Diving into theory
We also started looking into Transmedia storytelling. Transmedia storytelling is a concept introduced by Henry Jenkins and is a technique of experiencing a story across multiple platforms. Usually, transmedia storytelling is on digital platforms, but we chose to introduce a physical element to it. Transmedia storytelling not only tells a story but also helps bring certain elements to one’s real life.
We also looked at the term, Psychogeography, which means the combination of psychology and geography together. It is a term coined by Guy Debord, and it is drifting into the forgotten and discarded part of the city. These theories were very crucial in understanding how to shed light on a neglected part of history in our project.
Application of the theory
We started ideating different and interesting ways to capture these wild stories of Smithfield. We found out that there were streets around the Smithfield Rotunda, named after certain animals which were sold in the live meat market. Some of these streets (Cow lane, pig lane, etc) still existed as of today.
Interestingly, the culture of wife-selling started or came to the Rotunda around the mid 19th century. Divorce at the time was next to impossible except for the wealthy.
Taking some of the major events happened in Smithfield, from according to the timeline, we now started thinking of ways to narrate the stories. We also had to add a comical element to these stories which would make the story more engaging and age-appropriate.
The comic element we decided to add in the name of the animal lanes, was to make missing posters of the animals to show the cruelty of the live stock market of the past.
We also thought of having a fake old newspaper to tell the story about a man who tried selling his wife. The headlines of the newspaper were catchy and got attention owing to its vintage look.
Both these ideas were based on advertising, as we thought paper would be a good medium to start with telling the stories. These can also be used as a marketing tool to draw people to a historic event in Culture Mile.
We still weren't quite clear if we should implement different media for different stories. But we decided to first ideate on ways to tell a story.
We picked out some of the creative ideas out of these and decided to relate them to the story we were trying to portray. We had a couple of ideas of pub crawls, flash mobs, etc. These would be events in Culture mile, which would help people understand the history behind the facade. Some of them were meant to be permanent installations.
For this, we particularly went back to Smithfield and decided to work on the behavior map of people. Due to this, we could figure out where our target audience usually gathers and made it easier for us to decide the location of some of these artifacts which were not extremely site-specific.
Reflection
Looking back at this week’s work, we did think about making it age-appropriate for the target segment of ‘Kaleidoscope creatives’, but we did not really implement that in our ideas. We considered our audience’s behavior in a space, but not considering their demographic would be a huge disadvantage.
I was glad to do some reading and find key theories that support and inform our design. Working on storytelling also taught us about collaboration in terms of how to engage one another in one’s ideas. It also gave a confidence in presentation.
References
Debord, G., 1958. Theory of the Dérive.Internationale situationniste,2(20.05), p.2015.
Jenkins, H. and Deuze, M., 2008. Convergence culture.
Comments