Abstract
This practice-based research utilises design to explore the metaphor, “the smallest book in the world,” a disingenuous colloquial phrase that, when prefaced with the question “what is?” can then be associated with the speaker’s choice of “punchline”, answers, sometimes as a light-hearted look at the world and on other occasions transforming the seemingly benign question into a derisive statement of ridicule with racist connotations. An example of the phrase’s racist connotations has been its association with Italian military performance in World War II. The research uses images, text and sound from an autoethnographic viewpoint. It allows the researcher to reflect on their experiences using multimodal communication forms to understand identity through broader cultural, social and political phenomena. The research contemporises storytelling through design, using found primary elements of images, prisoner-of-war letters, and artifacts as catalysts for new insights. It combines past, present, and future, extending the meaning of these found objects through digital interpretations expressed through image, video, and sound modalities. These modalities are enhanced by AI and augmented reality technologies, making tangible the researcher’s experience of the metaphor “smallest book in the world.” The resulting work intends to contemporise the storytelling of first-generation Italian migrants and to give a presence to those whose very being and contribution were omitted or diminished from post-World War II histories and popular culture.
Presenters
Thomas MarottaLecturer, Creative Industries, University of Technology Sydney (UTS College), New South Wales, Australia
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
2024 Special Focus—Cultures of Transformative Design
KEYWORDS
Multimodal, Storytelling, Autoethnographic, Digital, AI, Augmented Reality
