Center for Digital Narrative

Hunting for Narratives

Fictional Demo · Not a real research proposal

23-01-2026

The HUNT Study (Trøndelag Health Study) is one of the world's largest and most comprehensive longitudinal population health studies, tracking over 229,000 participants across four decades (1984-2019) in Trøndelag County, Norway. It combines extensive questionnaires, clinical measurements, and biological samples to document health trajectories, lifestyle changes, and socioeconomic factors across generations.

The Center for Digital Narrative is a Norwegian Centre of Research Excellence at the University of Bergen, investigating how digital technologies transform storytelling through algorithmic narrativity, computational systems, and new materialities.

The FICTIONAL Hunting for Narratives proposal by the CDN agentic coding demo by JHAVE with instigating data-source and idea generation chats with CDN's Ola Johnsen explores using HUNT Study data to generate AI-augmented narrative installations for museum and art gallery contexts.

"Create a fictional multimedia proposal for the NTNU HUNT Health Study, featuring AI-mediated talking avatars that narrate hypothetical lives based on longitudinal data."
Two figures with etched genetic data

Using LLM's as health-data augmented mediated storytellers

FICTIONAL Center for Digital Narrative (Uib) Proposal for the HUNT Health Study:
'Parallel Lives' A Multimedia Interactive Video Art-Installation

Exploring how longitudinal scientific data can augment the capacity of large language models as fictional generative agents.

The Project

"Hunting for Narratives: Parallel Lives" is a creative research project by the Center for Digital Narrative (CDN) in Bergen. We propose a two-video installation featuring talking avatars that speak directly to the viewer.

These entities use dynamic real-time Large Language Models to generate text related to hypothetical fictional lives based on longitudinal data: genetic proximity, relationships, and shared environments in a fictional town in Norway.

Elara and Ivar Comparison
The Center for Digital Narrative (CDN) analyzes anonymized summaries of longitudinal HUNT health data to produce fictional hypotheses about the life structures of individuals within a fictional community. The goal is to explore augmented creativity, deeply enhanced by the rigorous genetic and questionnaire-based data of the HUNT study.

Interactive Interface

A dedicated touchscreen allows viewers to scroll through genetic and life data, suggesting different conjunctions for the avatars.

The system utilizes autonomous agents that allow for facial recognition, directed speech, and gaze, all within a quiet, austere environment designed for deep engagement.

Touchscreen GUI Mockup

Explore the Proposal

Part 1 Ethics & Methodology Part 2 Data Categories Part 3 Narrative Conjunctions Part 4 Synthesis Strategies Part 5 Historical Context Part 6 Implementation & Examples
Special Venue Proposal UiB Museum Life-Path Installation

Site-specific proposal for the curved screen room: Walking Through Lives