Playing In A Dream is a comic designed to be experienced with sound. Initiated by comics artist Sen, the project was created in collaboration with electronic musician Kichor.ms (Kiki) and singer Hsien Ching. A cassette tape is housed in a slot on the book’s back cover.
The story unfolds like a dream, drifting between reality and imagination. Readers follow the protagonist through a series of strange and wondrous scenes. The interior pages feature a distinctive, vibrant fluorescent pink, combining dreamlike illustrations with handwritten marks and small attached diary pages. When played alongside the cassette, the music animates the visuals, creating a tactile, audible, and immersive reading experience.
Based on Sen’s experience undergoing tumor surgery in 2022 and her reflections on confronting cancer, the work departs from conventional ways of representing sound in comics. Instead, it uses images and symbols to evoke what cannot be heard on the page. The accompanying cassette, inspired by childhood story tapes, transforms the book into an audio comic for adult readers.