Week-7

Concept Development

I still needed some organisation so I made a chart and then I just started putting everything into the RPO without thinking about a structure first. I thought that once I have everything on the RPO I can develop it while giving it a proper structure.

Researching the legends of the city of Ahmedabad, India

I first came across this Medium article about the history and myths of Ahmedabad.

After reading this article I realised that most of the legends and myths of the city are about how the city was founded, how it was built. And based on this article I also found another book - Ahmedabad: From Royal City to Megacity by Achyut Yagnik. And another - Ahmedabad: A city with Past by David Esther.

There were a lot of legends and myths about the city that I was not aware of and I wanted to know more about it so I specified the narratives to The legends of the city of Ahmedabad, India.

Brainstorming what my final outcome of this project could look like

I started brainstorming ideas about what sort of outcome would I want and after a while it was clear to me that I wanted to stick to a pop-up book. And think about the use of multimedia in my book as I progress.

More mindmapping

While thinking about graduation project I also realised that there are still a few gaps within my concept, so I did some more mind mappping...

Each pillar has some goal and I realised one of the gaps is there is no fixed goal or a research destination for two pillars. And the connection between the two pillars: Interactivity and Narrative, was also a bit of a gap.

I also made a list of activities or experiments that I plan on doing.

Weekly Consulations

I had a lot of questions on my mind regarding the RPO for which I gained a lot of clarity throughout the consultations, written in points below:

1. I was confused about ‘Symbolism’, because I could talk about it in both the pillars (storytelling and narrative) and I was afraid that the RPO could get a bit, but I realised that I could talk about the legends that I intend to use, and why, in my summary of readings.
2. I was confused about what to base my title on because there were two things: Interactive Storytelling and the Legends of the city Ahmedabad, India. But I realised the core of my concept is exploring the following three things: paper craft, physical computing and symbolic representation for storytelling purposes. So I thought ‘Interactive Storytelling’ would be more appropriate.
3. For the approaches and the methods, I wasn’t sure what my research method is (is it a four field framework or is it design thinking?) - “it’s not about what you think you’re doing, it’s more about what is a good approach for you to do your work”. Which was clear that I would talk about something that I think would be an appropriate approach. For the method I was clear that it was a critical journal, because I wanted to talk about my work.
4. The title for the three pillars don’t have to be questions, but shouldn’t be just a word either - it should have a little bit of a context into it.
5. Research objective - what are the questions that I have about the research?
6. I can also include my plan of field research when I go back to India in December - for the narratives.
7. Catalogue of Making - is not just about taking a picture and putting in the slide deck but also making it presentable, to be able to communicate what is happening in the image that is legible to anyone viewing the deck.
8. In the research objective - I can maybe also talk about the use of multimedia in my outcome? Is there a way?
9. I can talk about how I plan on approaching the outcome in ‘Approaches/Methods’.

After this my first instinct was to look for more readings. As I wanted to fill the gaps in my concept first. I found these three books that felt more relevant - two or three chapters inside each book that are really helpful - The art of the Maker by Peter Dormer; Agent Culture: Human-Agent Interaction in a Multicultural World edited by Sabine Payr and Robert Trappl; The art of Pop-up by Jean Charles Trebbi.

But above everything first I wanted to perform an activity, because there were a lot of thoughts about it which if brought to life would be good and maybe helpful?

Activity - 2

I found this tutorial online: (link) It felt similar to one of the legends that I was thinking of portraying in my final outcome - how Ahmedabad was founded.

Making

I actually first made all the necessary plan on illustrator and then pritned it and made cuts. The circles in this pop-up card would rotate, portraying the rabbit chasing the jackal.

After doing this activity I also got a lot of clarity on how to refine my pillars for the research concept:

Pillar - 1: Symbolism Using symbolic representations to portray a legend or a myth

Pillar - 2: Interactivity -Exploring the use of paper craft and physical computing to enhance narration

Pillar - 3: Legends and Myths Narrating the legends revolving around the foundation and development of the city of Ahmedabad, India. (I guess I can refine this one once more).

Title - Interactive Storytelling
Subtitle - Exploring the use of craft and physical computing integrated with symbolic representations for storytelling purposes.

Formative Set-up and Feedback

The set-up is not exactly great. I didn't have much content to put on the table so I curated my mind maps on the table as well, however it looks quite chaotic. As for the project development, in terms of concept there is good progress but my documentation and presentation could use a lot of work.

When we were all done presenting, Andreas showed us a demonstration of how a set-up could be curated neatly.