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Everyone leaves a mark throughout their daily routine. Even at the very start of our day, we leave a trail that captures our movements. For instance, the specific arrangement of pillows and blankets on a bed can show us exactly how its sleepy human rolled out of bed. And at the end of the day, we can tell where a person has been or what they have done based on the positioning of their unkept shoes at the main door.

There are definitely many ways to evoke a sense of presence and movement, without having a physical body there to show for it, but here are just two ideas for interactive spaces that focus on that!

 

Idea #1: Impressions

This is idea does not involve any digital tech; just a couple of sticks, some charcoal dust, and one (or four) long sheet(s) of paper.

 

Set up and flow:

The interactive space will be set in a standard 4-wall room, each wall lined with paper (strong enough to be embossed without easily ripping). Participants will each be given a stick for writing/embossing, and will be free to scribble on any part of the paper-covered walls they want. They are encouraged to write down a personal message, preferably a secret that they’ve kept to themselves so far. Overlapping of writings is allowed. At the end of the day, the next batch of participants will be given charcoal dust to rub on their hands. Once that is done, they are allowed to have free roam of the room and rub their hands on any of the walls again. At the end of the day, the secret messages will be exposed for everyone to see.

 

Results:

I’m not sure what an actual result would look like, but I would predict that majority of the messages will be at the average eye level. The length of a single message reveals the writers movements, and the various handwriting show the presence of multiple people with their own unique personalities. The level at which the message was written can also be telling of participant’s height. Likewise, for the charcoal hand prints, the type of smearing can tell a person’s movement; whether it is being wiped in a concentrated area or if its a sling sweep from one end of a wall to the other. They all signify a sense of movement.

 

Idea #2: Broken Gramophone

We all know they classic game of broken telephone: a group of players line up to pass a message consecutively from one end to the other. That message, however, always gets butchered and what the last person recites can be vastly different from the original message.

For this idea, roughly the same concept is applied, but this time through sound recordings.

 

Set up and flow:

The interactive space will take place within Pasir Ris, where a crew member will set up the first audio recording, travelling from the MRT station to Pasir Ris Park, and eventually to Down Town East. The whole walk will take about 45 minutes. Once the first route has been recorded, the recording will be uploaded to a drive where the first participant can access and listen to it on. All participants will start at the exact same point as the crew member at the MRT station, but from there, they will play the recording and decide where to go from there. As they go about their way, they have to rely on the sounds in the previous recordings; the crunching of sand beneath shoes on a pavement, the crashing of waves, the beeping of traffic signals. As they are walking, their own path will be recorded simultaneously. Once the participant reaches the end of 45-minute walk, that new recording will be shared with the new participant, and the process repeats. There will be about 4-5 participants, and by the end of the day, where will be 5-6 complete recordings.

 

Results:

Again, not sure how this would pan out exactly, but based on what we know about broken telephone, we can suspect that the very first recording is no doubt different from the first. Each audio recording captures the participant’s unique path, and when compared with each other, you can tell roughly at which point do they diverge from one another. This gives a mental map of the physical area they covered, with familiar, synchronised sounds forming a common path and new sounds forming new ones. Together, the recordings show the listeners a sense of movement through sound alone.

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At first glance, Tiong Bahru has a neighborhood like any other in Singapore. At a glance.

Upon closer inspection of its facade, a whole new assortment of visuals and perspectives open up to you. I found my eyes drawn to every crack in the sidewalks, every vein on leaves, and every scratch on rusted metals.

Showcasing these textures is thus the main aim of my zine’s de-zine.

 

For the cover page, two images were used; a location shot and a close up on a rusted metal plate. To emphasise the theme of textures, I teared paper and photoshopped the texture to fit jagged outline.

 

 

As for pages in between, each spread was used to show textures of different materials; plants, metals, and concrete. Each segment also has a colour theme to give the zine a more vibrant look (green, yellow, and blue respectively). The texture images take up almost the entire page, leaving a thin border around the. A layer of a stained piece of black paper was added beneath them, which helped better frame the images. Asymmetry was applied to emphasise the hierarchy of images. For instance, for the plant textures segment, eyes will first land on the left image, then to the grassy part of the image on the right, and finally down to the text.

 

 

I also tried playing with diagonals while arranging the images. For example, the stem along the leaf cuts across the image from top left to bottom right, and through the gutter in between, links to the next image where the direction of the lines on the pavement reflect that diagonal. Though a reflection, it is also off center, giving that off-balance look.

As for the metals spread, I went for a complete diagonal split across the two pages. Instead of just having two images with a crisp line down the center dividing the two, I added an image of rusted chains in between to segment them.

 

 

For the concretes, I used a symmetrical layout. The image on the left page is of a tennis court corner, and to reflect it on the other page, I tore another piece of paper to create the shape. I then masked a cracked stone texture to fit within that frame, and for contrast, added a plain pavement texture underneath it, keeping to the segment’s theme.

 

 

Finally, for the back cover, I used the same layout as the cover, reflecting the metal texture and using a new image showing a different angle of the building. The map of the location is also added, using the same circle background as the title’s. And with the social media handles added at the bottom of the page, the zine is done!