Small World

I had a lot of fun exploring Florian Thalhofer's Small World interactive project. It was not at all as I expected. I assumed I would be guided in a particular order through the fifty-four little stories on what it is like to grow-up in a small town, but I was not. Instead, I had a sense of control to a certain degree. Most of the time there were many different areas to click and continue my exploration in the project, but there were a few occasions when there was only one place to click. Only then was I reminded that my journey through this project could be controlled through the creator.

While I enjoyed my exploration, there were moments when I was overwhelmed by the scale of the project. At times I felt lost. With each click, I was going deeper in the project, but I also wasn't sure if I would eventually see and hear all of the stories. There were also times when I wasn't sure where I was geographically in relation to the story the narrator was telling and how all of the stories related to each other - why certain pictures lead to others. Despite these little aspects, I thoroughly enjoyed Small World.

Eventually, I realized that there was one ending to the project. After each story played, boxes appeared that lead to another little story, which was somehow connected to the previous story that was told. This could be considered the space. However, there were times where I couldn't always see the connection between clips. This made it a little confusing sometimes, but it was still intriguing. The narrative structure was not continuous, as the user had the ability to make his own selections and the story had an ending. This provided for a very interesting interactive media experience. I found Small World to be a fascinating project.