Inspired by the tin can telephones of our childhood, the Whispering Wall was an intimate audio-visual storytelling experience featuring local picture books and comics. People came and listened to beautifully illustrated characters come to life as their stories are read aloud by the authors.

Behind-the-Scenes: The Making of The Whispering Wall

“It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”

—Jean-Luc Godard

 

As artists, we’re continually building on the work of others, inspired and shaped by influences both intentional and not. How then do you create artwork that’s fresh and innovative, capturing the audience’s hearts and minds?

At PaperplaneCo, we’ve always believed in the transformative power of technology – its invisible strings that make possible the reinvention and reimagination of art in a million ways. It was this fascination that led us to create our first product – a storybook app inspired by the iPad. It was also why when an email from Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR) arrived – inviting us to participate in their first-ever One-North Festival – we jumped in with both feet. 

Named after the One-North area, Singapore’s equivalent of the Silicon Valley, the organizers designed the festival to showcase to the public exciting innovations and ideas originating in One-North and the possibilities they held for the future. Every installation was to embody the spirits of Research, Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise – a challenge that we found both thrilling and formidable. 

We wanted to go beyond an installation that people would just stand around and watch. How could we create a storytelling experience that was immersive, one that connected people, creating a shared encounter?

Creativity vs Constraints

Led by Dara Toe, a visual design expert, and Paul Seekings, tech whiz and artist, our crew came up with several great ideas. These ideas were centered around the locations we were interested in, but as it turned out, building regulations and restrictions meant that we repeatedly had to give up our location of choice. 

After a few failed attempts, we came across an interesting location opposite an escalator – and began to think about this overlooked part of our daily commute. It proved to be the catalyst for our ideas – the natural movement of people riding it becoming the interactive element that would bring the installation to life.

Titled Ebb & Flow, the installation would reflect on this movement as a barometer of our individual circumstances.  Were we rushing to work?  Relaxed and meandering?  Taking three steps at a time or standing still?  It would deliver an immersive, interactive experience that reflected the flow and ebb of movement in real-time with a unique meld of poetry, music and projection mapping.

While we worked with Dara to design the visual effects, Paul was busy setting up the tech behind Ebb & Flow. First came the crowd-sensitive motion sensors and cameras that detected faces and bodies in motion. Then this data would feed into algorithms, which would use that context to shape the audience’s visual and auditory experience in real-time. 

The visual effects, soundtrack, and even the stanzas of a poem displayed on the installation would automatically change depending on whether the camera and sensors detected a couple, a throng of people, or solitary commuters on the escalator. And if someone stopped to read the displayed poem, the soundtrack would adjust to match the breathing rhythm of the reader. 

The installation would tell a story through different mediums, but crucially, with the audience becoming part of the tale, changing it with their presence.

A Story Like No Other

More than 6,000 people, young and old, visited the One-North Festival that weekend. The look of wonder on their faces was testimony to the fact that our fusion of art, words, and technology had transformed the humdrum into the magical. 

Ebb & Flow resonated with people because in the moments they were there, the poem was about them.   They became part of the telling of a powerful story that continually unfolded afresh.  

We can’t help but be excited by the possibilities of telling stories in this way. The role of the storyteller will continue to be redefined as we experiment, innovate, and discover new ways to share our stories.

ANAMORPHOSIS

noun, plural anamorphoses A distorted projection or drawing which appears normal when viewed from a particular point or with a suitable mirror or lens.

This anamorphic installation of objects may seem random at first sight, allowing the viewer to appreciate the pure aesthetic value of the piece, but finding the perfect viewing angle transforms the installation and reveals a hidden message. The key is perspective. We live in a world where where data, information, and ideas evolve at such a rapid pace that it can be overwhelming. Without the right lens, data is random and meaningless. Analytics offers the perspective we need to draw relevant insights, but meaning is only derived through interpretation, intelligence and analysis. Meaning connects all the different parts of your customer’s lives together, enabling you to apply those insights to make better decisions, in real-time, than ever before. Discover the hidden message by moving around the installation to discover the right angle or viewing the piece through the lens of your phone’s camera.

A grand finale capped the celebrations to round off a year of celebration – The Future of Us, an immersive and multi-sensory experience that offered Singaporeans a glimpse into the possibilities of how Singaporeans can live, work, play, care and learn in the future.

We were delighted to work with Pico Art and the momentum in Home Tomorrow. Floating apartment buildings? Solar power energy sources? Rooftop gardening? Our design, illustration and animation offered a glimpse into the lifestyle innovations, concepts and technology that will create closer-knit communities of the future. The Future of Us was a huge success, attracting 200,000 visitors in the first month of opening. Happy 50th birthday, Singapore!

A PLEASANT SURPRISE

“It came out of the blue.” Chrissy, PaperplaneCo founder, says recalling how she learned that PM Lee was going to visit the PaperplaneCo office.

“Someone from JTC just popped by, and said, ‘Do you mind if we invite the PM to visit your office?’ I jumped in with my usual enthusiasm. It only struck me later what a tremendous opportunity this was.”

In January 2015, Block 71, Singapore’s equivalent of the early Silicon Valley was expanding into LaunchPad, a startup ecosystem developed by JTC, the state-owned industrial property developer. An official opening ceremony had been planned, and JTC had chosen PaperplaneCo as one of three start-ups to host the guest of honour, PM Lee.

It wasn’t difficult to guess why we’d been chosen. In a block full of traditional tech and R&D startups, we stood out as a creative studio with our bootstrapped, arty interiors. We’d been relatively successful too.

As the magnitude of the upcoming visit began to sink in, we wondered – how could we delight a Prime Minister, someone who was used to being presented to everyday?

DESIGNING A UNIQUE AND MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE

We were a young startup then, just three years old, with a staff of five indie artists. Our products were a mix of interactive learning solutions for children and corporate storytelling. Our children’s iPad app, The Extraordinary Jenny Jones, had made it to the Top Ten in the iTunes charts,  and our stories had received positive reviews from Kirkus. We’d built a strong relationship with SAP.

As a creative studio, we wanted our presentation to stand out and represent who we were as a collective. We decided to create a 3D, immersive, sensory experience that would evoke the emotions our brand stood for – playfulness, fun, and a passion for creativity. And as a company that highly values its relationships, we wanted our most supportive partners and clients to share the limelight too.

Battling a threadbare budget, we worked long hours, creating everything by hand. We turned our office into a giant pop-up storyboard so PM Lee could see, touch, feel, and play. Every product featured as a stop in the walkthrough. We had apps to play with, hanging mobile poems to read, wall origami and even giant primary school storybooks to flip through. We wanted the walkthrough to impress upon our audience the power that stories hold and how that very power had driven our journey as a startup.

PaperplaneCo was covered in the local print media and Chrissy was interviewed by CNA (then Channel News Asia), one of Asia’s most popular news channels. It was heartening to hear PM Lee mention us in his opening ceremony speech — how a small, locally born and bred agency like ours was taking on big global agencies.

It was a testament to the values that we hold dear. Passion with purpose, coming together to create art we believed in.