The Curious Mystery of Mr. Red Drum and the Best Intern
Artists: Calista Lee and Lydia Lui
Artists’ Statement
To draw people to not only the appearance of the interesting looking books of the ADM library but also the content of what is within these books, this interactive game will constitute the content of the various books to form a riddle, which will be the basis of the game.
Research and Proposal
Please refer to my first post and previous post.
Materials Prepared
Planning of Hints:
For the layout of our hints, we included:
- Logo: The Curious Mystery of Mr. Red Drum and Bestern
- Story Hint (provides context on murderer)
- Name Hint (provides a letter or two letters to the murderer’s name)
- Reference number for the next book
Books used (Reference no.)
1. Mapping it Out (GA 108.7B13)
Pg 25: (clues to Bestern’s name, passport hint > Via the countries, leave those unvisited: First letter point to his name? Leave it vague? The dates of travel = the other pages to note)
E.g. Belgium : March 6th (Referring to: Page 36)
Pg 36: Call 92967488 (perhaps we do the paper imprint thing?)
Pg 37: first murderous intent (vaguely)
Pg 41: “Amnesia”, “Elusive character” → when bestern switches personalities, one side of him doesn’t remember the other
2. Less and More (TS 140. R36 L638)
Pg 293: Norm. filter low . radio; white and black dots: good and evil
3. Cult Fiction: Art and Comics (PN 6710 C968)
Pg 36: gist of the situation (Norm. (refer to second book) > Its a whole rant.
If you count the number of letters, it will lead to the page number. (36 letters: Page 36)
To read in between the meaning of the rant, and the underline NO. stands for number. Hint for page number.
‘Dear diary’ and ‘I am tired’ also mean to take what is in the pictorial rant as Bestern’s feelings.
4. OBEY (N6537. F316 B12B)
Pg 32: blatant jeer at the police (Think)
Pg 35: murderous intent and rebellion (Want)
Pg 50: Cult image
Pg 51: inspector
Pg 52: more police (right picture: bestern’s best intern image and personality)
(Creating a Calendar)
E.g. 1. Apr 23 (Referring to Page 32) :
Write + In 1 Week & 2 Days more days (+ 9 more to 23 = Page 32) What do I think?
E.g. 2. Apr 30 (Referring to Page 35)
Write: + 5 more days (30+5= Page 35) What do I want?
pg 32: (Think: Thoughts) > What do I think > Bestern’s thoughts about the academy
pg 35: (Want: Aspire) > What do I want? > His goals
50: (Look: Appearance) > How do I look? > Deceiving appearnce
pg 51: (Remember: Past) > What do I remember? > Thinking of dead father
pg 52: (Strive? Questioning) > Who am I? > One represents his personality, other presents his image
5. AB OVO (N6494. M78 A115)
Pg 10-11: Clues to Bestern’s Name
SWONK NRETSEB (Mirrored) = BESTERN KNOWS
Missing sequential letters and numbers for decoding the message.
Once pieced, they would be able to attach and fit the numbers and letters to crack the code.
Either that, or they can just blindly locate the files.
6. Mommy? (PZ 7.S47 N733)
Pg with lots of trashy skeletons:
- Bestern’s hidden motives
- Bestern just wanted to please his mother
- Bipolar: inner demons
A Chalk Outline of the body was also prepared for the murder scene (forgot to take a picture).
Case Briefing Slides found here.
Interview videos (eye witnesses, relations)
Special thanks to our actors:
Student 1: Zerline Jade
Student 2: Jaime Goh
Librarian 1: Jessabel Teng
Librarian 2: Abdul Qayyum
Classmate 1: Yulin Chin
Classmate 2: Justinne Casuga
Final Outcome
Story Synopsis
(This is a story of fiction.)
Bestern is the best police intern in the NTU Police Academy (NTUPA), despite being only a first year student of the Detective Sector in the NTUPA. Despite his outer appearance as the best intern, he has a dark side to him — his other self. In other words, he has a multi-personality disorder.
Bestern’s other self is full of secrets: He hates the NTUPA and how his mother forced him to enter the NTUPA just to avenge his father who was killed on campus.
Why did Bestern kill Susan Lim Wan Die?
Susan is known to be the most popular student on NTUPA campus, and makes friends even with the most eccentric students. Bestern thought he was good friends with Susan… until the day his other self came on and scared the heck out of Susan.
Susan, being an avid gossiper, told his group of popular people about Bestern’s dark side. Overwhelmed by the amount of gossip and rumors about him, Bestern’s other side gets heavily affected. His hate for the NTUPA and the people surrounding him intensifies, which led him to he killing Susan on 17/4/2017 while he was at the ADM Library bookshelves at 8:30PM.
Bestern’s twisted, dark self meticulously prepared for Susan’s murder– out of pure hatred, he crafted clues to play with the police’s minds and tests their ability to snuff out culprits. Basing his facts that the police is useless and will be unable to catch him just like how they were unable to catch the culprit who killed his father, he happily switches his personality to the good side of Bestern. (Bestern is unable to remember the thoughts and actions of what happened to both sides of him).
6 NTUPA Detective sector students were shortlisted to be detectives of this curious mystery led by Chief Police Investigator Mr. Red Drum and Assistant Police Investigator Bestern (whose good self was tasked with helping Red Drum to lead the case).
At the end of the investigation and when the detectives have gathered sufficient evidence to accuse Bestern of his crime, Bestern switches to his dark side. He pulls out the knife he used to stab Susan 6 times and ultimately killing him, he charges at the detectives, ready to swing his knife at anyone he sees.
Bang.
Mr. Red Drum shoots Bestern with his gun. As Bestern falls to the ground, Mr. Red Drum tells him the truth — he was as useless as his father.
The culprit who killed Bestern’s father 10 years ago is Red Drum.
(NOTE: if you spell Red Drum’s name backwards, it becomes MURD-DER ; Calista’s creation!!)