With reference to Janet Cardiff’s works, I have decided to model a part of my walkthrough in Jurong based on her ‘Alter Bahnhof Video Walk‘. Visually it lacks the fidelity and immersive choreography, but in essence it performs the same function, with some additional little tricks utilising geolocation and dynamic playback control of the clip as the viewer moves through the landscape.

The prototype video mixed with reading and a crafted soundscape can be viewed below.

The process, though straightforward, took a bit of time from acquiring footage to assembly. Here’s a screenshot of the mixing process. The original audio is preserved, but tremendously reduced to be barely discernible. The next track is the reading, where the narrator guides the viewer through the walk. The next few layers of audio are a mixture of ambient sfx that are related to what is mentioned in the reading.

The video is also designed in such a way that there is a ‘soft’ break at around 6 minutes, at the halfway mark. This is to account for viewers’ different walking speeds or level of participation. As the user approaches a certain point, the page will trigger the video to continue playing from a certain point.

I have also experimented with a vertical format style of shooting, and that can be seen below.

I have also experimented with ‘aging’ the recorded readings to increase their level of authenticity and immersiveness.

That’s all for the week.

National archives map

Annotated Google Map

Transcripts

 

Areas of focus

Theme-based:

• Education (Early educational institutes)
• Industry
• Residential (Growth of community)
• Transportation

Site-specific:

• Hong Kah Village
• Jurong Brickworks
• Rulang
• Jurong Sec Sch
• Yung Sheng Food Center
• Chinese/Jap garden
• Jurong Lake

General:

• Development of Jurong Industrial Estate
• Taman Jurong – first housing estates

Voices:

• Excerpts from workers in 60-70s (pg.42)
• Hong Kah Village before redevelopment (pg.48)

 

Prototype updates

 

Slides for Future Cinema presentation

Done with Kelly

Future Cinema

Subject of project

This mainly auditory-based project attempts to relate these disparate themes together in a given place:

• the tremendous changes an area undergoes over time
• the interactions of its inhabitants with their environment
• how people perceive past and present in different ways

Space to be explored

This area has been chosen as quite a lot has been changed in this area. And the communities that lived here has also been present in the past, so would make for an interesting juxtaposition. There are a number of landmarks, both past and present:

• Drive-in cinema
• Three gardens, Chinese, Japanese and Tropical
• Various brickworks
• Reclaimed areas
• Jurong Vocational Institute
• Old estates
• Cemeteries

Form of project

It will take the form of a interactive site to be used on a mobile browser. The user will be presented with a map of an area of Jurong. On this map there will be subtly highlighted areas indicating ‘areas with echoes’. As the user navigate within this area, s/he will experience a mix of different soundscapes comprising of interviews, ambient sounds, readings or music. These soundscapes are dynamically generated and is affected by time of day, speed of travel, location and presence of ‘others’.

On the map user can also see faint highlights of other’s travels, so s/he could decide to visit ‘hotspot areas’. Other than a purely passive auditory experience, users can also record audio bites on location, and these will in turn become part of the ‘echoes’ of the area.

Development

25 Feb

• Mapbox setup
• Geolocation api for tracking user; user location is shown on map
• Heat map styling to show echo ‘hotspots’
• Insert audio clips to specific coordinates
• Trigger audio when within proximity(supports simultaneously playing audio clips)
• Working early prototype; deployment to remote server(Amazon EC2)
• Quick debugging option for prototyping echo ‘zones’ by clicking on map to ‘simulate’ user location

Resources

• Custom Map for project
• Map with overlays

Audio Recordings

Audio 02 – Near Lakeside MRT

Audio 03 – Around Rulang Pri.

 

 

 

 

Non-linear narrative concept

Juxtapose the past and present via sounds. As participant navigates through areas of Jurong, he/she is presented with sound bites from the past/present. These sound bites can be any of the following:

• historical readings
• ambient environmental sounds of past/present
• recordings of worker interviews?
• recorded readings of thoughts/prose

The participant explores the historical development of the Jurong area through the times by navigating and witnessing it in the present, while being immersed in the past via sounds.