During the first month of lockdown in New York City, when information was sparse and anxiety high, many turned to comfort through screens. The escapism that narrative entertainment provides through melodrama, surrealism and absurdity is an important part of people’s lives. This love led to the beginning of the project, an examination of the narrative system in general, and the various designs that comprise it. Language is a centerpiece of the project, and often can accomplish the medium of a narrative alone. By creating mashups of situational and trope-based language, the result is abstract gestures of a scene or action. Each “gesture” is then written on posters with simple type and colorful backgrounds, called “The Commandments.” This also began the digital transition of the project due to quarantine circumstances. The web offered an opportunity to reinforce how limited tropes are through randomization and an ever-evolving level of absurd language.
The final catalog of the project directly parodies these limitations by riffing on the trends of cinematic universes. Using Georges Polti’s “36 Dramatic Situations” as a base, the website personifies the disillusioned state of the narrative system, and ultimately takes on a cyclical (and cynical) role. Integrating web interactions, animation and CG, the “36 Situation Universe” also emphasizes graphic design’s role in perpetuating narrative tropes. While it will always be a reliable method of escapism, the narratives we love seem to return again and again, but with increasingly delicate standing. We already expect the unexpected.