Little red car
Far away from home,
With my grandparents was where I lived for a short time as a boy,
In the countryside.
Nothing to do despite what they gave me.
It was hard to make new friends.
Loneliness abounds.
My mother gave me a little toy car
So red, so vivid.
It lightened my stay away from home.
And brought me an unparalleled happiness.
With my eyes closed,
I can still see that red little car.
Laying on the grass.
Abstract
This project aims to gain an understanding of storytelling using a transmedia approach. Throughout the research, I explored how knowledge is generated using a multi-stage process that moves from poetry writing to tapestry weaving, and then to audio recording. My primary objective has been to use a transmedia approach, considering how different media formats interact, to open up and explore how my personal story is interpreted between myself and the audience. By using a transmedia approach, this research project allows me to create an immersive sensory experience for the audience in a way that provides an example for future design research. By designing, encoding, and studying of artifacts created using the TC-2 Digital Jacquard Loom, this research aims to investigate how woven tapestry can help people visualize and experience emotion. As a result of this research, I have created the media formats of tapestry, poetry and audio using a creative transmedia storytelling process, as well as “Hands-on weaving” workshops to provide opportunities for everyone from non-designers to experienced weavers to conduct personal material exploration. What I have found is that it is possible for emotions to be elicited through weaving by employing a transmedia approach causing a synergistic understanding between the storyteller and audience.
Research question
My design research activities started by asking the question: “How can I use a transmedia approach to storytelling through design?“ My research aims at designing a creative process to tell stories and proving the feasibility of such a process through practice-based research and weaving workshops. Through the research, my work examines and addresses several technical obstacles of using media forms to tell stories, also assesses any addition or omission of content when a transmedia approach is used to deliver the story, along with any information gained or lost in the perception of the audience. The scope of the project is focused on poetry writing, tapestry weaving, and audio recording and their application within the practice-based research. I should mention that the application within other contexts (e.g. commercial or business) is out of scope for this research project and will not be addressed in this study.
