Tracer is an interdisciplinary research, design and consultancy practice that engages creatively with the cultural politics of how spaces, places, people and things are linked in everyday life. The name “Tracer” can mean several things:
one who follows lines created by other forces;
a liquid dye (sometimes radioactive) introduced into a body to mark the blockages and flows of its functioning;
a kind of ammunition that burns brightly as it speeds towards it target, defining the line of fire.
We claim all of these meanings, even the scary ones. Tracer works on cultural research, new media art and community cultural development projects, involving urban space, new cartographies, grass-roots communities, storytelling methodologies and games.
Storyscape: Kowloon
Our current project is Storyscape: Kowloon, an interactive work that will explore people’s different experiences of space and place in Kowloon, Hong Kong. Applying Situationist methods to oral history and geographical information systems, and using the frictions between physical and mental space, the project seeks to record and remix the memories and feelings of people with a connection to Kowloon. In spoken, photographic and and textual form, these everyday stories will recombine in different layers of an interactive map.