TCPP00: ISE POSTCARD PROJECT

One of the interesting things that I discovered in my research was the ISE SHRINE of Japan. Built about 1500 years ago, the temple is taken apart and rebuilt every 20 years. The tradition not only embodies Shinto ideals of ephemerality and the death and renewal of all things, it is also a means of engaging the present day generations in an ancient tradition that passes on the building technique from one generation to the next.

The concept of actively engaging the present-day generation in a past-time ritual seemed pretty radical to me amidst the time capsule projects I had studied which undergo strict dormancy periods of 1000 years or more. Challenging this idea of dormancy led me to define a new time capsule project that is also born of my personal experience.

As I posted earlier today (in SPACE, TIME, & GRAPHIC DESIGN), I moved around a lot throughout my life and whenever I did it was through handwritten letters that I kept in touch with the friends I left behind. I had religiously saved these letters and it was these artifacts that helped me reconcile myself with each new space and time. But handwritten letters are a dying means of conversing and though it is definitely not as convenient as what the internet offers, its death takes with it certain tactile qualities that digital media cannot replicate.

Digital correspondence has also changed the way we see time itself. A lag in correspondence today is really a very short span of time compared to the lags built into handwritten correspondence where spans of days, weeks, even months are acceptable. The difference in the concept of time essentially changes the content of communication itself where larger lapses of time must be captured within the smaller physical limits of a page or a postcard.

The ISE POSTCARD PROJECT doesn't seek to make social commentary on digital communication, but to rather engage others in an exercise that actively preserves a dying culture of handwritten letters and to also view the "Now" as a longer span of time.

The ISE POSTCARD PROJECT takes place as follows:

1. Pictured here is a unified stack of two sets of postcards, perforated in the middle.

2/3. The post cards are meant to be split between two people who then engage in handwritten dialogue, which they send to each other via postal service.

4. When the dialogue is completed, each participant only has half of the dialogue and the half that isn't their own.

5. It is only when they come together that the entire picture is experienced and the full extent of the dialogue is realized.

(Images taken from my Thesis I presentation to faculty).