Ideas

Idea 1 – I think I know you

The inspiration for this idea came from this instagram account

“Have you ever imagined what strangers are thinking? What their lives are like? Of course you have: you’re a sentient life form. But have you started an Instagram account of pictures of Londoners snapped from behind, then penned tiny stories for each person? Unless you’re Alex Mendes and Hugo Catraio, we’re guessing no. Since March the pair have been doing just that, and their sweet, sad and plain weird tales add a new dimension to street photography. ”

The idea for the project would be to take faceless photographs of commuters on board MRT trains, and write a bunch of back stories, of how their lives are like. The users will then have a chance to match one of these photographs to a backstory, guess someone’s age, at which stop in the whole MRT line this stranger came from etc.

What would result would be an MRT map where we can click every station to reveal the faces of the many made up people with made up identities, people we will never know or get to know although we see them daily on our commute to school or work.

I think this also plays on the concept and stereotypes people have about people who live in different parts of singapore. Like some of the common ones I’ve heard is that girls who lives in the east are somehow prettier but quite ah lian. I’m like ?!????!???

Idea 2 – Reverse, Twice

Instead of coming up with something fictional, I wanted to shed light on some real life issues or stories that made me feel something. And I happened to remember this article that made me feel ridiculously angry.

“It seems like a crazy urban legend: In China, drivers who have injured pedestrians will sometimes then try to kill them. And yet not only is it true, it’s fairly common; security cameras have regularly captured drivers driving back and forth on top of victims to make sure that they are dead. The Chinese language even has an adage for the phenomenon: “It is better to hit to kill than to hit and injure.”

I want to tell the stories of these victims and drivers. I’m thinking of researching about these stories and make it into an interactive documentary. Things I might include will be what is the cost of human life in these accidents?  It costs $30 000 – $50 000 to kill someone in a road accident, but in one case, $400 000 to leave the person alive but disabled. What does that extra $350 000 mean to the driver? What does the murder of the victim cost his or her families? I want the user to be able to see these stories from both point of views, through narratives.