions than she anticipated, and she's hoping for a similar response this year. "We had pieces from many parts of the world, and already this year, I've gotten emails from people in many different parts of Iran as well." She continues, "Despite the turmoil in Iran that really shuts things down, people are still doing things, making films and creating art. And that's really exciting to us."