Category: capstone2023

 
The accomplished writer, R, finds himself grappling with his latest novel titled “Me Before You.” Despite having a clear vision for the title and theme, he has hit a creative roadblock in developing the plot. The pressure from his publisher to meet the book’s deadline weighs heavily on him, exacerbating his lack of inspiration. However, just as his motivation wanes, his life takes an unexpected turn with the arrival of an anonymous letter. This unexpected correspondence sparks newfound inspiration within R, reigniting his passion to continue writing his novel.
A girl named X is going through a series of difficult days. Her room remains cluttered and untouched for months, reflecting the chaos and disorder in her own life. As she battles constant feelings of depression, she serendipitously stumbles upon a book titled “Me Before You,” written by R. Drawn to the story, she not only finds herself deeply moved but also feels a profound connection with the author behind the words. Driven by this newfound connection, X makes the decision to reach out and write a letter to R, hoping to forge a meaningful connection of her own.
In this story, the mysterious influence between the characters is veiled in uncertainty, enhanced by a surreal visual style that blurs the line between reality and dreams. This intentional design reflects the intricate nature of human connections and love, which are often nuanced, subtle, and complex in their essence.
The project deliberately chooses games as the medium to convey this narrative, highlighting the subtle, complex, and captivating connections between individuals. While films and novels have well-established narrative structures, interactive storytelling in games is a relatively newer medium that holds great potential. In contrast to many games that prioritize excitement and rewards, there is a growing trend towards narrative-driven and immersive experiences. This project serves as an experimental step in that direction.

 
The *The Scattered Self* investigates the concept of self-identity in the digital era, where the self is dispersed across multiple online platforms. The central idea was to collect pieces of myself that are scattered across the internet, and try to reconstruct my digital and physical identity through a data collection of online traces. Through this process, I discovered that most of the posts I used for analysis contain a love note, a short poem that turned out not only to be the fact of me missing the places I left, but also longing for the pieces of myself I lost.
By engaging with the problem of identity in the digital era, this project tried to create a new way of looking at how we address the self and understand who we are. The temporality of the user-subjects immersed in the space of calculation and profiled by data extraction is warped, and the project tries to find a way to reconstruct one’s digital and physical identity through a data collection of online traces. These are accompanied by a decentralised dialogue that leads the user through the different ways of thinking about the “lost pieces” displayed as glass pieces.
Every color represents different pieces of information from the online identities I analysed over the semester, with the number representing the %. The glass pieces, representing the lost pieces of myself, are arranged in a mosaic-like formation, forming a visual representation of the fragmented nature of our digital identities.
In the midst of this exploration, the love notes emerge as a poignant element of the artwork. They symbolize not only a longing for the places left behind in the digital realm but also a yearning for the lost pieces of oneself. These love notes serve as a reminder that behind the data and online traces, there are emotions, experiences, and connections that are part of our sense of self.
Ultimately, *The Scattered Self* invites viewers to contemplate the complexity of their digital identities, the traces they leave behind, and the ways in which they are dispersed and interconnected.

 
Pages of Pain is a storytelling game that offers players a unique opportunity to step into the shoes of a silent witness of domestic violence, and relive their traumatic experiences by reading through the protagonist’s diary. Through a series of mini-games and puzzles, players will be able to empathize with this often-neglected group of victims, helping to shed light on a sensitive topic that affects countless individuals. Apart from the direct victims of domestic violence, witnesses of this form of violence also suffer gravely from it, who usually undergo such experience in their childhood and exhibit higher rates of psychological impairments. However, it is only recently that it has been recognized as a specific form of abuse. Moreover, among all the victims, even though child witnesses have been receiving more attention, adults who were exposed to family violence as children are still “forgotten”. Therefore, this project aims to draw on the rich interactivity and compelling storytelling of games to help audiences be more aware of and better understand the neglected adults who witnessed domestic violence in their childhood, where empathy will be a key factor to bridge the gap and connect both ends.
In this game, the player will play as the protagonist, who is now an adult, to revisit her diary book and reliving all the times when she witnessed her parents’ fights. Every two pages document a specific scene or event that greatly influenced the protagonist, requiring various interactions from the player to help mimic or reveal the protagonist’s thoughts and actions. Only after the tasks are completed will the player be able to turn to the next page. Moreover, the project interweaves three levels of reality to strive for an immersive experience suitable for developing role identification and evoking empathetic responses. There’s the past, represented by the first 18 pages that documents how the protagonist gets affected as a young witness. There’s the reality in the game, represented by the last two pages where the protagonist writes down what is happening at present. Then there’s the “real” reality, where the player can read and write in the actual dairy book virtually owned by the protagonist after finishing the game. Finally, visuals were mostly drawn through Figma and Procreate, different audio files were collaged together to create the soundscape in the seventh scene, and coding was completed through the Javascript libraries: p5.js and p5.sound.js.
The implications of Pages of Pain are manifold. Employing a game format, the project taps into the power of interactive storytelling to engage audiences in a highly immersive and emotive experience. The game also raises important philosophical questions about the nature of pain, suffering, and empathy. By asking players to actively engage with the protagonist’s traumatic experiences, the game challenges conventional notions of what it means to bear witness to domestic violence and abuse. Conceptually, Pages of Pain pushes the boundaries of traditional storytelling, demonstrating the potential for video games to serve as a powerful medium for tackling complex and sensitive subjects, fostering meaningful dialogue and promoting social change.

 
Forming with the Living is an experimental combination of the futuristic practice of bio-design and the 19-20th century Arts and Crafts Movement. It showcases experimentation and a hand-crafted hanging lampshade made with the biomaterial SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast). Arts and Crafts began in opposition to the start of the Industrial Revolution, which automated the creation of products to maximize profit over time, quality, and individuality. With Arts and Crafts, artisans and master craftsmen were able to bring back quality and truth to natural materials, reminding the world how meaningful product consumption is. In today’s society, we are now dealing with the detrimental environmental effects of overconsumption and rapid mass production. Concerned designers have started turning towards working with nature and the living to find material alternatives that are not so harsh on the environment. This project ultimately shows what the future entails as designers more strongly counteract poor consumer behavior that began with the Industrial Revolution while also showing the capabilities of SCOBY as a practical design material.
The project consists of 4 parts: Experimentation, Design, Live SCOBY, and Photos. Each part provides a different sensual experience and connection with the material. Altogether, the senses of touch, sight, and smell come together to show the possibility of a world where bio-materials such as SCOBY can become functional, practical products in everyday life. All of the experimentation, lampshade development, display construction with industrial accents, and growing of the SCOBY were done by hand using majority natural materials, keeping with the key principles of Arts and Crafts. The lampshade itself boasts a mushroom shape, which is also in line with the Arts and Crafts principle of including nature motifs in designs. The images displayed show the textures of SCOBY in different phases of drying to highlight the changes in texture and form the material takes on.
By combining together master craftsmanship, industrial accents, natural design ideals, and the usage of bio-materials, the final installation is a look into the future potential of sustainable product design, with a nod to the Arts and Crafts Movement which is where the idea of truth to materials in design began. While we may never get rid of the mass production and overconsumption mindsets started by the Industrial Revolution and posing detrimental environmental effects, we can start creatively using renewable resources that nature provides as inspiration to bring awareness to the importance of a future of sustainable design.

 
Inspired by the Chinese Buddhist custom of ‘accumulating merits and virtues,’ this interactive installation named Ritualistic AmuseZen creates a gamified and entertaining experience that invites audience participation. Participants are placed in an immersive space reminiscent of traditional ritual sites and guided to engage in ritualized performances, including knocking the wooden fish and kneeling to demonstrate their worship of the gods. They can interact with the digitalized Buddha visuals by creating inputs from the physical instruments placed in the installation and then experience the switch between different game states. By offering a playful approach to exploring and experiencing Chinese Buddhist rituals, the project aims to engage the audience in an interactive and immersive amusement space with ritual elements.
In contemporary China, a digitalization trend has emerged among young teenagers, who seek entertainment through the digital adaptation of traditional Buddhist customs. These practices aim to accumulate ‘merits and virtues’ (known as ‘功德’ in Chinese). ‘功’ refers to ‘good actions and deeds,’ while ‘德’ represents ‘good intentions and good wishes.’ Traditional Chinese customs suggest that by engaging in good deeds or Buddhist rituals, individuals can accumulate merits and virtues, which are believed to bring better futures or even improved afterlives. In the digital realm of China, sacred Buddhist procedures have become cases of pan-entertainment. For instance, people engage with digital wooden fish apps and share videos of Buddhas on social media, seeking good luck. This phenomenon exemplifies the gamification of traditional practices. Therefore, I was inspired to make the gamification process more literal through digital art technology and physical computing.
This project explores the central question of how to create a playful and immersive experience that resonates with contemporary audiences while preserving the essence of Chinese Buddhist rituals. Through meticulous research and design, it offers the blending of ancient traditions with modern technology and entertainment, which sheds light on the evolving relationship between traditional customs and the digital age.