Augmented Reality (AR) has become a buzzword in recent years, offering immersive and interactive experiences in various domains.  Tusitala has also been exploring augmented reality and other extended reality (XR) technologies in our projects, so we thought it would be interesting to produce our unique AR-based souvenir that could introduce people to our work. We decided to develop a 3D AR bookmark that links to a selection of our favourite past projects and social media accounts, rather than just redirecting the users to a single website. We created the bookmark using the open-source web ..read more

I was at the 75th Frankfurt Book Fair (18 – 22 October 2023) recently, in the capacity of an exco-member of the Singapore Book Publishers Association. The Frankfurt Book Fair is the largest international trade fair for books, with more than 4,000 exhibitors from 95 countries and a packed calendar of events over the five-day annual event. Luckily, I managed to get some time to explore the fair, including the five art and technology projects below: 1. FANGØ a Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google Obfuscator:  “a defensive weapon against surveillance capitalism”, created by artist Martin N ..read more

Aiming to start a community within the Creative Technology scene in Singapore, an inaugural “Creative Technology: Pre-Alpha” meetup was held on 4 October 2023 at the AI Playground at PlayPan, Peace Centre. This inaugural meetup was organised by Christine Chong from Tusitala, Jake Tan from SERIAL CO_ and Akbar Yunus from Yunora, with the venue space sponsored by Gary Hong, the founder of TENSQUARE. It was a casual meet-up to help people make new friends, connect with old ones, and build a sense of community.  “One of the things we want to do is to bring everyone together and to discuss h ..read more

When I introduce Tusitala, I often use the word “digital storytelling” as shorthand for the kinda weird stuff that we do. I felt a strange comfort in knowing that this is a common problem with my international colleagues in the field, which is also known as “digital publishing”, “amplified publishing”, “new media”, and “electronic literature”. In July, I attended an industry + academic conference MIX Amplified Publishing: Storytelling in Immersive Media in London, and an academic + practitioner conference organised by the Electronic Literature Organisation in Coimbra, Portugal. For the former ..read more

To explore AI and keep current on its various possibilities, Tusitala sets aside time every month for learning sessions led by a team member. The first session, run by Christine, was based on TextFX, an AI experiment designed to help rappers, writers, and wordsmiths expand their creative writing process. Powered by Google’s PaLM 2 large language model, via the PaLM API, TextFX consists of 10 tools, each designed to explore creative possibilities with text and language. It was created in collaboration with the American rapper, Lupe Fiasco, drawing inspiration from the lyrical and linguistic tec ..read more

  In part one, we discussed some of the different concepts and formats used in our digital adaptations of literary works for the second edition of little red comma over August 2022 – February 2023. This part looks at three mother tongue poems: “Chinatown I” by Tan Chee Lay, “A Story, or History, Perhaps?” by Abdul Ghani Hamid, and “The Sunbird I Lost” by Krishnamurthy Mathangi. To foreground the aural qualities of the languages, we went with an audio-led concept that allowed users to “create your own spoken word track”, in collaboration with Artwave Studio. This was a highly interactive ..read more

Tusitala first worked on little red comma for Esplanade Offstage back in 2020, when we created six digital adaptations of local poets and authors’ works. Much to the team’s delight, we were commissioned again for the second edition of little red comma, which saw seven literary adaptations published monthly from August 2022 – February 2023.  Here, we look back at some of the different approaches we took to highlight interesting themes in the various works. “Mustafa Centre. A Fact Sheet” by Pooja Nansi In this poem, we get a glimpse of the brief history of the iconic Mustafa Ce ..read more

Tusitala first worked on little red comma for Esplanade Offstage back in 2020, when we created six digital adaptations of local poets and authors’ works. Much to the team’s delight, we were commissioned again for the second edition of little red comma, which saw seven literary adaptations published monthly from August 2022 – February 2023.  Here, we look back at some of the different approaches we took to highlight interesting themes in the various works. “Mustafa Centre. A Fact Sheet” by Pooja Nansi In this poem, we get a glimpse of the brief history of the iconic Mustafa Ce ..read more

In Tusitala’s latest project, BOOK TRIPS, go on a wild book trip around Singapore with a literary map to discover what our local authors have written, in short stories, essays and poetry! For Book Trips, we chose 15 attractions in Singapore that we love. Every place has its own history, and people are often more familiar with the socioeconomic or political sides of our country’s past – but did you know that there is also a book trail to be discovered?  Many people have written about Singapore’s attractions over the years – not only contemporary local authors, but also early residents dur ..read more

In our XR exploration we’ve featured Tusitala’s past AR and VR projects (Part 1: “Getting into the Mix of A/V/MR!”) and taken a quick look at some XR projects in Singapore last year (Part 2: “A quick review of local XR projects). With the growing interest in such technologies, what’s next for Tusitala? We’re looking forward to launching our Mixed Reality (MR) project, which was conceptualised as part of the National Arts Council’s Arts x Tech Lab 2021.  The Arts x Tech Lab 2021 is the National Arts Council (NAC)’s inaugural innovation lab that fosters collaboration between the arts and te ..read more