Design Study #2 : Locative Narrative

Map

I chose Haddonfield, NJ, nearby my hometown of Cherry Hill as the location for this project. Haddonfield has always sort of prided itself as being a historical town. I focused mainly on Kings Highway, which is a main street running through Haddonfield. It is adorned with shops and restaurants on either side, lending itself to a high volume of people at any given point in the day. The colonial feel of the area, as well as the sheer amount of people coming and going, suggest that the place is brimming with stories, and that is why I chose it for the location of the project.

Communication Tools:
The use of a cell phone equipped with a camera will be the main tool in this project.

Instructions:
The premise of the project is to learn about past experiences in Haddonfield, and perhaps to learn about the town itself. This can be accomplished by exploring the main road, keeping an eye out for trigger points. These trigger points are simply posters or images set up in a random location in the area. Somewhere on the poster would be a number for people to call or text. Participants are to look for these posters. In the area immediately surrounding the trigger point (perhaps a 10 foot radius), participants are welcomed to find any object or building that looks like it has historical significance, or even just an ordinary object whose backstory they may be interested in.
They should then take a picture of said object, and send the picture mail to the phone number provided. the response they get in return will share the history of the object photographed, or a personal narrative somehow related to the subject.
Participants are then encouraged to submit their own personal narrative about their chosen subject to add to the database.
Every hour or so, the trigger points will be moved to a new random location and the process repeats. This adds a sort of wandering or drifting effect as discussed in readings about Algorithmic Psychogeography, as participants never actually know where trigger points will be located next. This causes them to pay careful attention to surroundings.

Narratives:
Since Haddonfield is a historical town, there is a feeling of stepping back in time; a sort of coloial air about the place. As such the town lends itself to various narratives and historical stories. For example, in one of my visits to the place, I recall someone telling me of a story involving a dinosaur sculpture located on the side of the street. Essentially, the sculpture had caught the person's eye, and she was not paying attention to where she was walking. As a result, she walked straight into another pedestrian, who happened to be carrying a cup of coffee, which ended up all over the place.
Simple narratives such as these, related to various trigger points strewn about the town, are infinitely numerous. In other words, several stories may arise when considering any one trigger point.

Assessment:
This project enables participants to delve into the history and learn about various landmarks, buildings, etc, strewn about the main shopping area, or learn about various personal narratives that they may not have otherwise experienced. The project also lets participants appreciate their surroundings more, as careful attention to detail and the surrouding architecture will lead him or her to the next trigger point. Due to the sort of random nature of exploration intrinsic to the project, each experience will be unique. What one person sees during their excursion will not neccesarily be seen by another. The project itself also depends on the subjective eye of the participant. They are the ones choosing what to take a picture of, and thereby choosing what narratives are heard and collected. The degree of arbitrary randomness is characteristic of wayfinding or drifting discussed in Algorithmic Psychogeography.