Tour Guide at the Leprechaun Museum
Storytelling is a concept that we are all familiar with, regardless of our background. As designers, it is often utilized as a tool during the design process. In Ireland it has been part of their culture for centuries. During Interaction12, IxDA organizers did a great job of incorporating Irish culture into the conference through different activities and performances at the venue. In between talks, I found myself attending an interactive storytelling experience called "Storytelling a la carte" with professional bard Coilín "The" Oh-Aissiex and Claire "Ambiencellist" Fitch. The audience was able to choose from a menu of stories, which consisted of options such as Ancient Irish Tales, Contemporary Irish Tales, and International Folktales. Each category had descriptions as if the audience was ordering off a menu at a restaurant. For example, under the category Ancient Irish Tales, one of the "Flavour" descriptions consisted of pity and magic, while another consisted of outrage and triumph. Audience members were asked to choose a category and a corresponding flavour of their choice from the menu for a unique tale accompanied by improvisational music.
I had the opportunity to experience two stories before moving onto the next 45-minute block of talks. The Storytelling a la carte experience was a perfect segue into Tom O'Rahilly's talk titled "Identity and Imagination."
Tom O'Rahilly gave our readership some insight on storytelling from both a cultural and design perspective in our Interaction12 preview. O'Rahilly, Director of the Leprechaun Museum in Dublin, began his talk by sharing his experience as a product designer, realizing that people primarily wanted to experience their products. He then moved into a discussion on identity. People often think of identity as items that identify us in daily life, such as a social security card or driver's license. However, O'Rahilly addressed cultural identity. According to O'Rahilly, components of identity include location, perspective, play and people. In storytelling, key components are making sense of the unknown, engagement and experience. These components were taken into consideration during the design of the Leprechaun Museum.
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