JIALING DENG
MA NARRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS COLLEGE OF ARTS AND DESIGN
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BRIEF INTRO SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE RESEARCH ANALYSIS EXPERIMENTATION COLLABORATION EPILOGUE
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BRIEF INTRO
Narrative Environments Narrative plus environment equals memorable human experience (Potteiger and Purington, 1998), the narrator (designer, audience or the place itself) tells a story about space intentionally in different ways. Both story and physical space are indispensable.
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Brief intro
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SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE
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Subject knowledeg
Story vs Narrative
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Time scale
Plot
Story
Product
Telling
Process
Framework Chronology Time scal
Form
Structure
Formation Structuration
Narrative and story are always bound together inextricably, however, to my personal perspective, to figure out the differences between narrative and story is the first crucial step of studying Narrative Environments. First of all, According to Finnegan (1998), the significant features in ‘story’ is that a story seems present a sequence of events taking place in the past; the events set within some kind of temporal framework; they are not necessarily presented in exact chronological sequence and usually convey a unifying moral ordering. In addition, Potteiger and Purinton point out that: “Narrative refers to both the story, what is told , and the means of telling, implying both product and process, form and formation, structure and structuration.” Therefore, narrative is not purely about telling a story, but how you arrange the settings, how you intervene and how you change audience’s reaction.
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Subject knowledeg
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Empathy &Identification Memorability Imagination & Creativity Evoking reflectivity Showing/Teaching values Convey info Persuading Organising Delighting
Functions & Functions Motivations & Motivations
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Subject knowledeg
Church
SPIRITUAL
Teatre
EMOTIONAL
Museum Theme Park
INTELLECTUAL SOCIAL
ENGAGING
DISCOVERY
CHALLENGE
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ADVENTURE
Subject knowledeg
INNOVATIVE
COLLABORATIVE
SOCIAL
EDUCATIONAL PARTICIPATORY
Dring the Rainham Hall project, in order to figure out what Rainham Hall would be in the future and the drive for local people to come and visit regularly, I easily associated the function of narrative with people’s motivation of going a place. The pyramid diagram illustrates the general criteria of people’s motivation, and the examples show that what kind of place can meet people’s demand. This gave us a very clear direction for our further design and what we want Rainham Hall be, and how we are going to use narrative in the project. Specifically, we want to dig out a point which could meet most of the needs and balance the role of Rainham Hall itself: Entertainment, Scholarly & Community. Our concept is transform the house into a game centre, firstly, we want it be delighting to entertain people (social), and in the mean time, we want to deliver the historical information and teach values to the audience (intellectual), and then we tell the story of the people who lived there to create an atmosphere to visitors (emotion).
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Subject knowledeg
1. What sorts of places can be narrative environments?
Herritage sit
e
Historical bu
ilding
18th Centur y
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architecture
Stable
block
Lodge
Rainham Hall
Subject knowledeg
Interaction desi
gners
Performance desi
gners
ers
Game design
ers
Media design
Historians
Artists Architects
Rainham ners
desig pacial
S
3. What kinds of creative practices address these issues and construct these places?
2. What sorts of issues, drivers and purposes produce these places?
pression
ex Cultual
e
l issu
ica Histor
cture
ite Arch
sue
Herritage is
&
rs
drive
rial matie
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Geographical location
Subject knowledeg
Hall Thearists in
Herritage studies space and pla
ce
performance theorists Art theorists
rists
Digital techn
eo Narrative th
4. What thinkers and ideas do theae practices rely on and refer to?
ology experts
Scales of Narrativity
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We do have the options to decide which quadrant we want to be, however, in terms of narrative, I definitely tend to the high level of narrativity. Although our subject aims at delivering a very clear and direct message to our target audiences, it does not suggest that the upper quadrant is the best option for all the projects. So the question is: How do you want to communicate with your audiences? In another word, in what means you are going to tell your story?
Direct denotative communication High level of narrativity
PROJECTS: The biography 3 Mills Island Rainham Hall Practce of Narrative Lecture City Branding
Evocative connotative communication
Low level of narrativity
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Subject knowledeg
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The axis shows how the projects that I have done are distributed in the four quadrants, for instance, my first project – The biography, it is very difficult to precisely interpret a person who you only got along with for several days by a piece of work. In order to avoid being too subjective and wrongly read the person, I decided to portray my target person in a highly subtle way. I used lots of metaphors and implications to provoke audience’s thoughts and imagine, and, actually, there is no answer to what the person really is, I just gave a little bit my opinion and more let the audiences to interpret by themselves. So, for me, it is a very evocative and connotative expression and communication and full of stories of a persion.
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Subject knowledeg
Secret Portrait （Painted by Jialin Deng，2014）
The Art of Narration
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Author
Story
Telling
Audience
After finished Andrea’s lecture about the Narrative Theory, I personally felt greatly benefited, for example, The Hero’s Journey has built up a basic structure of how a story proceeded in my mind, and gave me a sort of awareness of narrative when I am doing the real project. The Hero’s Journey is a pattern of narrative identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell that appears in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual, and psychological development. It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the group, tribe, or civilization.
ture adven all to
the c
3
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Ref usa
l of
2
all
The c
The ordinary world
Return with the elixir
12 1
tion
rrec
e re su
Th
4 ORDINARY WORLD
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SPECIAL WORLD 8
, alles ies
enem
The road back
The ordeal
The Hero's Journey
7 s, Test
war d
The re
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M
5 6
tor
e men
th eeting
Crossing the threshold
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Subject knowledeg
Crossin
g the th
reshold
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In addition, the theory of metaphor also was a great lesson to me, it expanded my vision of reading the message in the work of design and gave me an opportunity to practice the theory, for instance, the image (see below) Bathroom is a perfect practice and experiment on the metaphor theories. The illustration shows a general situation of Japanese traditional bathroom, the water is floating on the top half of the room, the whole space looks like an inverted pool which simbolises a big bathtub (Simile). The falling toys from the ceiling imply a kind of childhood memory (Synecdoche). The real bathtub in the middle of the room is a reflection of young generations’ “ bath style” nowadays. Playing with these theories made my work be full of possibilities, fun, and meanings to dig out. Sometimes we can use this sort of “art” way to inject a diversity in our project.
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Subject knowledeg
The Bathroom （Painted by Jialin Deng，2014）
Practice Methodology
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In general, there are four basic methods of doing a project: research, analysis, experimentation and collaboration. These four methods run through the whole process from beginning to the end of a project, they link to each other, interact with each other, and influence one another. During the process of the project, there four typical phases: Get the insights; Develop a concept; Interpret and visualise the concept; Produce the environment. When I was doing Rainham Hall project, I got a more clear procedure (shown in the diagram) to do the project. It made me have a very clear thoughts in the past 12 weeks about what to do and what to get.
Narrative Environments Projects
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Subject knowledeg
Insights
Key drama
Concept
Design direction
Story line
Story board
START
Design
Implement END
Research
Analysis Experiment Colleboration
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RESEARCH
quantitative
Interaction research
Primary research
Site research
Material research
Secondary research
qualitative Action research
Social research
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Research
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There are many ways and types of doing research, finding the right approach to do the research is the key start of a project. It refers to your overall orientation to research and the type of claims you will make for your case. As far as I am concerned, at the beginning, I tend to figure out if there exist the data answering my questions or I have to create my own data, and how I can combine different methods which including a survey of people’s behavior, feeling and attitude, and theories that look at a situation from numerous angles.
Desk Research Desk research is the most basic and fundamental step of research, it is easy and quick as required information is available from different agencies and sources - internal and external. Time in data collection is reduced in desk research as available data are used for research purpose. It is economical as information can be collected easily through libraries or by paying subscriptions. This reduces the expenditure on research activity. The data available in published form are generally reliable as they are collected by responsible agencies and institutions. This brings accuracy to the conclusions drawn through desk research. The published data are factual and away from interviewee’s bias. Naturally, the information available is more reliable/dependable. More, it is convenient as it relieves from the botheration of field investigation, tabulation, analysis and so on. (Advantages/Merits Of Desk Research by BMS Team)
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Research
Easy and quick
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Computer
Reliable data available
Serendipitous
Economical Library
Internet
Absence of bias
Convenience
Site Research Site research gives me a real and physical impression and feelings of the surrounding and environment at the specific place, I can collect and record the information about the movement of people, the accessibility, geographical level, site line, etc. via photo shooting and filming. This is the most commonly used approach to do the research, especially for our subject, and it is a very useful way to get my insights about a place.
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Research
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One example is the 3 Mills Island, when we got the brief, we totally had no idea about the place, even after we did some desk research about it, it was hardly imagine the outline (the dimension, scale, the colour and the texture) of the place. When we took a look around the island on the next day, I suddenly got a kind of feeling and understanding about the place – “isolation”, “invisibility”, “silence”, “emptiness”. These key points have intimately linked with our final concept. We visited the small island several times, once I took a very special tour in the mill house, and I got a very special view inside the old mills that the scenes we could never find on the Internet, and it was really helped with our story.
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Research
3 Mills Island （Photography by Jialin Deng，2013)
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Research
3 Mills Island （Photography by Jialin Deng，2013)
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Another example is Rainham Hall project, at beginning, our understanding of the building is only about the history, the inhabitants, and generally geographical location from the Google map. If we have never been there, we would never find such amazing and intriguing secret passages and spaces in the heritage building, and this find also became a very crucial insight of our further design.
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Research
Secret passages and spaces inside the Rainham Hall ďźˆMade by Jialin DengďźŒ2014)
Social & Action Research
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I put Social and Action research together as both these two are carried out when we wish to understand meanings, look at, describe and understand experience, ideas, beliefs and values, intangibles such as these (Qualitative research). Specifically, social research will probably mean conducting interviews or focus groups or observing behaviour. I would like to ask myself if I am prepared to do this, and think about the best way of getting the answers I want from people. Will you stop people in the street? Will you send out survey forms and hope that people return them? Will you be a participant or non participant observer? Apart from interviewing people or making a questionnaire, I would like to make a kind of intervention and interact with people casually and spontaneously to observe or change people’s reaction and behavior, because sometimes we cannot predict which information is that we always need. The action research will give us more answer and surprise.
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Research
This is an example that how we di an action research at Rainham. Although the result is not as we wish because of the weather condition and many other resons, at lest we eventually figured out what we were missing in our research, and it is a kind of experiment, the result from it is: Most of the people didn't care about what is happening in the house.
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Research
Foot prints from the Rainham Railway Station to Rainham Hall
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ANALYSIS
WHAT I NEED
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Analysis
WHAT INTERESTED ME
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Personally speaking, the process of analysis and research is closely connected to each other. While you are doing research it is not only a process of collecting but also a process of thinking and selection, and when you analysis your information and data, you will find what you need to search next. Analysis is actually a sort of extraction, the question is: how you are going to pick up what you need. First of all, I would like to categorise the information that I have in two parts – WHAT I NEED and WHAT INTERESTED ME. Specifically, the things I need are always the generic but I have to understand, such as the background, historical context and geographical information. The part about what I’m interested in is usually something very personal and subjective, and depends on different individual. The reason why I did this is because the latter is often related to the insights and the key drama, however, the former is a solid support to the latter.
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Analysis
The next step is to match the relevant information together, it will be much more clear to find the key conflict in the place. When you get some of the key words, play with them, for example think about the opposite. In the 3 Mills Island project, When we fond out that the island is quite isolated and invisible, so we thought about what if we are not gonna solve the problem but keep it as an advantage in another way around to interpret the current situation of the place. Since the island is invisible, why not make use of it? So we decided to make it really disappeared-invisible.
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Similarly, in City Branding project, when we got our key word ‘unfinished’, then we thought of ‘finished’, but we are not going to solve the problem, because we regarded it as an interesting and positive aspect of the city. So we decided to adapt it and play it with the existing façade. It seems like a process of grafting on the architecture. Then we highlighted the 'unfinished' buildings to do some experiment on them.
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Analysis
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Collaboration
COLLABORATION
THREE MODELS OF COLLEBORATION
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Collaboration PYRAMID STRUCTURE
DEMOCRACY STRUCTURE
CO-DESIGN
Awareness Motivation
Engagement
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Collaboration
Reflection
Selfsynchronization
Reciprocity
Participation Mediation
COLLABORATION LIFE CYCLE
Collaboration is a kind of challenge, especially for those who used to work alone. However, sometimes it seems a little bit impossible to finish a whole project only by one individual. So teamwork is necessary in most of the case. The collaboration in Narrative Environments is more like a co-design, we develop solutions together for ourselves, we view the things through the eyes of another, we our vision, understanding, learning with every team member. So how to build up a harmonious collaborative environment is a key point that would effect your work. The Collaboration Life Cycle shows a basic principle of teamwork. Awareness - We become part of a working entity with a shared purpose Motivation - We drive to gain consensus in problem solving or development Self-synchronization - We decide as individuals when things need to happen Participation - We participate in collaboration and we expect others to participate Mediation - We negotiate and we collaborate together and find a middle point Reciprocity - We share and we expect sharing in return through reciprocity Reflection - We think and we consider alternatives Engagement - We proactively engage rather than wait and see
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Collaboration
Spark of Cultural Collision
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Collaboration
Our culture has made us who we are, we have different nationalities, languages, vision, experience, and philosophy. Although sometimes my traditional values were entirely overturned, I more felt inspired and benefited. The 3 Mills Island project is the first project work with multi-disciplinary people from different countries. At beginning, I felt very frustrated difficult to communicate with each other, especially with English- speaking people, they seems always have loads of ideas, and it was very awful that I could not be able to get a word in edgewise, but I though I couldn’t keep silent any longer, then I went back home and took several hours to do some visual diagrams and images that I’m really good at in order to explain my idea more clearly. The next day, after I showed my idea, everyone seemed to be very supportive, and they get to know my style, and my speciality. After that, when I met a same situation, I always told myself: Don’t be panic, they just don’t know you. We just need a little bit time to get used to each other's
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In the city Branding project, I worked with the classmates that I have never worked with, we come from four different nationalities, so we had very different point of view to observe the city and different conclusions of our research. EU students felt the old market and broken public facilities were really interesting, but us Chinese students believed they couldn’t be more common, however the Albanians’ life style is really special, whereas EU students felt it’s the same everywhere. So, it’s really frustrated to reach a consensus at the first. Then we had more discussion and patiently listened to each other, we finally recognize the cultural differences between us. It became much more easier to work with each other. So it’s very essential to listen to others when you have divergences. Finally, after the collision, it’s the spark of ‘so nice working with you’.
Collaboration
Wisdom Sharing
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Collaboration Our collaboration is a process of sharing. Most of us are from different backgrounds, specialities, and disciplines. Everyone is a very huge database, we can get lots of information and knowledge that we have never set our foot in from each other. For example, we had 6 different expertise in our City Branding group, Architecture, Landscape, Theatre design, Graphics, Fine arts and Interior design, and I barely knew about the first three subjects but I am always interested in. Our project was about city architecture, so I was trying to observe the city through the eyes of the architects, and it appeared a very different picture from how I usually look at the city. It gave me another dimension of observing and discovering in my further study.
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Collaboration
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Experimentation
EXPERIMENTATION
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Experimentation
We do testing and experiment all the time during the whole process of a project. We need to consistently exam whether we got the correct information, whether we used an appropriate method, whether it works, how people would react, etc. There are lots of ways to do the experiment, here I want to talk about three kinds of experiment in my projects.
ENTERTAINMENT
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Experimentation
COMMUNITY
Game Centre
SCHOLARLY
A Workshop I fortunately got an opportunity to attend a workshop for Rainham Hall hosted by National Trust with their collaborative designers from Studio Wave, and some local communities. At the beginning of the workshop, we talked about what we think Rainham Hall would be in the future, and then we were separated into two groups to discuss about some extreme cases can represent ENTERTAINMENT, SCHOLARLY, and COMMUNITY respectively in the triangle diagram. After we gave our presentation about our proposal, we went back to the diagram again, we put each proposal on the top of the triangle, and discuss which part of the triangle our proposal could be. Our concept is to transform Rainham Hall into a live game centre, so it seemed only the ENTERTAINMENT is the suitable place for our proposal, however, I argued that it is not just a place for people to have fun. We will combine some historical information and stories about the inhabitants who once lived there. And we will collaborate with local communities, schools, residents, etc. So I thought it should be at a position in the middle of the triangle.
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Experimentation
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Experimentation
Then, we talked about that if you want to move a little bit forward to the SCHOLARLY, what you would do. How about the two other vertex of the triangle? It is an experiment of thinking, and it’s really inspiring. The workshop made me think a lot about the variability of the project, and gave me another angle to review our proposal.
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Experimentation
Play with Materials
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Experimentation
This is a series of experiment on story boarding, unlike the traditional two dimensional storyboard, we were trying to make a three or four dimensional storyboard. We really had a lot of fun in model making. I like to try new way of doing things, but we took a lot of time to do the model, and the results showed the multi-dimensional storyboard is not as effective as we expected. However, it is a good example to show different outcomes of experimentation.
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Experimentation
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Epilogue
EPILOGUE
Reference Finnegan, R. H. 1998. Tales of the city. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. Mikeg.typepad.com. 2005. Collaboration Life-Cycle (Collaborative Thinking). [online] Available at: http://mikeg.typepad.com/perceptions/2005/09/collaboration_l.html [Accessed: 14 Mar 2014]. Potteiger, M. and Purinton, J. 1998. Landscape narratives. New York: J. Wiley. Simon, N. 2010. The participatory museum. Santa Cruz, Calif.: Museum 2.0. Team, B. 2014. Advantages/Merits Of Desk Research | BMS.co.in :: Bachelor of Management Studies. [online] Available at: http://www.bms.co.in/advantagesmerits-of-desk-research/ [Accessed: 14 Mar 2014].
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