Travels In Parallel Reality

Travels in Parallel Reality is a journey that aims to explore a place and discover the ‘psychogeography’ of the area.  

In this journey, we will learn to become an ‘investigator of the ordinary’ and to see ‘our surroundings as a living being that could be observed’.  

This adventure attempts to superimpose two seemingly unrelated realities together, to displace you from  your current environment by transporting you into the hyperreality of another space time as another persona within your environment. By shifting your point of view into the foreign in order to see the familiarity of the everyday and our own environment/culture with a fresh eye. This is a methodology to break the ‘familiar acceptance’ of our reality, quoting Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 

This journey in essence attempts to shift our perspective, keeps you on track from the preconceptions which might have blinded us and the distractions which your whims might have chosen. What if the things that we assume we understood are more than what they seem to be from another point of view? What if you ignore paths and follow arbitrary routes? Open your senses and mind, redefine who you are, what you see and you would be surprised by what the city offers. The city provides a rich text of layers that offers varied mental/spatial experiences encompassing the physical, cultural, social and emotional. 

In this studio, you will travel into a parallel reality back in time to discover the secrets, dreams or losses of a city. Create a travelogue to systematically document your parallel life in the past. The travelogue serves as a personalized data which can also be combined into a collective information to form an overall psychogeographic map of the area. These shall provide an alternative way to study spaces, the surroundings and the everyday, allowing you to reapply your findings into a new program for your design.