Written, produced and directed by Andrew Wilson of Blink

Blink is an interaction design and research organisation working across the cultural, technology and commercial sectors, with a seven year track record including the Guardian’s text message poetry competition; City Poems in Leeds and Antwerp, commended in the British Interactive Media Awards, and Bluevend, installed in Tate Britain and featured in the Independent on Sunday.
http://www.blinkmedia.org

Mobile system, web design and development by Common Agency

Common is an interactive agency. Our services range from strategic work helping clients understand and develop their products and services to all aspects of interaction design and development for web, mobile and other platforms. Our work ranges from individual interface design to complex product experiences such as ecommerce websites, intranets or smart devices.
http://www.commonagency.com

Five Trees Forest was illustrated by Andy Sykes

http://www.hexjibber.com

Thanks

We would like to thank Tanya Bates, Charles Brook, Shareen Cunningham, Clare Danêk, Cheryl Wright, and Claire Stead for their help in the development of Five Trees Forest, and Jackie Jones and Aileen Burgess for coordinating the event at Norton College in Sheffield.

Five Trees Forest was funded by the Arts Council of England

About the Five Trees Forest

Using Near Field Communication for participation and storytelling

NFC and mobile phones have lots of interesting possibilities for storytelling and participation, including:

• everyone over 13 already carries a mobile phone everywhere, and people are comfortable using mobile phones to write and take photos, so mobiles make an open and welcoming way to generate participation.
• the success of Oyster cards suggests that if NFC does appear on mobiles it might be the kind of function that quickly becomes familiar and valuable.
• if participants have NFC on their own phones, installing an event using smart posters is cheap and straightforward.
• because NFC connects with the physical world, it is good for establishing location, context and presence – events can happen that are specific to a building or festival, for example, and that might reward presence at an event or encourage collaboration or exchange within a building or neighbourhood.
• the physicality of NFC interactions – putting the phone next to a chip to make something happen - is quite fun, at least initially, and might be used for “magic” properties and events within a story.
• NFC lends itself to imagining data as having substance – picking up, dropping off, passing on information from person to person and place to place, and this may lend itself to playful applications and fantasy stories.
• mobile phones are an extremely direct channel of communication, and it may be that dialogue delivered through a mobile phone generates engagement with a fictional character, even in a fantasy narrative.
• the physicality of NFC may help the willing suspension of disbelief in magical or fantasy narratives, especially for children.

The world of children's books and traditional fairy stories – of invisible worlds, magic gateways, mischievous sprites, talking animals, creatures trapped in everyday objects, enchanted food and, of course, wicked witches - may be a good place to begin experimenting with storytelling for NFC, and pervasive computing more generally.

Five Trees Forest is a playful, childlike world that tries to welcome and encourage participation, enabling people who would never consider themselves to be writers or artists to create and share rich autobiographical material.