Practice Storyworld – Charmaine Goh
Share Your World – Joey Ng & Wendy Neo
Wendy & I are in the group called: Developers.
We have changed and improved our Storyworld from Week 8 when we received feedback and suggestions from the class and Prof Andy.
We now present to you our new Storyworld!
(New) Storyworld:
In the distant future 2984, cameras are banned for everyone except the government and the elites. The government has super high security surveillance everywhere, on everything, on everyone.
Art, creativity and freedom of expression is banned and deemed illegal. The government and the elites determine what is art and what can be learnt. They force what they think is art down on the public and persecute all artists. Fine arts are now fined arts.
A black market exists for works of art such as photographs. They are rare illegal goods that can fetch a high price.
Jody secretly loves photography and she makes her own camera and darkroom to take and develop photos. Her camera is made from a beer can and a pencil. Her darkroom is portable. She sells these photos in the black market to earn money for her family. Because photographs are illegal, she tries not to have too many on her in case she gets caught, that’s why she needs to develop them right before she sells them with the portable darkroom. After she has the prints, she would rush to meet her dealer to get the prints off her, exchanging them for money she needs for her family.
Characters:
Jody’s family
Came from a family of artists, painters, photographers, directors. They were all persecuted in the Art Cultural Revolution of 2108. They now work in the art factories of the government, doing menial labour, producing art materials for the elites and their possé.
Mom: Was a post-impressionist painter, now working in a factory producing paintbrushes
Dad: Was a renaissance painter & photographer, now a runner in the admin of art office
Brother: Wanted to be a cinematographer until the Art Revolution of ’64 happened, now working in a factory producing photo paper
Tools & Technology:
Portable Darkroom – disguisable
Developing Kit disguised as a backpack
Photo paper
Film Camera disguised as a beer can
Microstories:
- Backstory on art cultural revolution & government: The StART
- Almost caught at deal: Found Art
- Background on her family: A family that art together stays together
- Special client/project: Developing Feelings
- Difficult project – brother can’t smuggle photo paper out: Out of Print
- Meets fellow developer: Developing Feelings Too
The Story
Jody looks up at the wall along the staircase, staring at empty frames that used to hold photographs of happy memories. A picture of mom and dad at the beach on a sunny day when they were younger, Grandma on her favourite chair in the living room, and Jody grinning with a chocolate layer cake on her 4th birthday. Jody knew which specific frames housed these photographs, but as the years went by, these images were slowly fading from her memory. It had been 15 years ago after all, since the The People banned photography for the masses.
Banning photography was just one part of the Arts Cultural Revolution in 2108. Drawing, painting, sculpting too, to name some from the list. Jody didn’t even know who The People were. She only knew that The People regulated the art all around the city, stamping a black shimmering emblem in the corner of every art piece to show that it was approved to be put up.
Jody’s mom and dad used to be printmakers. But 15 years ago The People in white suits barged into their home, taking away all their craft equipment and prints. The People then fined Jody’s mom and dad for making art. The only way they could pay off the fine was to work in a factory that manufactured photography equipment, something that wasn’t in their field of expertise so that they could not practice their art anymore.
When Jody’s older brother Jared turned 21, he too was sent of to the factory to work. Jody was about to turn 21 in a year, and she wasn’t letting her precious freedom go to waste. She was going to take photographs. A lot of them. And sell them on the black market for extra income for her family. It didn’t help that her mother was getting sick from breathing in toxic fumes at the factory everyday
Earning money wasn’t the only reason why Jody gravitated towards photography. She loved how she could capture beauty in a frame, how a moment in time could be immortalised forever in a photograph. As photography was illegal, there was no way Jody could purchase a proper camera, so she made one by herself. It was fashioned out of a aluminium can covered with black duct tape all over the exterior. A pencil was taped along the length of the can so that it wouldn’t roll about if placed sideways on a flat surface. There was a small hole in the middle, a few centimeters above the pencil which acted as the “lens”, and a slit where photo paper could be inserted into the can. Jared was able to help her smuggle photo paper out of the factory so she could carry on with this project.
Practice Storyworld – Wendy Neo
This story is set in the future in 2099. Humans have managed to create the highest level of AI, Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI). ASI outperforms the human mind by way of superior speed of thought, enhanced memory, untiring performance, and instant upgradability. Somehow, humans have found out a way to programme ASI such that it is extremely intelligent yet does not want to overpower humans and instead wants to help humans.
Thus humans live in a utopia where robots and machines do all the work and humans no longer have to go out and earn money and fuel the economy because all the robots are doing it.
However, it is not really a utopia, not every thing is perfect. This is because since humans don’t actually have to do much work, the obesity rate is increasing in the city. There are still people that are fit because they take care of their health, but the proportion of obese people to healthy people is growing alarmingly.
The main character is a 27 year old man called Bill who lives by himself in a small apartment. ASI was just implemented in the workforce 5 years before, thus he never really had to enter the workforce and earn money to support himself. Bill was never into sports, moreover he had a bad back, as a result he grows very obese.
Even though there are devices that help transport obese people, Bill does not want to draw that kind of attention to himself and feels insecure when travelling out in the city because of his weight. He is also tired of being alone, he wants to lose weight and turn his life around. No machine or robot can loose the weight for him, so he is determined to exercise and get fit.
Technology:
1. Back and leg support to help ease the load when he is exercising
2. Fitness trainer ASI (like a J.A.R.V.I.S that helps you improve your fitness)
3. Exercise clothes — has a special thread that helps monitor heart beat and important information (i.e. like a fit bit but you just wear it as clothes)
– The sports gear works with the ASI to help create the best workout plan for the person wearing it
– The thread also send electric signals to heart and muscles to make it work harder (to loose weight faster) (non-invasive unlike pills, no side effects)
Genre:
Comedy and coming of age story
How the story will be told:
Through prose with illustrations
Antecedent technology:
Machines, robots and AI
Practice Storyworld – Rachel Teo
Share your world—Shelton Chang
Storyworld
Linda is a makeup artist is facing a huge crisis.
It’s 2025 and the threat of global warming is more real than ever. Singapore has recently passed a law that requires all materials to be recycled and reused. No one is allowed to produce more than a kg of trash.
Revised Storyworld
It’s 1 August 2025, five years after EOD, or Earth Overshoot Day. The scientists had warned us in 2018 that Earth close to reaching an ecological debt, whereby there’s a deficit in natural resources caused by the
population’s overconsumption. And of course, nobody believed it. Even Trump himself said that global warming is a “bogus”, a ruse conjured by scientists to request for more funds for their research. Well, little did he know that all the findings reported were true: we were indeed living on the last few dregs of resources. Words says that as soon as the electricity at the White House went down, the president immediately came to an absurd decision that it’s time to go green albeit too late.
In Singapore, we are glad to have been consistently managing our resources so our EOD has been extended, with a price of course. A law that restricts our waste production to a single kilogram a year, to allow our landfills to have time to decompose into the land. We’ve switched over to electric powered-everything. How do we manage to do so you may ask. Spin classes. Those bike that people pay horrendous amounts for? They generate enough to power the entire nation.
Me? I’m Linda. Just an average makeup artist trying to make a living, while trying to not flout the rules. Law by law as the ‘Poreans calls it. NEA deemed my MAC cosmetic caboodle “too environmentally unfriendly”, reasons unknown. And now I have to make something out of thin air to carry all my equipment around. Maybe YouTube might have some DIY videos back in the days. Before EOD.
(Sigh)
Welcome to 2025.
Poster design
Share Your World – Yukie, Johan, Hazzry
Storyworld
There is extreme economic inequality in the nation, small industries are dying out at an extremely fast pace due to the nation’s push for the technology, machine learning, artificial intelligence, etc. Art is increasingly being overlooked and shunned, and practitioners such as clay jewellers are doing their best to survive such that they have to work 24/7, even when they are on-the-go.
Chilli has also become a staple in modern day Singapore and is found in every food item in Singapore. Being fully aware of this fact and the potential that it can bring, clay jewellers has decided harness the power of chilli even after its consumption – to use it as an indirect heat source.
What they did was to create a workstation that they could carry on their backs, deployable when they carry it on their front, allowing them to work on-the-go and even baking their clay jewellery through harnessing the heat source coming from their tummies – a result of their chilli-centric diet.
Cover art
Microfiction #1 – Yukie Miyazaki
Staring intently at the piece of clay in my hands, I feel contentment rise up within me.
The coloured specks sit on the clay perfectly and look amazing.
I blink a few times, trying to ease my eyes from the strain of being too focused. I look up and the bright lights hit me a bit too suddenly. My eyes begin to water as they tried to adjust, and slowly, I’m aware of the chatter and the life of the environment around me.
Ah, life. Something I haven’t had the chance to enjoy in such a long time.
Opposite me stands an older lady, busy knitting away. The yarn is dangling off her arm and almost touches the floor. She sighs, her eyes fixated still.
*Ding dong* “Next stop, One North.”
One more stop to go. My tummy begins to grumble. It took me awhile to get used to all that spicy food, but it’s worth it. I’m finally adjusting, and I quite enjoy it actually. The tummy aches occur less frequently now. I may even be able to try outdoing myself this time.
I start packing up to get ready to alight. I look around once more and catch a glimpse of the lucky few, those that can afford to simply do nothing. They don’t realise how good they have it. But who do I have to blame? No one but myself. I should count my blessings while I still can.
Microfiction #2 – Johan Ng
“Hey mom, can we please have something else for dinner?”
“Honey, you know that this is all we have, now be a good boy and eat your dinner.”
“But it is too spicy and my stomach hurts….”
“That’s the point, you will have to get used to it eventually. Now, come over here, ill get that fixed up for you.”
Mom places a thin patch onto Thomas’s stomach. The colour of the patch turns rapidly from brown to bright red. Thomas heave a sigh of relief and mom gave a huge smile.
“Seems like today the output is good as usual.” Mom removes the patch and attaches it to the worn-out television.
Bzzt* Bzzt* ….. Bzzt* Bzzt* …. Static noises comes out from the television and colour slowly returns to the screen. The broadcast seems to be the ever so famous cooking show called C Padi’s kitchen, featuring all sorts of cuisine that could be made with the wonder spice of chili.
Microfiction #3 – Muhammad Hazzry
Life is good. Business is booming, money is flowing, food is always on the table, family is healthy and living without any stress. In fact, life is grea- *BAM*, someone walks into me at full speed. DARN IT, just when I was about to feel good about life in general, something had to dampen my spirits.
“Oh? Jewellery made of clay? Wow I can’t remember the last time I saw these, or any form of art, for that matter”, I thought to myself as I observed the lady hastily picking up her work; some of which did not survive the fall. I decided to set my anger aside and help her instead.
“Thank you, you’re very kind.”
“Hey don’t mention it, just watch where you’re going next time yeah? It’s a good thing neither of us got hurt.”.
“O-oh… okay, sorry. I should go. Thanks again.”, as she rushes off, continuing on her craft, or at least what’s left of it. After what just happened, you would think she would just focus on the commute no? No, she STILL decides to work on-the-go, as she fades into the distant crowd. Unbelievable.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, life. Life is great. I continue to stroll towards my workplace, just a two minutes’ walk away from the MRT station. Thank god for the fully air-conditioned pathway as well; I don’t know how I could survive in the modern heat, especially after that hotter-than-usual pancakes this morning. But it’s fine, that is how life is now, and it’s great.
Share your world – Charmaine Goh & Stephanie
Cover Art
Storyworld
Fast forward to
With so little time and so much wealth, humans started being obsessed with elevating their standard of living as much as they can during the precious 4 hours that they have each day. With less time being allocated to
Just like robots, humans need some maintenance too.
Microfiction #1 – Stephanie
The skyscrapers were stacked one after another, and the roads that we know today has ceased to exist. Humans zipped around in glass elevators from one place to another in a fraction of a second – there was no moment to lose.
With such little time left in a day each day, humans gradually stopped spending time on ‘frivolous’ and unimportant things like maintaining social relationships. Rather, they sought after more superficial things that they deemed would elevate their status in the eyes of society and those around them.
They had beauty and health appointments scheduled everyday. Visits to the clinics, spas and beauty treatments as we knew it have ceased to exist. With the rapid increase in demand for skyscrapers for work and housing, these spaces were gradually phased out. Instead, they had daily visits from the various beauticians so as to ensure that they are constantly in the best form possible.
As Sasha opened her front door, a ‘ding’ went off from the elevator. “Mmm.. right on time” she murmured under her breath.
The TCM practitioner, Stacy, was decked out in white and her look was complete with a lab coat.
“Hi Miss Sasha, please place your thumb here so that we can scan your heart rate, blood pressure and stress levels.”
“Have you had any discomforts since the last I saw you 48 hours ago,” Stacy continued.
Sasha sighed and lamented: “Well.. Yes. My lower back has been hurting, can you do something about that please?”
“Yes, of course! We’ll look to that right away!”
Stacy’s mobile phone beeped as the health report came back.
The aroma diffuser went off and soft slow music started to play from the speakers. Sasha sighed and lay down on her chest – it was time for rejuvenation and healing.
Microfiction #2 – Charmaine Goh
She could only arrange for a maximum of two clients a day with each appointment lasting an hour long. Catching only 2 hours of sleep on days when her appointments were fully booked. Any delay in the first appointment or mistakes made would cost Stacy her customer in this highly competitive part-time service industry.
She can’t risk that. Not with all the debts her father left her.
In the day, Stacy works as a app developer in the information and technology industry but the pay is insufficient to sustain her living so she had little choice but to work as a part-time Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner from the 20th to the 22nd hour of the day. As a result, on days without clients, Stacy spent her time developing the most efficient medical tool box that is capable of providing her customer with an unique, quality, and therapeutic TCM experience to secure them.
Time was ticking.
“BP – 110, HR – 80, Estimated Stress Level – High, Recommended Aromatherapy – No.032”
The screen on her mobile lighted up, reflecting the patients’ details as the patient placed her finger on a small black box with red light emitting out of it. Background music started playing on auto and the aroma diffuser went off.
Stacy then detached a inflatable mattress from the bag and threw it into the air lightly. The mattress unfolded into a fully pumped cushion for the patient to lie on.
“We will be proceeding with our second electrolysis acupuncture session for your backache. Please feel free to take a rest during the process,” Stacy commented.
After administering the needles, Stacy pulls out the electrolysis machine powered by the portable energy stored in her bag. She then proceeds on to connect the wires to the needles.
Stacy’s eyes gradually became heavier as the aroma of No.032 slowly diffused throughout the house. Developed by Stacy, the diffuser scent is customised to each and every patient’s’ condition, which can help patients to de-stress while regulating their heart rate to the most optimal level for treatment.
Right when the alarm signifying the end of treatment rings off, Stacy’s eyes sprung open. Relieved that her patient did not find out that she dozed off, Stacy quickly started packing up whilst letting her patient know, “The prescription will be delivered to you as per usual, do follow the same instructions and within two weeks and your backache should fully recover fully!”
“Thanks Dr. Stacy. It was the best and most efficient TCM experience I’ve ever had! Will definitely refer you to my friends and family members,” replied the patient.
Stacy smiled and walks off with a heavy feet to her next appointment…
Share Your World – Allison & Vashon
Practitioner: Food Rescuers
Current Trends:
By 2050 humanity’s ranks will likely have grown to nearly 10 billion people. In a scenario with moderate economic growth, this population increase will push up global demand for agricultural products by 50 percent over present levels projects The Future of Food and Agriculture, intensifying pressures on already-strained natural resources. (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2017).
Key Takeaway
- Scarcity of food may become a reality in an extrapolated timeline towards the future.
Storyworld:
- The world has officially run out of actual Food.
- Former agriculture and food industries have turned towards manufacturing a processed substance called Blobs that have become the staple diet (only for sustenance) for the everyman. This is provided for free, but contains little nutrients and tastes very bad.
- To make these blobs taste good with flavors and to add essential nutrients, people purchase and add Additives (Adds) to the Blobs after which they can be called Food.
- Therefore, these Adds also contain special properties that replicate essential nutrients such as Vitamin C, etc. and due to their compostable nature, they also expire over time if they are unused.
- Adds vary in price, so some poorer members of the population cannot afford them all.
Issues:
- Ecological Problem
- Social Problem
Revised Story
The Rescuers entered the marketplace, and Jaime their leader, started to give her orders.
“All right everyone, thank you for coming today. Before we begin, let’s check our equipment,” said Jaime, as she took out a random Add vial from inside her coat and scanned it with her CON-VIAL device.
Some beeping noises, and then the data appeared on her device’s screen.
[Results]
Edibility – O.K.
Magnesium — 20%
Zinc — 40%
Iron — 40%
Perfect, mine’s working, she thought to herself. She walked around and ensured that everyone else’s machine worked too.
“Alright, everyone has their inventory?” she asked. They nodded and gave a thumbs-up to her, waving their list of necessary nutrients the team was to collect that day.
“Perfect, let’s spread out and cover as much ground as possible!”
And off they went, with each Rescuer going towards a store of their own.
Jaime approached a storekeeper whose signboard read, “MUSHROOMS & OYSTERS”.
“Hi there, do you have any vials that will be expiring soon?” she asked politely.
The Storekeeper looked at her and grunted. “A Rescuer, eh?”
“Yes,” smiled Jaime. “One of the nutrients we need today is Zinc, so your store sign kinda screams that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” grumbled the Storekeeper. He walked around the back and came back a few seconds later with a few Add vials.
“These are the ones I couldn’t sell because mushroom flavours went out of vogue recently with the higher echelons,” he shrugged.
Jaime began to scan the Add vials one by one with the CON-VIAL to ensure they contained the nutrient they needed, and to check if the contents within the vial itself were already rotten.
After proceeding carefully, she concluded that the entire box was safe.
“Thank you sir, we will be putting these to good use,” beamed Jaime.
“Be sure to say hi to them for me,” said the Storekeeper as he sat down and went back to reading his paper.
***
“Jaime!” exclaimed a little boy dressed in ragged clothing.
“Hey Andy!” replied Jaime as the little boy rammed himself into her. Not one to waste time, Jaime began to test the boy with her SKINSENICAL device by tapping it on the boy’s skin.
The device read: ZINC DEFICIENCY.
“What did you bring us today?” asked Andy, excitedly.
“Mushrooms!” Jaime responded, as she prepared the Add vials she collected with her team earlier that day. “Give me your blob, Andy.”
Andy handed Jaime an odorless, grayish matter. She took it gently, then swung her machine bag around and placed the blog into her TRANSMUTATOR. A whirring noise occured and then a resounding ‘ding’.
“It’s ready Andy!” said Jaime as she took out the blob again, this time with a different color; it was a brownish-red. She handed it over to Andy.
Andy immediately chomped down on it and remarked, “MUSHROOMS ARE AMAZING.”
Share Your World – Vashon Tnee
Microfiction 1 (Giving Day)
“It appears your family has a zinc deficiency ma’am,” said the rescuer as he raises his test device from the woman’s skin. He glances over at her child.
“It could mean growth retardation for her as well,” he continued.
“Yes, it has been difficult to purchase that particular Add recently ever since prices for it went up because of the recent demand in the upper echelons for mushroom flavoured items,” said the woman.
The rescuer nodded understandably.
The rich has often, in their own possibly unknowing way, influenced the overall market with their purchasing power to determine the demand and supply of the types of Adds that become available in the market. That is why it is up to him and his crew to take leftovers from stores where older Adds have gone out of vogue and give them to the needy who require Adds more for its nutrients rather than its flavour.
The rescuer smiles at the woman.
“Not to worry ma’am, my friends and I have collected some older versions of Adds, which contain the Zinc you need.”
“What flavour is it?” asked the child. The woman hushes her.
“It’s all right,” waved the Rescuer. “Today, you guys shall have oysters!”
With a press of a button, the machine on his chest starts to whir.
Microfiction 2 (Collection Day)
“Here take these,” said the storekeeper, handing over a couple of Add vials.
“Watch and learn, Rookie,” said the larger one with the Rescuer machine strapped to her.
“First, we test it for any anomalies, this is important. We need to make sure that it is still edible for our recipients.” She pulls out a device which scans the Add for any anomalies. A beeping sound occurs.
“Hey Storekeeper, I am afraid we can’t take this one,” she calls out. “Our machine reads that the compounds in it have begun to rot.”
“But it’s before the expiry date,” said the storekeeper.
“Yes, but unfortunately, we have to be extra careful with the items we give to our recipients.”
The storekeeper grumbles. “Fine, hand it over I’ll see if I have any others out back.”
The Rookie looks up at her senior with admiration. “Do you think that machine will be able to fix spoiled food?” she asked earnestly.
The senior looks at her with a thoughtful look upon her face. “You know what, I think you just gave me an idea.”
Microfiction 3 (Dumpster Day)
“This is gross,” called out one of them.
“But necessary,” chimed in the other.
Two silhouettes are rummaging in the dark through an open dumpster from a small alley.
“You know, as the Dumpster team, we really have it way harder than the Collection team,” said the first.
The second shook her head. “It’s not that difficult. All we have to do is find vials and scan them for edibility.”
The first just shrugs. “Hey I found one!” she calls out, raising a purple vial in her hand.
“Let’s scan it,” said the second.
The machine strapped to their backs comes with a scanner which looks like an artifact from the past where they used it for barcodes. Scanning the vial, the machine crunches itself with some noises.
“Alright, this one has Zinc, Calcium and Magnesium,” said the second proudly. She scratches off the items from their inventory.
“Perfect, now we have collected enough nutrients to start giving!”
NOTES
I came up with these three micro-fictions, but decided to take parts of them to create the revised story together with Allison’s selected pieces as well. We will be posting our revised story that comes with the full research on our storyworld and the accompanying graphic together in the next post.
Exploring Practitioners 3: Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner – Charmaine Goh
Workplace Documentation:
Since our final project revolves around the profession of TCM practitioner, Stephanie and I decided to look for a TCM practitioner to find out more about their practice. For this, we contacted Dr Soh Bing Quan, Derrick, who currently practice at Richlife Chinese Medical Centre. We were given
the opportunity to observe his work and what it entails but am unable to take any images due to organisational and privacy concerns. Dr Soh also works as a house physician previously, where he travels to the homes of patients to provide TCM treatments.
Common Tools Used:
- Medicated Oils and Creams
- Scissors
- Gauze and Cotton Wool
- Lighter
- Glass cups used for cupping
- Electrolysis Machine
- Porcelain spoon for Guasha (traditional Chinese medical treatment in which the skin is scraped to produce light petechiae)
- Metal Dish
- Acupuncture Needles
- Bin to store used needles
Process Documentation:
During the interview, he told us that there are basically 3 key treatments in TCM – accupuncture, cupping, and tuina.
Acupuncture is where thin needles are inserted to patients’ body to regulate or manipulate the Qi. The process takes about 15-20 minutes according to
Dr Soh. Sometimes extra stimulation is added through twisting the needles or attaching it to the electrolysis machine to pass current through it.
It helps to relieve pains and reduce risk of strokes and more.
For cupping, although there’s pressure cupping machine selling in the market, Dr Soh uses the traditional fire cupping where he first dip the cotton wool into alcohol then lighting it up on fire creating the heat and pressure for the cupping process. He commented that fire cupping is more effective than simply using pressure. Medicated oil/paste is also applied to patients’ body beforehand. Cupping actually serve similar purpose with another TCM treatment called Guasha, which I was not aware of before. I thought they were two different treatments. But generally, they both serve to enhance blood flow and disperse congested energy and blood.
Lastly for Tuina, its mostly used for external injuries such as sprains, strains and other joint injuries. It involves brushing, kneading, rolling, pressing and rubbing an injured
person’s body, using their hands to stimulate Qi and blood to promote healing.