remarks at gafa » online storytelling

interesting links>广州撑你! guangzhou cheng ni

admin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:31:30 +0000

An interesting project, pointed out to me by Mónica Carriço of movingcities, is Guangzhou Supports You! It relates, in certain ways, to the subjective mapping assigment that we began this term with:

“Guangzhou Supports You!” works like this: the organizers supply a “Guangzhou Supports You!” graphic (see below) that serves as the essential element of the entire activity. Participants simply need to choose a corner, alley, place, space, etc. in Guangzhou, take a photo with the graphic appearing somewhere in the photo, and then upload the photo to the official “Guangzhou Supports You!” website to share their affection for Guangzhou with everyone – that’s it.

http://www.guangzhouchengni.com/

An interview with the initiatiors of this project can be found here:

english http://edge.neocha.com/interview-profile/interview-guangzhou-cheng-ni2-0/
中文 http://edge.neocha.com/zh/interview-profile/interview-guangzhou-cheng-ni2-0/

interesting links>HOTEL an interactive story

admin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:29:32 +0000

HOTEL is a 10-part animation that takes place in the anonymous space of an extraordinary and strange hotel. This hotel is the home base of Preconstruction, the company run by Dr. Doglin. Doglin is an unusual doctor conducting research into ‘freak accidents‘. In exchange for payment, volunteers agree to undergo tests that Dr. Doglinperforms on them. Hotel is a game in which seemingly nothing can be lost, but also nothing can be won.

HOTEL was made in 2004 by Dutch artist Han Hoogerbrugge. I believe it is a very good example of how an online story can become a totally immersive experience.

You can explore the hotel and the story online at:
http://www.hoteloscartangoecholima.com/splash.html

interesting links>YAH-interactive from Beijing

admin — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 12:15:47 +0000

YAH-Interactive is a design group in Beijing that specializes in both commercial and art projects, whereby interaction, animation and a lot of imagination is involved.

Checkout their weblog here: http://www.yahplus.cn/blog/onlycity在里昂/
and their main website here: http://anyah.cn/
and a experimental work here: http://yahlab.com/

They’ve just come back from France where, together with artist Liu Qiangyuan, they created an online project called: Only City
About their city of the Eye:
“Only city.org is a city constructed on Google Earth (…)by Yah Lab. They named the Only City “the City of the Eye” in Chinese which implied the capital city/the Forbidden City. Moreover, in Chinese culture the eye is the finishing touch an artist makes his work alive, It is the crucial action that gives life to anything. (…) Liu’s [Qiangyuan] real size woodcut figurines reside in the Only City and become a reflection as well as storyteller(…)”

Using Google Earth (which you could definitely call public space) they’ve created and environment where people from all over the world can connect. Woodcut characters made by Liu Qiangyuan, mix with the virtual world of games and online environments. Here are some screenshots of the site. Click on the thumbnails for larger version:

Visit the site here: - http://onlycity.org/

Interesting links> The Last Tourist

admin — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:18:37 +0000

To walk in a city without a set destination is relatively new. It was only in the twenties of the last century that the writer and philosopher Walter Benjamin invented the flaneur, a modern day man who went drifting trough the cities that emerged.

The website The Last Tourist is an example of mapping through writing stories and making drawings. It’s a project by Dutch artist Jan Rothuizen, who traversed the Chinese cities of the Pearl River Delta in 2005.
‘The last Tourist’ is an online passage along hand drawn maps, texts and photographs. This website provides a personal reading of the cities that write themselves.