Narration

The invisible Taiwan – Discovering “Discovering the Particular Taiwanese Species”

Edward Shen, MIT Media Laboratory
Francis Lam, MIT Media Laboratory
Connor Dickie, MIT Media Laboratory

Bubble tea, nightmarket, minced pork on rice, beetle nut ladies, the motorcycles parked alone the streets. Stereotypes of Taiwan abound, but is it perhaps those details that seamlessly dissolve into the patterns of everyday experience -- illegal additions on roof, blinders’ massage service, Taiwanese-speaking foreigners around the Shr-Da area, stickers of porn phone numbers on car windows, long lines in front of Mr. Donuts, etc -- that might in fact reveal more about a culture?  Could it be that those “invisible” cultural phenomena that get normalized in fact reveal the most about a culture's values, contradictions.  Can narration place these phenomena into historical context and afford insight into their genesis?

Taking this hypothesis as a conceptual starting point, “Invisible Taiwan – Discovering the Particular Taiwanese Species” asks its participants to narrate the city. This process involves 1) observation and discovery, 2) data collection, 3) concept construction, reformation and reinterpretation, and finally, 4) appreciation. In groups of 2 to 3, the activity will comprise of 2 stages: a) discovering the invisible b) narrating through this particular discovery.  Projects may vary in form from linear (e.g. films) to multi-linear (e.g. interactive cinema or web pages); materials may vary from text, images, photographs, film, animation, etc.