Bear 71 Formal Analysis: The Impact of Interactive New Media
Bear 71, is an interactive documentary told from the perspective of a mother bear living in Banff National Park. It spans 20 minutes and was created by Jeremey Mendes and Leanne Allison. It was produced by the National Film Board of Canada. The project features over 1 million photos captured with motion detectors, documentary footage, and an interactive map and video stream. By incorporating the viewer in a unique and interactive way, Bear 71 directly accuses the viewer of participating in activities that harm wild life, without outright saying it. New media has allowed for viewers to participate/ interact with narratives in ways that were not present before. Whether it be through an interactive video game or more subtle ways like in Bear 71, having viewers actually participate in the narrative opens up a dialogue between the medium and the participants.
At Bear 71’s most simple, it tells the true story of a bear that was monitored for around eight years in the yearly 2000’s. The story begins with the moment Bear 71 is tranquilized and chipped and we follow her journey of life and death in Banff National Park as she adjusts to motherhood and the growing human presence in her ever-shrinking home. At its most complicated it is a critique on the morality of humans, technology, and wildlife intervention.
The first use of documentary footage is rather hard to watch. You see the bear struggling to free herself from a trap and eventually getting shot with a tranquilizer gun. This is also when the narration comes in and you realize the story is being told from the bears point of view. She speaks in a soft somber tone. The combination of the first-person narration and the jarring footage is used to create empathy in the viewers. This is used throughout, so viewers become invested in her as a character. This is the first introduction of humans into the story and you can tell by her tone and word choice — humans are the outcasts.
Then it takes you to an interactive map of the National Park. There are several species of animals that roam the map ranging from mice to other human beings. You can click on these animals as they wander to reveal a video feed and other written information about the animal or its species. There are also landmarks such as the freeway and the railroad where you can see cars and trains pass by. The purpose of the map is to insert yourself into the story/ world of Bear 71. The whole piece revolves around the relationship between humans and wildlife. Instead of setting the scene like you would do with a different medium, including this map thrusts the viewer directly into the world, letting them discover it for themselves. This causes the viewer to picture this world happening in real time all around them and a choose-your-adventure feeling. The viewer also gets to see the world from the eyes of an antagonist as it uniquely puts the viewer in the shoes of one of the wildlife trackers. It creates an empathy and understanding of wildlife’s interactions with society that may have not been considered before.
This is further enhanced by the use of the viewers webcam. Just like how you can click on the animal’s icons, you can also interact with your own. This launches a surveillance feed using your device’s webcam and microphone (it requests permission to access both of these things, which the viewer can deny). This forces the viewer to look at themselves through the lens of the narrative. This creates space for introspectiveness and an experience to open up dialogue. It is a physical representation of “look in the mirror and understand what you have done”. If others are on Bear 71 at the same time as you, their faces appear on the security camera as well. This is a unique tactic to bring in the bigger picture that only new media seems capable of. Although Bear 71 never fully dives into the fact that we as humans are also being surveilled constantly by security cameras, our phones, or other devices, the use of the surveillance feed defiantly eludes to it.
As the viewer explores all the map has to offer, Bear 71 continues to tell her story. The viewer hears about her becoming a mother to three cubs, swimming in the lake, and hunting. But she also talks about how bears had to learn to cross overpasses, how sometimes the trains that pass through will spill out grain causing hungry bears to go onto the tracks and subsequently get hit, and how the valley where she lives has smells from the neighboring city life, making hunting difficult and causing bears to wander into town. This is when she makes her main point- the first rule of surviving is “don’t do what comes naturally”. Human interference with wildlife has made it nearly impossible for the animals to well… be wild. Even in National Parks.
Although this technique of spoken narrative is not new, since Bear 71 couples it with the interactive map, it is almost impossible to not think about your personal implication to the stories she is telling.
The stories Bear 71 tells are important because as she continues, we get a sense of her personality. We hear about her hopes and dreams before having cubs, about how she used to sneak onto a campground when she was younger to eat berries with her friend, and other important characterizing moments. For some, this raises the question — how true is Bear 71? For me, this added layer of characterization and emotion and did not hinder my view on this being a documentary. Bear 71 was an actual bear who lived and died in Banff National Park. Human interference and technology do, from a factual standpoint, harm and kill animals. The rest to me is just a catalyst used to get the message across and keep the viewer engaged in the story.
Overall, I think Bear 71 utilizes interactive digital media techniques to open a dialogue. It brings to light how our use of technology, although allowing us to keep closer tabs on nature, determinately harms it. It forces the viewer to question themselves in relation to technology and nature. New media has the ability to make us question ourselves and our actions. It allows us to walk in others shoes through interactive elements. This is important because it gives us a greater understanding of our world and others experiences in a very real way.
