The Magic Story Table with “49 Stories,” a novel, cutting-edge, interactive story-telling experience, was exhibited at 826 Valencia in March, 2009. The result of a collaboration between new media artists JD Beltran, Scott Minneman, and Dale McDonald, author Stephen Elliott, high school students from John O’Connell High School, and 826 Valencia Writing Center, “49 Stories” introduced an entirely new form of storytelling. Viewers explored, discovered, and immersed themselves in stories throughout the 49-square-mile geography of San Francisco as well as all over the world by interacting with a large interactive “story table” that fuses maps, text, images, sound, interactivity, and even the storytellers’ own voices.

This project was generously sponsored by technology developed by Onomy Labs and an Individual Artist Commission Grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission.

49 STORIES, MARCH 6 – 20, 2009 at 826 VALENCIA STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA. FOR MORE INFORMATION, SEE WWW.826VALENCIA.ORG, WWW.ONOMY.COM, AND WWW.JDBELTRAN.COM.