I Slept for Fourteen Hours – the Transnational Dream of a Dépaysé

This letter is an account from a displaced man. It examines transnationalism through
the exploration of personal experiences of migration. Navigating the realms of the real
and the imaginary, this work seeks shelter in Tzvetan Todorov’s concept of dépaysemant: a “new, different, surprised regard to a new culture.” It aspires to show how a perspective of internal “otherness” (the perspective of the dépaysé) can re-frame the concept of exile into one of refuge: a safe space where the displaced man can find enlightenment. As the dépaysé continues travelling, he writes this letter proposing the reinterpretation of reality and its signs. The first, prolonged, fourteen-hour sleep after an intercontinental flight is used as a metaphor for creating a series of fourteen visualizations that are analyzed by the author, giving narrative structure to the article. This project combines design and technology to convey a language where places, objects, and stories connect to navigate networks of place and time, through the familiar and the foreign.