i-Docs 2016 is taking place from 2-4th March at the Watershed Media Centre here in Bristol. This is our fourth symposium and is bigger than ever! Not only that but it has sold out two weeks ahead of time.

It’s been really great that, as Co-Director, I haven’t had to do so much of the day to day organising this time round. We now have Mandy Rose fully on board, more support staff, a post-doc researcher and visiting PhD scholars, plus an ever-growing international network. Casting my mind back to the Documentary Now! symposium in January 2010, where Sandra Gaudenzi and myself first muted the possibility of convening an event around interactive documentary, it is incredible to think how far things have come.

For me, the term interactive documentary or ‘i-Docs’ always was a means through which to establish a community of interest around which a conversation could take place. As more and more people start using it, my hope is that it won’t make things become too fixed. It is the fluidity of evolving practices and the blurring of boundaries across genres that keeps things fresh and keeps documentary-making relevant, as a means through which to comment and reflect upon our times.

I will write more about my thoughts on the relationship between ‘interactivity’ and ‘immersion’ in a subsequent post – as this keeps coming up, both in my curatorial work and in my own practice.