Playing with images 2: Storytelling as playful interaction

This chapter examines the applicability of storytelling as a way to playfully interact with scientific image data. Arguing that scientific practice can benefit from a moment of openness and playfulness, we propose a story-based interaction with image data as a means to ignite playful and creative responses to scientific images. By means of a literature review, preliminary user studies and the implementation of a concrete storytelling artefact, we attempt to better understand the potential, relevant aspects and specific challenges of storytelling with scientific images. LABBOOK, our current implementation, is an instance of a storytelling artefact that is a digital collaborative storytelling game for biologists and their images. The game should be understood as a platform for storytelling and social exchange. By confronting the players with the challenges of story composition, LABBOOK has demonstrated a capacity of storytelling to probe an active look into the images involved.