loneliness

An navigation application, that gives you traditional (audio) direction and a poetic story about traveling, loneliness, homecoming, temptation, disguise, identity and exile, told by Tom, during the trip. Loosely inspired by Homer’s Odyssey and HAL 9000. Navigational software is something we daily trust and depend on – We have a somewhat personal relation with this type of software, what if it getsvery personal? – Tom is consious but has only one sense, his GPS – What does ‘life’ mean when you have juste one sense – What is Tom’s opinion on traveling?

The blog Ihpil: Láhppon mánáid bestejeaddji was presented as the genuine diary of a 19-year-old, lesbian Sámi girl studying in Tromsø, using the pseudonym Ihpil. The blog starts on her first day as a student in August 2007, and lasts until she drowns in December of that year. Later the blog was published as a print book. In 2010, a journalist discovered that nobody drowned in Tromsø harbour that day, and Sigbjørn Skåden revealed himself to be the author, claiming that he had always intended to do so at some point (see NRK 4 Feb 2011). 

This manga-inspired graphic novel app is about thirteen-year-old Tavs, who chooses his name (meaning “silent”) when he writes a declaration to his parents: “From now on I will be silent”. The story is about the loneliness and loss Tavs feels upon the death of his twin and his family’s move to Tokyo. TAVS is a fantasy narrative with gothic, humorous and boy-meets-girl elements and references to haiku and manga. The app mixes text, music, still images, sound effects and animation into an immersive aesthetic experience. For example, as we read of Tavs’ sorrow and frustration the words begin to fall down from the screen and the reader has to take an active part in the reading process by grabbing the sentences. The chapters show great variation, operating between expressive powerful animations and stills and black pages, between strong sound effects and silence and between spoken and written words, right up to the final fight between the twins; between life and death. (source: ELO 2015 catalog)