Stories in movement
Multi-narratives walks for the Design Research Society's Festival of Emergence 2021
How can design and technology support the development of new frameworks highlighting the multiplicity and complexity of voices in our world today and question the way we, as individuals and societies, interact with those stories to create more sustainable futures?
Stories in Movement is an interactive digital experience, a ‘Moment’ created for the Design Research Society’s Festival for Emergence in September 2021 as part of my final Sustainable Design MA project at the University of Brighton. The work explores five theoretical areas: the inevitability of dominant stories, the balance between complexity and simplicity in design, the margins vs centre duality, the relationship between stories and movement, and the idea of shared authorship, all embodied in this multi-narrative experience.
The theoretical and academic research behind the project, graphics illustrating the research process and timeline.
The final Stories in Movement website deployed during the festival.
The Moment invited participants to go on a walk while listening to a playlist where each track reflected a different viewpoint over the past pandemic year. From news extracts to songs, podcasts to abstract city noise, those tracks aimed to reflect the diversity and polarity of voices in our world today. At the end of each track, the playlist presented participants with a choice to make according to the direction they were following, creating a multidimensional story where parallel narratives connect into individual lived realities. The tracks shape the walk’s rhythm and the participant's understanding of the world, becoming beyond walking an opportunity to gather knowledge in a slower and more immersive way. Stories become tangible, designing the environment while being designed by it.
Over five days, twenty-five people participated in the Moment, across more than five countries. At the end of the walk, participants were invited to share feedback on their experience, and the geolocation data and words collected were turned into multi-perspective narrative maps, a serie of visuals illustrating alternative narratives in movement. Those visuals are all that is left of this ephemeral narrative experience, and all maps and a report of the Moment were shared back with the DRS team after the festival.
Click here to read about the Festival of Emergence.
Left: a mockup of a participant using the website. Middle: visual overlapping of multiple locations where the website was used, creating a new virtual landscape for stories to emerge. Right: a temporary website showcasing the narrative maps designed after the Moment.
Examples of maps designed after the festival.