DIGITAL MEMORYSCAPE: GEO-SPATIALISING MEMORIES OF WOODLANDS TOWN CENTRE THROUGH INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Abstract

The state’s rapid urbanisation and industrialisation efforts since its independence have led to continuous and drastic transformations to Singapore’s landscape. Under the Selective En-Bloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS), Woodlands Town Centre (WTC) was demolished in 2017, after almost 40 years of operation. Through constructing a digital memoryscape (Butler, 2009) of Woodlands Town Centre (WTC), this Media-based Honours Thesis (MHT) aims to provide the intimate lens of memory to examine place attachment, urban redevelopment, and the effects of its relocation processes on the affect community. Using the Web as a medium, this MHT is an interactive website built with web technologies JavaScript, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Oral histories and pictures are collected from WTC’s shop tenants and residents and mapped onto an interactive geographical map to construct the memoryscape. Utilising web technologies to geo-spatialise memories of the town centre, the MHT seeks to present community and individual spatial narratives in a form that illuminates the intimate ways our biographies intertwine with our localities. In addition, in using the Web as a medium, this MHT aims to explore interactive media in alternative ways of presenting oral history. The accompanying essay serves as a complementary text to the media work by presenting the theoretical frameworks that guide its construction and outlining the process of producing the website. The essay also aims to provide a self-reflexive assessment of the media work and its production process. Link to media work: https://tinyurl.com/woodlandstowncentreMHT