Interactive Storytelling of Wayang Kulit

Context

This was a research project I worked on throughout 2018. Wayang Kulit, a traditional shadow puppet performance, was slowly dying out due to people’s declining interests, thus we redesigned the shadow puppetry in modern approach and created a preliminary interactive unit for audiences to get involved in the storytelling via physical action. Our group was divided into a designing team (3 people) and an engineering team (3 people). After finishing the designing part, I handed the designs over to the engineering team while kept close communication with them. A final interactive unit is still ongoing undertaken by the engineering team.

Problem Space

Wayang Kulit, a form of traditional shadow puppet, is the oldest form of storytelling in Southeast Asia. The play is based on local folk tales and ancient Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.The puppets are flat cut-out figures which are held between the light and a screen.The Dalang (puppeteer) is the story teller of the entire performance. He sits behind the screen and moves the puppets, speaking their lines. 

However, Wayang Kulit is slowly fading away among the local communities in Malaysia, and losing its attraction to the audiences especially the younger generations. Today, many people have never even heard of Wayang Kulit, and some others show little respect to Wayan Kulit but treat it as an outdated culture. There is an urgent need to preserve Wayang Kulit from dying out.

Secondary Research

We conducted secondary research to figure out the reasons of the dying of Wayang Kulit. By viewing many relevant literatures, we summarized three causes of the declining of Wayang Kulit.

1.The emergence of new media and different forms of entertainment.

In the traditional Malaysian villages, Kota Bahru and Tumpat areas, the invasion of modern forms of entertainment like films, television and radio have drew people away from their favorite forms of traditional enjoyment in the evening. (Bin Abdul Ghani, D. 2012)

2.Audience play a passive role and have low participation.

In the storytelling of traditional Wayang Kulit, puppeteer was the one mainly sets the plot, pace and atmosphere of the story, and audiences only need to sit there and watch the play, with very low participation.

3.Puppet-making process is laborious and extremely time-consuming.

The Wayang Kulit puppets are made from water buffalo hide and mounted on bamboo sticks. Making the puppets involves a complicated physical labour like sawing, heating, hand-molding, and sanding. Weeks, even months, are required for making one puppet. The laborious process prevent craftsman from keep making puppets as they can’t get sufficient profits from it.

Design Objective

1. Reinterpret the Wayang Kulit in a contemporary or futuristic way and reach audiences on a global scale.

Since the audiences of traditional Wayang Kulit have been attracted by the new forms of entertainment, we planned to reinterpret the old Wayang Kulit in a contemporary or futuristic way to involve young people and global audiences in the community.   

2. Improve audiences’ participation and help them feel more engaged in the storytelling.

We planned to build an interactive system, letting the audiences to set the plot, emotions and pace of the story. The interactive system will be a dome-like structure which includes circuits connected to conductive plates. These conductive plates would be linked with various aesthetic elements inspired by Wayang Kulit, such as backlighting and gamelan orchestra music. Through different physical actions, audiences will initiate the storytelling and create rich narratives and sensory experiences.

3. Using digital work to create puppet efficiently.

We proposed to use digital method to design and create our puppets since it is easier for duplication, hence will save a lot of time. By using the digital approach, the mistakes can be easily undone, but not permanent.

Puppet Analysis

We took images of Ramayana puppets from Tok Dalang Pak Dain’s website to gain an understanding of aesthetic styles of Wayang Kulit, and we categorized the puppets into three categories (1) Humans (i.e.Seri Rama, Siti), (2) Creatures (i.e. Hanuman, Rawana) and (3)Wise Men(e.g.Pak Dogol and Wak Long). Later, we drew features observed on post-it notes and affinity diagrammed unto the whiteboard. 

The three main characteristics we summarized in the design of Wayang Kulit puppets:

• Headgear and collarbone ornamentation using pattern cut-outs.

• Traditional Indonesian clothing like Kebaya or Sampin are found on the puppets.

• Main characters ride on vehicles.

Brainstorming & Modernization

Since our design goal is to reinterpret the shadow-play in a modern way and reach audiences on a global scale, we decided to use new characters with international audiences to develop a story instead of directly using the old characters of Ramayana epic.

We brainstormed and discussed new ideas based on futuristic fiction, movie or anime which global audiences are familiar with. After intense brainstorming, we chose characters in Pokemon as our puppets.  While choosing entertaining and playful anime characters as our puppets, we developed our plot line based on a well-known episode of original Wayang Kulit story, Siti Dewi got kidnapped, because we want to preserve the identity of Wayang Kulit.

Based on the features of Pokemon characters, we made Ash, Pikachu, Jesse& James and Misty(Characters in Pokemon) to be the modern version of Rama, Siti Dewi, Rawana, Haunman (Characters in Ramayana) respectively.

Designing Puppets In Digitized Way

In traditional Wayang Kulit, creating shadow puppets involved a complicated physical labour like sawing, heating, hand-molding and sanding, which is extremely time-consuming. We chose to switch the work from the physical to the digital due to the following advantages.

• Easier for duplication and saving a lot of time.

• Mistakes can be easily undone, but not permanent.

• More flexibility and exploration.

As the puppet designer, I used Adobe Illustrator to design and polish our Pokemon puppets. 

If you look at these puppets closely, you will find that we combined the traditional Malaysian patterns cut-outs with our puppets. Each of our puppets was embellished with some traditional elements. We did this because we want to balance our design between modernity and tradition.

Puppets Prototypes

With the use of laser cutter, we made several puppet prototypes to see how they work. We first made paper prototypes since paper is an affordable material and is easier for us to test literately. In the early phase of prototyping, our paper prototypes didn’t went very well and we got some fragmented puppets. After creating different layers for different parts of the design, we control the order of cuts and finally made successful prototypes.

We hold fast to important features of the traditional art. As you can see, the three main characteristics I summarized above in “Puppets Analysis” are clearly shown here on our final design:

• Headgear and collarbone ornamentation using Malaysian pattern cut-outs.

• Traditional Indonesian clothing like Kebaya is found on character “Ash”.

• Main characters ride on their vehicles.

Building The Interactive Unit

The Dome Structure

Since audiences would be interacting with the structure to initiate the storytelling process, we needed the infrastructure that could distribute the force and tension equally to avoid collapse.

We landed on a 4V geodesic dome design using PVC for construction. The reason PVC was chosen is because the material was affordable and lightweight, yet malleable. If any mistakes occurred, they could be easily taken down and moved.

Black velvet was used for covering the surface of the building to control light. The shadow play required darkness for the texture, color and saturation to be seen. At the same time, the black velvet would be ideal to control external sounds absorption from outside of the structure.

Projector Images & Videos

Different projector videos have been created through Adobe Illustrator and Adobe After Effect, and they would be mapped to the white canvas of dome structure as the story progresses.

The dialogue With different Emotions

We wrote the script dialogues, and designed it with different emotions which can be triggered by different physical actions. An extract of our dialogues is shown below.

Mechanical components

We also used 3D printer to fabricate mechanical components like gears and tracks which make the puppets to move.

Wiring & Coding for the story

After we tested on conductive plates, skin conductance feedback proved to be not very reliable in generating a strong enough response that would trigger a narrative change.

Therefore, we decided to use capacitive touch which would allow the interactive system to relate certain range of touches with different response outputs, including music, lighting, and audio. The capacitive touch was designed so that it would also initiate the movement of motors that moves the puppets on the track.

Outcome

This is the preliminary interactive unit we have accomplished. This capacitive touch system would respond to varying degrees of input signal – one finger, one hand, or two hand, and returns different colored lights according to the level of input, hence creating different moods and atmosphere for the person who is using the interactive storytelling system. 

From here on, we plan to calibrate the Arduino code that we so far have developed – this will sequence the puppets, the puppet tracks, and projector videos through capacitive touch.

Take Away

1. Always keep the essence of a traditional performing art.
While we redesigned the shadow-puppet play in an innovative and playful way, we never discard the core value of this art form. From the puppets cutout patterns and characteristics, the storyline to the material interaction with light, we stick in the old value because we want this art form can be recognized by more people in the near future.

2. Unforeseen difficulties can occur and collaboration is the key.
Our project is highly interdisciplinary and collaborative. After finishing up the design, my job is not really done. As a designer, I need to closely communicate with other engineering members in order for the latter “wiring & circuits” part run smoothly. Our initial concept involved skin-conductance, yet it proved to be not reliable enough due to tech constraints. For any unexpected situation, I need to exchange my feedbacks with engineers and be prepared to design new interaction ways or modify my previous design.