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Different versions of Aladdin

2009

2019

Original animation

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problem

1.I'm a bit confused about how to visualise the story once I've sorted out the imageable elements of the story, because right now it's a matter of scaling each element to the structural narrative analysis to visualise the last diagram. But I don't think that a story with a lot of elements in it will necessarily have a large proportion of imageability. So a method is needed to test which elements have the most impact.

2.The second point is that I'm a bit confused about how to do the final visualisation and how to apply it to the city level, which is something I haven't thought through because the visualisation is now only based on the proportion of the elements combined with the first and second steps.

3.I also believe that the story must be known to the majority of people to go for immersibility, as niche stories can lead to people not knowing enough about the story initially thus reducing the sense of belonging.But I'm not sure that's right

4. I don't have a good way of combining the religious government and the gaming aspect of it yet. Because I'm stuck in the visualisation of the story, I'm a bit confused about how to express these ideas in the visualisation drawings. For example, the use of folklore by religions to control society, etc.

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picture 1 shows the conceptual framework for imageability.

picture 2 -3 The physical dimension of Sofia Cathedral's imageability is revealed

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Operating an imager approach to translating the Thousand and One Nights

"Image-ability" is a concept related to architecture and urban design. Five main elements form the mental image of any city in the mind of the person perceiving it. These elements are: paths, edges, areas, nodes and landmarks. Any imageable environment should be based on three basic components: structure, identity and meaning. The theory gained great interest and acceptance because it proved to be compatible with the 'Gestalt Theory' of perception developed by German psychologists (Wertheimer, Koffka and Kohler) in the 1920s. These laws reveal how people perceive the world around them and are divided into the following categories: laws of continuity, laws of proximity, laws of similarity, laws of closure and laws of graphic ground [26]. Gestalt laws of perception are a viable and powerful tool in urban design as they enhance the relationship between geometry and meaning in order to create good urban form [27]. According to Lynch's 'imageability', paths and edges are 'elements of continuity', while areas embody the laws of 'proximity and similarity' and nodes embody the laws of "closure" law, and landmarks express the "graph-ground" law [28], [29]. The agreement of Lynch's concept of 'imagenability' with Gestalt theory has made it widely established among theorists and practitioners [30]. Table 1.

Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual framework that will be used to explore the 'Thousand and One Nights' architectural and urban spaces, based on the concept of imagenability and the concept of 'genius location'.

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The link between folk tales and the city

But as the remake of One Thousand and One Nights continues, One Thousand and One Nights and his film adaptations turn into fanciful fantasies of a utopian ideal city.

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

La plataforma

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Istanbul's reputation in the United States was deeply rooted in the story of the Thousand and One Nights, which became very popular among people, especially young people, and inspired many novelists, artists, filmmakers and musicians to evoke the spirit of the land of magic and dreams.

Folktales are increasingly recognised as a powerful force for evoking the 'genius loci' of cities and maintaining their cultural identity. "The term "Genius loci" derives from classical Roman Mythology In its modern use, the term expresses the concept of 'spirit of place' helping people to inhabit poetically and live in harmony with their surroundings by creating meaningful places with a unique atmosphere. The 'Thousand and One Nights' represents one of the most compelling and memorable cross-cultural folk tales associated with the Middle East in general, and Istanbul in particular. The many cultures contained within the Thousand and One Nights can also go some way to helping Istanbul to enable its different social and cultural groups to live together with a unique identity. It also creates spaces for chat between cultures to meet and co-produce.

Istanbul Map

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The influence of religion

In the Thousand and One Nights, the religious communities play the role of the oppressed or oppressors, in fact similar to the historical theocracy, without any religious freedom. It is also very much like the religious communities within Istanbul, a realistic version of an anti-utopian society.

The Turkish baths are an important place in the Turkish mind, and in the old days there was a local custom of marrying in a public bath, as women would then cover themselves with a headscarf when outside, so that men could only see the full face of the woman when bathing. However, in the Holy Qur'an it is only written that women were to cover their bodies with clothing and there is no specific mention of covering the face, which was a means of religious transmission of this custom and a means of reinforcing power. This practice of wearing a headscarf is also reflected from time to time in the Thousand and One Nights.

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《Thousand and One Nights》

'One thousand and One Nights'

I investigated the story of the Thousand and One Nights, which is widely circulated in the Middle East. It has been adapted in many different versions over a long period of time to suit the social needs of the time, from its beginnings as a folk tale expressing the true feelings and deeds of the common people, to its mid-career as an instrument of church power. By modern times contributing to the European Renaissance and the establishment of modern natural science, the influence of the Thousand and One Nights continues to this day, representing one of the Middle East's greatest contributions to Western art and literature[48] and a continuing inspiration to writers, artists, film and game makers in their world of ideas and imagination.

The Thousand and One Nights, despite having the basic characteristics of a folk tale, has been tampered with by religious people and literary scholars over a long period of time and has been mixed with a number of exploitative class-awareness ideas, as we can see in the Thousand and One Nights in the Middle Ages, and is therefore more Islamic, with phrases such as "Allah is the only Lord " and other phrases abound throughout the book. At this time folk tales as well were reduced to being part of the rulers' tools for consolidating power .

There are many stories in One Thousand and One Nights that depict an anti-utopian societies.

“Aladdin's Lamp”

Some of these stories reveal the darkness and misery of Arab society, depict the suffering of the masses, reflect their discontent with the reality of life, and to some extent recreate the historical reality of the time, which is the way in which the realism of the collection of stories is expressed.

In the main story of the Thousand and One Nights, it does not stop at merely depicting the plight of the masses or reflecting their discontent with the realities of life, but turns on the rulers of the Empire, the Caliphs, and exposes their behaviour. Although the cities during the Ottoman Empire appear to have been an ideal society, fair and orderly, free from want and dispute, in reality they were controlled from all sides and had only the appearance of freedom, with human dignity and humanity denied.

It's very much like the future world described in Cyberpunk 2077

'Cyberpunk 2077'

This phenomenon of anti-utopia is much like that of Istanbul nowadays, where on the one hand the government proposes many new policies to give people hope and paint a picture of an ideal fake utopian ideal state. The fictional utopian society, which is essentially rooted in idealistic political principles, succeeds in bringing positive and beneficial results to the population; the fictional anti-utopian society, whose underlying political principles are often based on utopian ideals, has negative results for the population because of its fatal flaws.

Faced with a weak economic environment, the ruling party faces a huge test in the upcoming 2023 Turkish general elections. Since the 2016 purge, political discourse, media, public speeches and even the voices of the academic judiciary have been closely watched in Turkey, and there is little room for anti-government voices to survive.

This also created social unfairness. Below a class of socially recognized citizens, there existed poor classes and untouchables who were not treated as human beings, in fact a society of huge between rich and poor.

‘Government leaders’

The actions of the government also contributed to some extent to the attacks on Istanbul.

Some of the major attacks：

The Islamic State launched a string of attacks in the mid-2010s and its insurgency only declined significantly in the late 2010s. In June 2022, a plot by Iranian-backed forces to launch a terrorist attack in Istanbul was foiled by the authorities. The 2015 Jeyran Penar incident broke a two-year ceasefire between the Turkish authorities and the PKK, with fierce clashes erupting and heavy casualties on both sides, which have shown signs of intensifying in recent years[14]. The suicide bombing that also took place on Independence Street in March 2016 On 13 November 2022, at 4.20pm, an explosion occurred on Independence Street in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, Turkey's largest city.

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The Development and Nature of Folk Tales

I always think it is fun to discover the pain points of region from folk stories and use them as a starting point to slove them

It has its roots in folklore and can express people's most intuitive feelings about society

The development and nature of the folktale: It plays an important role in cultural sustainability and folktales represent the traditional culture of a people or a region and include a wide range of narratives. They are essential for understanding history, culture, society and tradition, enabling people to raise awareness of themselves and their identity.

Folk However, oral narratives are more likely to be lost and to differ from the original version in their telling. The later use of writing as a vehicle made it possible for people to watch it again and again, and the content could be switched back and forth, making it easy to circulate, but it could also be reduced to a political tool by its very nature.

We can combine spaces in the present and in numerous folktales to find that cultural, social and administrative structures and religious beliefs influenced the form of the settlements.

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Istanbul under Utopia and Anti-Utopia : Conflict between urban thematic cultures and multicultural ecologies

Culture is the ideas, concepts, behaviours, customs, habits and representatives of a group (which may be a country, a nation, an enterprise or a family), and all the activities reflected in the group's overall consciousness, developed over a period of time

Utopia: The ideal city for multiculturalism

Anti-Utopia: Cultural expressions of a single urban theme resulting from policy and cultural prescriptions

We need give istanbul a more humanist care from the city level.

Actually, I rally like story of the city, if you want to learn a city, You must read the story behind the city, for example, Istanbul. It has a lot of story, it can be traced back as far as 6,000 years, so it has lived through many dynasties and cultures.

So This has also resulted in cultural diversity and confusion. 

Migrations have shaped Istanbul's demographic structure throughout history, enriched the cultural heritage and created a unique nature. However, individuals and communities who migrated for different reasons represent an unequal spatial distribution throughout Istanbul. This situation causes problems such as social segregation and the weakening of the solidarity culture. Furthermore, the invisibility of different social groups in public spaces limits interaction and living together.

This raises many questions for us, How to maintain a balance for different culture, how to enable all social and cultural group to live together with their unique Identities.

For a large and diverse city like Istanbul, We must be narrators so that each culture can stand alone and not be sidelined.

We have to speak good story for each background of culture in city.

Actually, It is most difficult to maintain a balance between the construction of urban cultural themes and the maintenance of the city in a diverse context.

On the one hand, the construction of a city's thematic culture has shaped the city's unique cultural brand and image, avoiding the 'homogenisation trap' in the process of urbanisation; but on the other hand, the strong involvement in the city's cultural ecosystem through specific policies and cultural planning has led to the homogenisation and linearisation of the city's cultural ecology.

Here are some figures on the cultural diversity of Istanbul：

From Open-AI

We can experience the conflict between social utopia and anti-utopia in different periods from games and books：

《Assassin's Creed: Revelations》

The vast majority of the game's ancient storyline takes place in Constantinople. In Constantinople, at the heart of the whirlwind of time, the Templars are hatching a plot to unleash a new bloodbath on the new capital of the Ottoman Empire. And as he hides the Golden Apple, Aigio Oditore da Fiorentina travels to Constantinople, the heart of the Ottoman Empire, on a quest for the truth, following in the footsteps of Athaire, the famous assassin of Maciaf.

These games are all set in Istanbul

《Europa Universalis IV》

《Crusader Kings II》

Legacy of Rome

16/10/2012

How to play：Unique to the Byzantine Empire, the Byzantine Emperor will be able to revive the Roman Empire and heal the religious divide by recovering lost territories: uniting the Catholic and Orthodox religions into one.

《The Lost Mystery》

For Pamuk, Istanbul has always been a city full of imperial relics. The city's characteristic 'hue and cry' had already seeped into the young Pamuk's body and soul. With his unique sense of history and his outstanding talent for description, Pamuk revisits the veins of Istanbul and collages the picture of its life. [6]

Finding his creative material in Islamic classics and Sufi fables, [1] Pamuk took Chinese, Indian and Persian fables and made them take place in contemporary Istanbul, piling them all together like a collage, and this is how The Black Book was created

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