LANdLine Project: A New Kind of Interactive Urban Exhibition by FabCafe Taipei

An Urban Exploration Experiment — From FabCafe, Out into the City

Interaction has never been limited to screens.

At FabCafe Taipei, we have long been experimenting with various forms of interactive exhibitions, ranging from XR and AR to installations integrated with digital fabrication technologies. We believe that “interaction” is not merely the response to a command on a screen, it can also be a dialogue with space, with characters, and with the city itself.

LANdLine Project marks our first attempt at an exhibition that combines voice-guided experiences, virtual characters, and AI-assisted script logic. Departing from traditional “map navigation,” we embraced the concept of “emotional navigation” by designing an experience that begins with how you feel, and unfolds through conversation.

2025 marks FabCafe Taipei’s second year in the Ximen neighborhood and our 12th year since founding. Nestled in a district where history and innovation intertwine, we engage daily with creators, students, travelers, and local residents from all walks of life. These diverse encounters sparked a question in our minds:

If FabCafe serves as a sensory node in the city, could it also become a catalyst for urban exploration?
How can a playful, interactive conversation shift the way we experience urban landscapes?

LANdLine Project is our experimental response to this question.
Instead of relying on traditional schedules or maps, we invite visitors to explore the city through a single phone call and a simple conversation to rediscover the rhythms, scents, and atmosphere of the urban landscape in a more intimate and personal way.

This exhibition doesn’t begin with a map—it begins with a phone call.
We chose a traditional landline telephone as the medium: its slower rhythm and intuitive operation create a mood of waiting and listening, and it recalls the warmth of “calling a friend for directions.” You don’t know what you’ll hear when you pick up and that uncertainty is the start of an exciting exploration journey.

On the other end of the line waits a virtual cat named Milo who is agile, curious, a little mischievous, a bespoke city guide we designed for the LANdLine experiment. Milo chats with you in Chinese, English, Japanese, or Thai, asking a few simple questions such as, “How do you feel today? What atmosphere are you in the mood for?” Based on your answers, Milo will suggest a place that matches your state of mind in that moment.

We co-designed and iterated the interaction logic with AI. Using language-context processing, we mapped the branching dialogue and tuned Milo’s voice and delivery so the character shifts subtly across languages—not mere translation, but a genuinely multilingual, expressive experience.

The installation itself weaves together voice guidance, NFC tap, real-time projection, and the physical phone, crafting a city exploration that begins with conversation.

We found that whether it was a first-time visitor to FabCafe or a frequent guest familiar with the space, all were easily drawn to the nostalgic and playful landline phone. Some looked around and asked, “Can this really make a call?”, while others excitedly picked up the receiver to start the experience. Some even tried to take selfies with Milo.

The conversations between the audience and Milo had a playfully interactive quality, but they were more than just a game. The process of answering questions made people pause and reflect: “How am I feeling today?” “Do I need something comforting, or am I seeking an adventure?” From our perspective, these answers weren’t just button presses to a Chatbot. These moments were representing a pause for gentle self-awareness.

After the experience, the audience would receive a recommended location specific to that person that popped into Milo’s mind. By placing their phone near Milo’s paw-shaped sensor zone, they could access a personalized map and additional information. Many people couldn’t resist trying the experience again, and groups of friends often compared their results. These recommended spots were carefully selected by the FabCafe team together with local partners, blending personalized suggestions with the scent of shared community memories.

four members from different disciplines including —technology, design, and curatorial practice. From the start, we worked together to select which corners and memories of the neighborhood we wanted to recommend. Each of us took on different responsibilities: some focused on scripting and content design, others brought the virtual guide Milo to life through animation and visual identity. Meanwhile, technical teammates ensured smooth connections between audio, projection, and sensor-based interactions.

Though the development timeline was tight, we prioritized space for iterative co-creation. We refined dialogue pacing, tuned Milo’s tone of voice, and carefully synced animations with speech. Thanks to our Bangkok-based teammate, we added Thai to Milo’s multilingual repertoire. Together, we fine-tuned Milo’s delivery across Mandarin, English, Japanese, and Thai, each with distinct speech rhythms and emotional nuances tailored to cultural expectations. These details emerged through extensive simulations and live testing.

By combining our past experience in interactive installations with the rapid evolution of AI tools, we successfully built and deployed the exhibition system. Every adjustment, every breakthrough came from collective brainstorming and hands-on problem-solving.
To us, this wasn’t just a technical showcase. It was a creative exploration into what it means to talk to a city, one voice at a time.

This exhibition is just the starting point of the LANdLine Project.

Beginning in the west side of Taipei City, we believe this project has the potential to be adapted and brought into all kinds of urban contexts—whether it’s cultural events, art festivals, neighborhood tours, or even local revitalization projects. As long as there are stories, alleyways, and memories from the people who live there, the interactive design of LANdLine can find resonance and relevance.

Looking ahead, we hope to continuously evolve the experience of this system. For example, we envision making the character Milo more adept at understanding natural language, creating smoother and more human-like voice conversations, or combining physical tours with game-like mechanisms so the exploration doesn’t end at the device, but instead encourages people to step into the real rhythm and texture of the neighborhood.

We also hope this exhibition can serve as a template for interactive storytelling, inspiring more urban experiments that blend creativity and technology. What will LANdLine look like in the future? We don’t intend to set a fixed answer as we believe each city, every community, and every alleyway will offer their own unique response.