Peabodys Announces 2022 Digital And Interactive Storytelling Winners

When experimental storytelling projects are acknowledged by awards bodies, they tend to be pigeonholed into generic groups that don’t fully describe the work at hand. Last year, the Emmys’ “Interactive Media” included everything from Baobob Studios’ VR project “Baba Yaga” (which won) to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for an AR component available to home viewers. In 2020, the prize went to “Jeopardy!” for an interactive game.

The Peabody Awards is taking an ambitious step forward to address that shortcoming by adding 12 new awards for Digital and Interactive Storytelling alongside four special awards to leaders in the field. The inaugural legacy media projects announced today, selected by the newly-formed Peabody Interactive Board, survey the past two decades of digital media accomplishments. The result is a more thorough assessment of the diverse work taking place in digital storytelling and the many forms it can take. Related ‘Hacks,’ ‘Reservation Dogs,’ ‘Dopesick’ Among 2022 Peabody Award Winners ‘Yellowjackets,’ ‘Only Murders in the Building,’ ‘Hacks’ Among Peabody Award Nominees Related Oscars 2023: Best Makeup and Hairstyling Predictions Oscars 2023: Best Sound Predictions
In other words, this year’s winners aren’t your average highlights from the past year. The finalists stretch back to 2001 and, along with the recipients of the special awards, showcase the range of innovation in digital media as well as its artistic development. The categories are also a form of historical preservation, as the announcement arrives in tandem with a new website that preserves the projects and introduces them to new audiences. The Peabodys previously announced plans for the expanded categories last year and the creation of an Interactive Board. The initial winners are designed to provide a historical overview of this expansive field, with winners who have worked in VR, AR, gaming, interactive documentary, and other emerging forms of storytelling. Beginning in 2023, the recipients of the Digital and Interactive awards will be honored for current work. The new section of the Peabody’s site featuring these projects is a significant step in introducing more audiences across the industry to innovative work that is often difficult to access and misunderstood by the wider entertainment and media industries. In a statement, Peabody Interactive Board chairwoman Diana Williams said that the winners were an extension of the Peabodys’ history of awarding “visionaries who tell stories that illuminate the world around us and perhaps evoke societal change.” The board also created new legacy awards for the digital and interactive fields. The inaugural “Field Builder” award has gone to Nonny de la Peña, the seminal virtual reality evangelist who is often dubbed the “Godmother of VR.” De la Peña’s work has been seminal in the field of VR journalism and social action, going back to her 2007 project “Gone Gitmo” that used Second Life to create an immersive commentary on the incarnation experience at Guantanamo Bay. Her 2012 VR documentary “Hunger in Los Angeles” was the first such project to be programmed at Sundance. De la Peña was awarded the prize in a pre-recorded speech by “Birdman” filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, whose own immersive VR experience “Carne y Arena” — a commentary on the harrowing experience of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border — was an outgrowth of De la Peña’s work.

The Peabodys also introduced a “Trailblazer Award” that went to Phil Yu, who founded the famous “Angry Asian Man” blog in 2001 that addressed a wide array of issues from a historically marginalized perspective. The blog anticipated a growing online ecosystem eager to embrace iconoclastic voices and eventually evolved into an activist hub and community to combat Asian American stereotypes across virtually every aspect of American society. Additional special awards were given to the creators of the computer program ELIZA for its language processing program that inspired future A.I. projects, and the British research group Forensic Architecture for developing technology aimed at addressing social justice issues. The other legacy winners span 15 years and showcase a wide of array of formats, from traditional 360 VR works to interactive audio and crowdsourced video. They include the seminal 2016 VR work “Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness,” which immersed viewers in the experiences of a blind man while demonstrating his ability to map out the world around him; “Star Wars Uncut,” a 2010 effort to consolidate 473 shot-for-shot remakes of “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” into 15-second tidbits that amounted to a single remake; and 2007’s “World Without Oil,” an online time-based simulation that imagined a near-future experience in which the entire world faced an oil shortage, with user-generated media contributing to the narrative in real-time. That may sound like a lot to absorb, but that’s the point: The field has taken on many forms and often required an active audience to appreciate it. Check out the winners below and follow this link to sample the projects (note: VR projects will need to be accessed via a headset, but others are browser-friendly). Synopses are courtesy of the Peabodys. — Trailblazer Award Phil Yu

Field Builder Award Nonny de la Peña Foundational Award ELIZA Institutional Award Forensic Architecture Always in Season Island (2010) The Beast, A.I. Transmedia Experience (2001) Fatal Force: The Washington Post Police Shootings Database (2015)

Feminist Frequency (2013) How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk: NY Times Dialect Quiz (2013) Journey (2012) Never Alone (2014) Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness (2016) Papers Please (2013) Quipu (2015) Star Wars Uncut (2010) World Without Oil (2007)