1. Mapping Seth

2. Intro 1
Our paper is about our construction of a web archive out of
Canadian comic book artist Seth's imaginary Canadian
town Dominion City.
We wanted to take advantage of the form of Seth's
comics and their theme--the decay and loss of buildings
and urban spaces--to create a virtual heritage site that
would have some advantages over real heritage sites.
These advantages reveal themselves as we contrast
Seth's comics with his cardboard model version of
Dominion, which ends up being a fixed empty shell that
lacks the temporal dimension of the comics.

3. Intro 2
Seth's decision to "build" DC out of cardboard models,
shows the problem of fixing structures in space, which is
that the anxiety over material preservation leads to stasis
and death.
We think the problem with cardboard Dominion is
similar to that of many "real" heritage sites: they try to
materialize and make permanent something that was never
so in the first place: the spirit(s) of the past inhabiting the
spaces.
Meanwhile, the comic book version and our web archive
of it allow what architect Michael McClelland calls the
"ghost functions of the past" to circulate in the present.

4. Archives and Architecture
Because of the way they use space (the grid of panels and
drawings) and time (the variable sequence of panels and
drawings) comics provide an ideal structure for multiple
iterations of buildings and spaces.
The structure of the comics page is like a grid of
compartments to store images: like these perfume bottles.
But also a grid of rooms or windows stacked on top of each
other like floors.
This structural affinity between comics and both storage
containers and buildings perhaps explains why urban
preservation is such a popular theme of comics artists like
Seth.

5. Archives and Architecture 2
But because comics are generally disposable artifacts,
printed on cheap paper, their ability to preserve buildings
and urban spaces can only be ironic: comics are
ephemeral, they don't last.
So there's something odd about trying to preserve
something more permanent (buildings and streets) with
something less permanent (drawings on paper). But this
oddness resolves when we consider that comics artists like
Seth are in fact demonstrating the ephemerality of the
buildings and spaces themselves: they don't last either.

6. Icon and Caricature(Paint
Shop) 1
In the drawings within the grid, comics represent by a
combination of icon (general outlines) and caricature
(immediately identifying details).
Take for example this out of business paint shop in
Toronto from Seth's It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken.
We see the outline of the paint shop and a few identifying
features. These features help evoke others that Seth
mentions but doesn't depict visually: wood shelves, tile
floors, tin ceilings. This is a bit of a trick. If we recognize the
iconic and caricaturistic features of the building, we fill in
the features with our minds' eye.

7. Icon and Caricature 2
With this trick, Seth shows that the cartoon image cannot
physically capture architectural details; it can only trigger
them through mnemonic clues: we are always only getting
the tip of the iceberg
Clearly, comics cannot "preserve" the materiality of
what they represent, but they can evoke that materiality
through associative triggers, like a map evokes the territory
it represents.
When we combine the grid of the comic book page with
drawings within that grid, we have an architectural archive
of mnemonic triggers that can sustain heritage through the
engagement of its viewers.

8. George Sprott 1
We applied web technology to notions of the grid and the
cartoon in Dominion City as Seth represents it in his story
George Sprott, which is as much about the buildings of the
city as it is about the title character, a radio host who grows
increasingly out of touch with the present.
The stories of the buildings show their multiple
iterations, their narratives that resist being frozen at any
particular point. For example, the Melody Grill begins as
Der Hirschsprung, German restaurant in the 1930s,
becomes a local celebrity hotspot in the 1950s and dies as
a cheap lunch spot in the 1980s.

9. George Sprott 2
Seth tells similar stories of the Radio Hotel and Coronet
Lecture Theatre, and they all have similar trajectories: an
origin, a vibrant heyday, and decay.
We believe these trajectories lead Seth to "build"
Dominion out of cardboard because the narratives of
buildings have a fatalistic entropic pattern: Seth only sees
buildings declining and failing, never being revived or
replaced by something new and exciting.
Seth would like to preserve these buildings at their peak
rather than show their decline over and over. We think that
this desire in Seth mirrors that of heritage preservationists

10. Dominion City
Seth originally build the models to get a better idea of how
to situate his stories, but the stories never came. Instead he
became obsessed with collecting buildings, putting them in
amber and saving them from the wrecking ball.
While our first impulse was to celebrate cardboard
Dominion as the ultimate iteration of the imaginary town,
We ultimately found the loss of temporality and the loss of
narrative that accompanies it, kills the past in order to
preserve it.
The 3D materialization of Dominion turns out to be an
inadequate container for the ghosts of the past.

11. Return to Comics
Our web project re-introduces time and narrative while
"preserving," albeit virtually, the various iterations of
buildings and urban spaces. We take the panels of the
comics grid and stack them in virtual space so viewers can
move up and down from past to present, while also moving
across and around the city.
Consequently, we hope that it provides model for a
vibrant, interactive archive that shows the full range of
history rather than an empty shell that freezes structures in
a particular historical moment.

12. DAVE - The Website
The website allows the audience to think
through and play with Seth's comic. Taking the
layering possibilities of a web-based platform
as its starting point, the interactive archive of
Seth's numerous iterations of Dominion City
becomes something that users can manipulate.
We think this concept should be extended into
the heritage site.

13. Website 2
The interactive space of the web is a great
platform for engaging users by allowing them to
build their own narratives by manipulating the
objects of Seth's Dominion City, and by
extension, the heritage site it represents.
Dominion City can be reimagined and
reinterpreted across all its iterations, allowing
the reader to create a topographical history of
Dominion City.

14. Tagging / Topography
Adding interactivity to Seth's representation of
Dominion City allows the user to build a
topography, or graphic representation of
surface features and something that shows the
relationship between these features.
Interactivity also means taking advantage of
the "web's web"; tagging, organizing, and
marking up objects becomes a central mode of
presenting and archiving materials.

15. Tagging 2 - No Walk Thru
The website links the structure of the comic's
panels and the narrative's numerous entry
points to allow the user to manipulate the
objects of Dominion City.
Rather than emphasize the virtual
reconstruction of an architectural space, as
most virtual heritage sites do, this website
encourages the user to manipulate those
objects to explore new narrative linkages.

16. No Walk Thru, Baby
In other virtual heritage sites, the user is locked
within the prescriptive organization of an archive
that reveals objects one at a time in a sequence.
Doing so de-emphasizes the connectedness that
gives those objects meaning.
Comics and the website allow for some
alternatives for the combining, layering and
juxtaposing of archival materials, or objects.

17. The Connections
Within comics and the website, there can be
multiple paths through sequences. Connections
turn back on one another, criss-cross different
objects, and resist a linear path.
By making Dominion City into an archive of
objects, a virtual storehouse of ephemera, files,
and media, the website encourages the kind of
user / site exchange we think enriches an
encounter with historical buildings, districts and
narratives.

18. Connections 2
The user can link together or "tag" in a variety
of ways:
1) showing the links between different iterations
of the melody grill and the individuals
connected to it: (missing note above door
shows time passing / George Sprott young &
old / Sir Grisly Gruesome's pic on the wall /
Otto Klug's opening night)

19. Connections 3
These connections transcend the original
organization of the comic, emphasizing other
temporal dimensions and iconic connections.
2) Linkages within the website also encourage
connections between the world of the fiction--
Seth's comic about George Sprott--and the
material representation of it:
showing the different iterations of the Melody
Grill or The Radio Hotel.

20. Connections 4
While still locked within the static mode of
pictures and cardboard, the linkages here
nonetheless give some purpose to Seth's
cardboard city.
3) Taken a step further, the user can link the
two previous "tagging sessions" together:
showing both the relationships in the comic and
also the character's direct relationship to an
object whose materiality exists outside the
bounds of the story.

21. Connections 5
4) Where the website accels however is in
fostering connections between different media
and the different modes for understanding the
comic:
showing how an author contextualizes his
project in an audio interview, featuring the
ephemera of its creation (drafting), and its
numerous iterations. In this case, cardboard
and paper / 2D and 3D.

22. The Connections 6
A user's encounter with Seth's George Sprott
through the website is enriched not simply by the
juxtaposition of images and virtual architecture.
Instead, the website leverages its architecture of
connectivity and interactivity to facilitate the user's
reconstruction of Dominion City and emphasize the
relationships between the ephemeral objects within
it.

23. Connections 7
The user's engagement with Dominion City is
not governed by a linear sequence, a virtual
tour, 360 degree view, or vignette.
Instead, it is governed by how the user
chooses to engage with the objects, or
ephemera, that make up Dominion City's
architectural spaces and its larger role in
shaping the narrative connections in Seth's
comics.

24. Connections 8
1) The user can seek out different perspectives
on a static map, exploring the different
connections or paths through Dominion City.
2) The connections and paths can then in turn
be "tagged" with relevant contextual
information, data, and explanation.
3) Connections and paths offer different
perspectives, set off sets of images or direct
users to other spaces in the archive.

25. The Facebookishness
The user then makes the heritage site mean
something rather than engage with a pre-
existing expository narrative about it.
What makes the website for Dominion City
even more interactive is its foregrounding of
exchange. Users are given spaces to "tag,"
"comment" and record data about their
experience with Dominion City as virtual
heritage site.

26. The Twitterishness
The user can present their record of discovery
by tagging the objects according to their
sequential desires. Or, they can contribute to
an ongoing dialogue about the materials in the
archive by commenting. Or, they can add their
own relevant media. The result is a record of
the uniquely personal encounter with the
ephemera of Dominion City.

27. Heritage Site as Comics
Makers
Through their engagement with this virtual
archive, users participate in the same kind
fictional heritage reconstruction that drives Seth
to represent Dominion City in different media.
The website however emphasizes the layering
of icon and caricature that is the domain of
comics, encouraging objects to coalesce into a
unified narrative.

28. The Open Box
Individual objects become part of the heritage
district archive as Dominion City takes shape
for the user through their manipulation of the
objects in its archive.
Allowing users to engage with these objects is
key to conveying a sense of a lost past and
allowing the user to animate the "ghost
function" and give Dominion City meaning
beyond the empty materialism of a three
dimensional cardboard model.

29. The Empty Box
If we take the user's ability to manipulate the
archival objects or disallow their personal
engagement with them, we leave only buildings as
cold and empty as the cardboard box from which
Seth builds his material Dominion City.

30. Conclusion - Obscured
What a virtual heritage site built around a
fictional city represented in a comic shows us is
that how the individual engages with the
ephemera of the site perhaps has more
resonance than the physical existence of the
site.
The ability to manipulate the archive's
ephemera, the bits and pieces inside buildings,
is perhaps more important than the
architectural spaces themselves.

31. Conclusion - Clear
Thinking of the virtual heritage site as having
the structure common to comics suggests that
heritage sites might emphasize the user's
attachment to the ephemera of the past rather
than its strictly its physical architecture.
The architecture worth preserving is
ultimately a narrative one, a creative one, and a
deeply individual one.