Spectral Codex is curated by Alexander Synaptic, a web developer, photojournalist, and multimedia artist based in Taichung, Taiwan. This site began as a general purpose blog but evolved into something more like a personal Wikipedia or Atlas Obscura, a hypertext garden with special emphasis on historical sites, abandoned places, cultural assets, and oddball attractions in Taiwan and the broader region of East and Southeast Asia.
Nowadays my mission is to share photos and notes that do some justice to the places I visit. Don’t expect standard travel blog or content creator fare; this project has evolved into a quasi-academic collection of field notes and data-points informed by my background in biogeography and software engineering.
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Origins
This project began as an attempt to break away from the sanitized monotony of mainstream social networks and create something of my own on the web sometime in the early 2010s. What is shared here is an expression of my boundless curiosity and adventurous spirit, a living record of what I’m learning about the world. Nothing published here is fixed in time and space; these words and images will evolve and change.
As a creature of new media I am interested in online publishing as an end unto itself. I have no professional aspirations in media nor do I wish to monetize my work through advertisements or sponsored posts. This is primarily a creative outlet for me and I intend to keep it that way. If you’re accustomed to for-profit media intended to elicit an immediate reaction you may benefit from adjusting your expectations; much of what I publish is obscure (although not purposefully so) and ignores or perhaps subverts established norms and expectations. That said, critical and informed engagement is appreciated, and corrections are very welcome.
Highlights
Themes gather related content into thematic collections, the connective tissue of this project:
- Theaters in Taiwan: my most significant ongoing project, documenting the many physical remnants of Taiwan’s golden age of cinema, with nearly 1,200 records in the database.
- Shinto Shrines in Taiwan: the surviving stonework and scattered traces of approximately 500 Shinto shrines built across the island under Japanese colonial rule.
- Taiwan Military Villages: the dependents’ villages built for soldiers who retreated with the KMT after 1949, many now derelict or demolished.
Locations are site-specific write-ups:
- Changhua Roundhouse: one of Taiwan’s great unsung cultural treasures, a colonial era railway facility still in active use and open to the public.
- Agenna Shipyard: the skeletal remains of a 1960s shipyard in Keelung, among the most photographed ruins in northern Taiwan.
- Caotun Cide Temple: an intriguing and richly decorated temple in central Taiwan.
- Xinglin General Hospital: downtown Tainan’s most infamous abandoned hospital, shuttered by scandal and since immortalized in horror films.
Series and posts are narrative vehicles for describing road trips and other adventures:
- Suhua Highway Road Trip 2018: a long-form article documenting the scenery and historical sights of Taiwan’s most dangerous coastal road.
- Huadong Valley Ride 2018: a complete series documenting a bicycle journey from Hualien to Taitung.
- Southern Taiwan Ride 2015: a complete 20,000 word write-up of a bicycle journey around southern Taiwan.
- The Chinese Temples and Guildhalls of Cholon: an experiment in documenting the diversity of the Chinese diaspora in Vietnam’s largest city.
Photography
I am endlessly fascinated by the secret lives of inanimate objects, the eerie solemnity of abandoned places, the desolate beauty of manufactured landscapes, and the wonders of remote and otherworldly locales. I am drawn to the visual rhythm of grit, grime, and decay and inspired by the majestic works of nature. I am especially interested in the juxtaposition and intersection of organic and artificial forms, particularly those realms where nature is busily reclaiming manmade structures and objects. Most of all I am intent on exposing the hidden stories and forgotten fables all around us, no matter how inconsequential.
Most of my work is more documentarian than fine art, though I enjoy dabbling in conceptual and abstract domains now and then. Through my experience working on this site I have become much more direct, methodical, and unpretentious in my approach to photography. In an age of perpetual and ubiquitous image production I derive some amount of satisfaction from paying attention to what is ordinarily beneath notice. But perhaps this overstates how seriously I approach photography. Almost everyone can freeze time these days, making me one of countless multitudes recording and sharing my experiences and discoveries. In recognition of this, I’ve been investing more energy into the narratives that surround my photography.
Development
In my professional life I am a front-end engineer and web application developer working with React, TypeScript, and various frameworks. I started out with WordPress and PHP but moved on to React and TypeScript in the late 2010s. This site is built with the Astro framework and an assortment of other libraries, tools, and techniques detailed here. The source code is also available for perusal and adaptation here on GitHub.
Terms of Use
All written and visual content on this web site is strictly under copyright control and may not be reproduced without explicit authorization. That being said, I welcome invitations to collaborate and license content for projects that contribute to the public good. Please consult my full terms of use for more information.
Contact
I welcome contact from friends and strangers alike. If you have news, updates, corrections, or there’s anything else you’d like to discuss, please feel free to contact me at x@spectralcodex.com and I’ll do my best to respond.
You are also welcome to follow my activities and reach me on other platforms: Threads, Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon, Instagram, and Flickr.
Author
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I am a web application developer, photojournalist, urban explorer, and history enthusiast passionate about the open web and documenting my experiences on this planet. This project was founded in the early 2010s and has evolved into a sort of personal Wikipedia of places that interest me (and often the photographs I’ve taken there). I’m originally from Toronto, Canada, but spend most of my time residing in Taiwan.