At the first page you can get a brief explanation of how this piece works and how you can go thru it, as they explain it — you can “Click on images to reveal poems, oral histories and short videos…. explore in any order and for any length of time.”
…Sounds interesting, lets begin!
The first thing that is illustrated is a map, but its not just any kind of map.. its looks like a male upper body. We can see some blue dots, some of them have a stronger color than the other ones — and these ones are links to a new page.
So now you just have to choose which one you want to start exploring. What I notice is that on all the pages it is the same kind of drawings — its drawings of trees, people and houses:
The artist has used light colors, which makes the images comfortable to look at. And when you move the mouse around the screen, you can easily see which one of the houses and people that you can click on. You either get to another page, or a poem pops up. It lights a green light around the image.
The poems that we can find throughout the piece, has different ways of unfolding. Some of the text in the poem appears little by little — and stay there. But sometimes when it appears a text, it disappears after a few seconds – but usually you have just enough time to read what it says. This means that you have to keep your eyes on the screen at all times — because, if you look away, some of the poems may have already vanished.
As they explained on the first page you also have the option to listen to oral stories. These you can listen to by clicking on the ear symbol. This symbol pops up on some of the poems – and it is easy to understand that this ear means that sound is going to play. The stories sounds like people getting interviewed. Someone is talking about chinatown and immigration..
The navigation is easy to figure out. It is a arrow in each corner – which means its always easy and possible to get back to where you started. It is also a “map” in the corner of each page – so you can get links to all the main pages in the piece.
I really liked this story!! All the pictures where nice, it was easy to navigate, it was cool to see the text appear — and then sometimes disappear… The whole story had a chinese look to it… the chinese signs in the menu and the colors and some of the buildings.. it was cool and comfortable to read and experience 🙂
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