The Sisyphean Magazine

Created by Sevgi Tan, Kris Vabalas, Robin de Haan, Yujin Choi and Tijmen Buskermolen.

Just as on The Sisyphean website, the magazine exists in a realm where it’s not entirely clear what the actual narrative is. Very few visual cues are given through the design and nearly none are given in the content. The only way to completely know what the actual story behind the magazine is is to have actually having experienced the making of it. Without the proper context the magazine is just either non-sense or an actual believable magazine.

Vulnerable View

Created by Gido Bloem, Julie Melis, Kamilla Barski and Anneloes Wagner.

Sitting inside the cinema you are truly unaware about will be presented, by walking inside there aren’t really any visual cues of what is about to happen. The movie you are presented with starts completely abstract in image and meaning. It’s a perfect example of how the spectator is being played with while they are unaware of it. They are simply just enjoying these abstract images and wondering what it is about, while the tension in the movie through the sound and image slowly builds. The spectator is unaware that it’s all building up to a single cliffhanger that will make the narrative clear through just one sentence.

Unknowing

The audience is unknowing in the sense that they are not aware of context, content and interaction. This can differ in their general (intrinsic, explicit & tacit) knowledge and interests; how much they are aware of certain spectacles. As a designer you can still design things in a way that won’t connect to the audiences general knowledge at first sight. By not giving away a lot of information beforehand through content, visual design and interaction you can delay the audiences realization of what your narrative is about. This can be used to create elements of surprise, which can provide more engagement and stronger reactions.

Spectator

A spectator is someone who is presented with information in a linear path, as the designer intended. The content doesn’t necessarily have a linear narrative, but the way in which it’s presented in does. The spectator doesn’t interact with what’s presented in front of them, what is presented is exactly the same for every spectator. The difference in how it’s perceived by the spectator relies solely on their general (intrinsic, explicit & tacit) knowledge, interests and their choice of how they spectate (duration, position, attention, etc.).