Our Glass Castle is Their Grave – Final Documentation

Updates:

After the last consultation, I was told to try building the space and test physically as there is no way to find out how the experience will be like without testing. However, there was a lot of difficulty in booking a space which I will briefly talk about later. I decided to drastically reduce the size of the installation after that. This is because the whole experience is clunky in my opinion and it will require too much material. But that’s also untested.

I spent >$100 the next few days buying materials like cloths and stickers, while I booked a few equipments and pillars that I can use to fix up the installation. Unfortunately, it was near crunch time for many modules so there wasn’t time to setup and test physically. From that, I learnt that I must really start testing earlier and not keep everything in my head until its too late.

I also got senior Chris to help me film some scenes with his drone! This was done as part of my previous idea of projecting greenery vs the sunken plaza’s reflective surface, which was the scrapped. (Sorry Chris! Thanks for all the trouble :’)))) ) As I don’t want to waste the footage, I’m going to put a small part here:

After that, I stopped working on the space until I was able to which was… 1 day before the presentation.

The Birds

While everything else was happening, I was trying to passively work on the project by collecting images of dead birds. There wasn’t much that I collected, which was strange (but also means it’s a good thing that lesser birds are dying haha)

 

The Space:

There was a lot of trouble to book the space. Firstly, Bharat was always not in, so I was not able to get approval even though I have requested for the space early. When I managed to catch Bharat early November, I was told that the space was to be shared with Prof. Joan Marie Kelly, who will be exhibiting her Painting class artworks. I had to make special arrangements with her in order to secure my space (which is that I will help her class to setup the exhibition).

The Setup + Final Presentation:

The afternoon before the presentation, I started setting up. I brought the necessary equipments and logistics down.

Initial setup
After putting cloth

Unfortunately, I did not document the form which was shown during the final presentation as I did not really like it. I already intended to continue working on it after the presentation so I have the newer pictures.

Video documentation of walkthrough:

In the above 2 videos, the participants enter from the back instead of the front. This was due to me thinking that entering from the front was not a very good experience. The profs then tried entering from the other side and thought it was better.

During the discussion we brought up a few points:

  1. The photos of the dead birds could replace the blood splat which was quite cheesy and doesn’t really look good in terms of aesthetics.
  2. Going from the front is better as there is a better narrative and it is more intuitive to navigate through.
  3. The experience worked as the impact sound and the visualisation is able to show what I wanted to show. Digital implementations helped to bring the experience to the next level which was successful.
  4. There should be variations in the knocking sound which can make the experience more diverse. Also, the sound of the bird hitting window is not the same as just a regular knock.

The projection I shown is this. It’s a compilation video of people hitting against glass, but a picture of a dead bird found in ADM after each hit.

Further analysis

Overall, going in from the front is much better. Although there should be some kind of cue to let people know that they should not walk past the acrylic, and there should be something to distract them to slow them down. This was tested with participants before the final presentation, so that’s why I decided to let participants go from the back (which actually was not any better).

I realised that people usually stand there to see if there are more to the video on the monitor. I usually have to tell people to move on instead. So if possible, I should let participants know that they have to exit.

The sticker sticking part feels out of place now. It’s more of a personal touch than anything that is related to the installation. This is because the installation is experiential, while the sticker part is more activistic. I still kept it as I still want the idea of this artwork to not just “spread awareness”.

Finally, I realised that people don’t really look up to see the splat. This changed after I told participants about the concept before they experience it.

Further Improvements

After the presentation, I continued working on it after a good sleep (yay!).

I removed the area where the projection was and placed the projection in the middle of the “tunnel”. The projection is now projecting onto a piece of cloth which that will have to unveil to move on, which leads to the acrylic sheet.

This essentially halves the setup, which makes everything look less clunky.

Overall, this makes everything better in a lot of ways.

  1. Navigation was easier. It was clearer for participants to understand the flow of interaction and the narrative.
  2. The participants will now move slower in the tunnel as there is a video to watch
  3. The whole setup is more compact and less detached

However, there are still flaws that I have to address:

  1. the light in the projection makes the acrylic sheet visible and should be turned off when the cloth is unveiled (this was newly added after discovering this problem)
  2. Projection on black cloth makes it not very visible (as mentioned by my friend Clemens) and the later changes, I switched to white cloth.
  3. The visuals are still not the best, the blood splat is still very…. weird. What I did next was to add an overall red hue to make the splat less off-putting, which kind of worked in bringing attention to the screen
Clemens’s reaction
The projection kind of blinds the participants and reveals the acrylic sheet which is not good

I also created a poster that will be pasted on my installation so people will know what it is about.

Reiteration of Concept

I would like to go through one more time to summarise everything, and how all the elements worked / not worked out

The concept is from an observation of birds hitting the reflective glass window around the ADM building. Upon further research, I discovered that many birds had died due to the building’s reflective glass windows. I wanted to make an installation that solves this problem through bringing awareness to the problem, letting people know the solution, and asking the school to do something about it.

The installation features an experiential space alongside an activity. The experiential space is a long narrow “tunnel” made of white and black cloth. The  use of white cloth was intended for the space to look like a funeral. The tunnel also represents the route into Sunken Plaza.

Inside the space, the first thing to see is the video projection. This projection shows found CCTV footages of people walking into glass. Each time a person walks into the glass, a picture of a dead bird found in ADM is shown. This is done to draw reference to birds flying into glass, and I want it to stir some emotions within people. Watching people walk into glass is funny. But is it funny when you see a bird dying from that? Using that, I want to create a sense of guilt and pity. The video is about a minute long and loops.

When the audience moves on, they will unveil the cloth and walk forward. This activates 2 sensors (previously only 1). 1 sensor will turn off the video that the projector is showing, making it easier for the participants to see what’s in front of them. Another sensor will activate the bird-window collision simulation. This happens on the front, which is a monitor that shows a live video of the window behind the installation, pretending to be an actual glass window. This was inspired by an advertisement by LG and another by Pepsi, which features a screen that looked like windows to trick participants. In my installation, a sound of a “bang” is heard, followed by the screen turning red and a blood splat appearing on the screen. This part is to cue the participants into knowing that a bird has hit the glass, and this let participants understand how it sounds and feel the impact.

Once that interaction is done, the participant can leave from the side, and move on to paste a sticker to ask for change.

Here are some user testing videos:

Note: she didnt notice the video and the blood splat, but was startled by the bang.

Her rewatching the video

Lessons and Reflections

I also learnt that in an art installation, I should focus more on the experience and feelings rather than facts as that is more effective in incepting ideas into people.

I also learnt that when it comes to spaces, it does not have to actually be physical space. It can be something more experiential, which I could focus on rather than creating an entire space for people to move around in. (which is costly and hard to build)

I also learnt that I should have started building much earlier and use the building as a testing ground for me to see how the experience feels.

I also appreciate the feedbacks which are all good especially Biju’s suggestions to having the glass wall that people walk into.

However, overall, I didn’t really enjoy working on this project as it requires a lot of work and money. Setting up a space is really difficult, especially with a space that is quite large like mine. Working alone on this is just not recommended. (There was once when my setup fell and I had to shout for help and the photography people came to help me I must thank them :’) )

I also lost motivation halfway through the semester as the concept wasn’t that strong in terms of the requirements of the module. Still, I’m happy that I pushed through and the installation looks fine now. I guess larger-scale installation stuffs isn’t my thing, and I should build something smaller in future.

 


 

More Updates:

Participants viewing the video & the impact

Videos:

 

 

 

Evoking The Sense of Body – Interactive Spaces

IDEA 1: The Spoopy Room

Tech involved: YES: Sensors, speakers, mics, motors

I am afraid of IM room at night as it is usually too dark, nobody comes here, and the lights are behind the door when we open it. With that in mind, I was wondering what makes us scared or creeped out in a space. After some research, I found a few points:

  • Age of the space
  • Stories linked to the space (legends)
  • Attributes that dulls certain sense
  • Uncertainty
  • Prospect: how easy it is for us to move through the space
  • Refuge: how safe we are within the space

The spookiness of a space is associated with physical properties which we evaluate and make psychological connections to an unknown threat.

I feel that fear is a very interesting way to evoke a sense of body as it plays with people’s imagination in filling up the spaces of the lack of a physical presence. Can fear or creepiness transform a familiar space into an ‘unsafe’ space? Can we feel unsafe in a safe space?

From an article by theatlantic.com, I found this quote:

I’ve seen the process thousands of times from behind the walls in ScareHouse—someone screams and jumps and then immediately starts laughing and smiling. It’s amazing to observe. I’m really interested to see where our boundaries are in terms of when and how we really know or feel we’re safe. – Allegra Ringo

I thought this is an interesting observation. What makes someone feel safely scared? Perhaps it is the knowledge that the threat is unable to harm them. I want to let people willingly enter and stay in a space that makes them feel uncomfortable so as to make them reflect about their view of the space they are in versus the creepiness I designed for them, juggling between what they think is real and what they think is fake. There are a few considerations to start with. How big of negative (or positive) space would we decide that a space is spooky? How dark or bright would it be? How isolated is it? How rundown is it? What objects are placed within it? What materials are used in the construction of the space? What are the associations to such spaces? What are our cultural beliefs?

These are just some questions to ask. But these are not applicable to what I want to do now as I will be using a familiar space in school (the lounge). But I spent a long time thinking about these before finalising my concept so let me just let those questions stay here? Haha

My Concept

What is the relationship between people and a sense of ‘presence’ in a space? Using a ‘spooky’ setup in a room that visitors are familiar with, I wish to (or at least attempt to) create dissonance between their idea of the space and the space itself to bring about the question.

My Idea

  • Use the school lounge because it is a bustling place in the morning but desolate at night. It is a familiar place for many, yet can also be creepy when nobody is in school.
  • Recording of the past 12 hours to create commotion when at night.
  • Soft background speaker to play the recording to create soft sounds from 12 hours ago
  • Sensors placed at various points to play knocking sounds or giggles or cause movements at some areas of the lounge:
    • Near the tables
    • Sofa area
    • Bean bags
    • Walking corridor
  • These may also be activated at intervals

Note: I’d like to credit The Lapse Project by Inter-mission for the idea of a sound lapse

What it should feel like:

Alone:

  • Sitting alone should feel uncomfortable with the constant soft chatter in the background even though there is nobody
  • Walking around will cause sensors to operate, causing sounds to play, or objects to move around. (This can be replaced with motion sensors as people are usually stationary in a spot)
  • In the morning, this would have a lesser effect as the lounge is quite bright in the morning. So the location may not work as well (was thinking of a more obscure place like level 2 corridors but nobody really goes there at night anyway) But the sound recorded at night would be so minimal that, perhaps there wouldn’t be any spooky noises at all.

Group:

  • Group chatter may dull the experience which can make everyone feel more comfortable
  • Movement causes sensors to operate a lot, may cause alarm at first but annoyance after a while. Perhaps this can be controlled to specific areas that allow people to activate at will. But as a group
  • In the morning it will not do much to groups, but what helps would be the chatter and happenings in the morning that will be recorded so it will be played at night. Visitors that are aware of this can spice things up by making spooky noises.

Overall, it could be packaged as a challenge, although I try to not turn it into a social experiment. I want people to be aware of the intentions of the project and have fun within an interactive space, while also confront the idea of being spooked.

Looking back, perhaps the morning experience can be more active as visitors can affect the outcome of what happens at night with their recordings. This ensures that visitors of the lounge all have a participatory role no matter when they enter the space.

Wrapping it up… (basically summarising what I written above)

Imagine a space that everyone is familiar with: The ADM Lounge. The interactive space will be set up there, and visitors of the lounge will know that there is an installation going on in that location. A speaker will be hidden around the lounge to playback live recordings set to play at a 12 hour delay, so at 3am, recordings from 3pm will be played. A mic would be out in the open, recording everything going through so visitors can voluntarily contribute to the recording. Groups gathering at the lounge making conversations will also be recorded. Some spots at lounge will also have sensors that, once triggered, plays a soft haunting sound, or causes a knock on the wooden pallets, or rotates/moves a soft toy. This will have little effect in the day, so visitors in the day have a more contributing role to the installation in terms of how they create the haunting experience for people using the space at night. At night, the installation comes to be fully alive as ADM quieten down. The soft playback will be audible and the lounge will be filled with softened chatter from 12 hours ago. This creates the presence of people when there is nobody, creating a sense of an unknown entity wandering around the space. Sensors that get activated amplify this effect by creating more audible and tangible experiences for visitors. Overall, visitors should be aware of the entire setup so they are able to think about whether the setup affects them or not. They should be able to evaluate their feelings and responses, and gain some insights about how these sounds and movements affected their experience in a space.

IDEA 2: What We Left Behind

Tech involved: NO

Before I begin with this concept, I’d like to thank Shah and Tanya for starting a conversation about our ideas which led me to thinking about this idea. It is sort of an idea built upon their’s but in a different direction so THANK UUUUUU

Concept

We are always leaving things behind, whether we are aware of it or not. Our hair, our marks on metal or glass, our smell, our footprints. We don’t often notice them, but when it gets accumulated, it becomes acknowledgeable. It is through these accumulations that we can feel a presence of people that entered and left. However, that is also when we decide to remove these marks. Sweeping away the debris we leave behind. Wiping away the marks. Doing so, we erase what we left behind over time, only for it to accumulate again. Out of sight, out of mind.

With this analogy, I would like to raise an awareness of what we produce as humans, in terms of the waste we leave behind like plastic, unfinished food, or garbage.

According to this Government website,

Singaporeans produce an average of 800g of waste per day. That’s about the weight of 5 iPhones. Multiply that by the 5.6 million people in our population, that is a lot of waste. With this piece, I aim to bring awareness to our wastage and also offer solutions to help the situation.

My Space

The installation is going to be placed within the CBD area. This is a 3m x 3m cube that is white in colour in the interior. There are mirrors, glass panels, and metal railings inside the space. There are also grates on the floor that collects the hair and objects left behind by individuals.

The Interaction

People entering and leaving will leave behind their odours, firstly. They will be able to explore the space and look around. This can be a space for people to rest in as well. The main attraction is the gutter — it is going to eventually collect enough debris to be very noticeable. There are also panels to help people make the connection between the left-overs and waste. At the every morning, the remaining residues will be swept into the gutter.

Within the space itself, there are also objects to interact with. One can lean on the railing, take a seat on a few of the designated seats that is coated in heat-sensitive paint. Eventually, footprints and damage will also appear inside the room. All these will evoke a sense of presence within a space. As the work progresses, it will be interesting to see how people leave their marks, where they leave them, and perhaps this can create a persona for Singaporeans using an urban space which can help in urban design.

Image taken from https://mothership.sg/2019/06/convenience-store-sustainable-dhoby-ghaut/

Just for a reference, here is how the space can be artistic and functional which is what I’m going for

Some other things…

Image taken from http://www.nanyangchronicle.ntu.edu.sg/News/2504bird.html

I also wanted to further link this idea with the idea of birds and migratory birds dying while in transit in Singapore because they wander into glass-filled urban spaces which disorients them. One very good example is the ADM building itself and the amount of dead birds we can find around ADM. This seems to be a problem that we ignore, or literally sweep away (thanks to the cleaners that clean our city every morning, which is also why I want the space to be cleaned in the morning). Mr. David Tan is one person that collects these dead bird samples to understand where birds are dying and what kind of birds they are. (https://www.todayonline.com/dead-birds-wingman) I feel that our impact on other animals as humans can be a topic to discuss in the same space too. But I was afraid if that will make the entire concept too complicated, that’s why I want to write that here. I think bringing awareness to the amount of bird deaths is not the only thing we can do. We can teach the world what we can do to help this situation. Within the installation, there can be non reflective stickers on the mirrors to block the view of people looking into the mirror, as like how it would work for birds in real life to re-orientate themselves. We can put railings for people to lean on which works like perches for birds to safely rest on. We can create a low-light environment to hint at a way of lowering light pollution.

One solution that is already in place is the addition of non-reflective strips on glass windows. 

A screenshot of the same article article talks about our school as a hotspot for bird collision
Image taken from https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/school-tries-keep-buildings-killing-birds-nparks-release-design-guidelines-next-year

Why is this in the front of ADM when it could be placed in the Sunken Plaza where most birds died in?

Anyway, I was thinking, the artwork can have a plug to help Mr. David Tan in his research by providing the visitors with his contacts.

Conclusion

The experience in this space should be mostly passive but also informative. The entire concept revolves around human waste in terms of our bodies’ sheddings. It serves as an analogy for the physical wastes we created that we sweep out of our existence everyday. To quantify the damage we do to the world. It also serves as an analogy for the wildlife that we indirectly killed as they wander into our urban spaces. Overall, visitors should be able to take away certain messages about awareness and perhaps some information of how they can help.

Siah Armajani: Spaces for the Public. Spaces for Democracy.

Exhibition Review

Seems comfortable to be honest but also a bit weird in terms of form

Siah Armajani’s notion of ‘Common sense architecture‘ created a certain rustic aesthetics for his artworks that speaks about rawness to me. This was perhaps done by mixing both warm and cool materials (i.e. wood and metal) that creates contrast. I’m not sure of its intention other than to use rural-found materials, but it does give off an odd vibe.

Joey taking photos but I also want to capture the metal racks that I like

The materials are also cut in a sharp and straight way. I tested the sharpness of an edge of the Sacco & Vanzetti Reading Room #3 and it was actually sharp enough to cause injury. The intention of the room being for common use, together with the hostility of the materials makes it quite a conflict in me to approach the structure.

I wanted to try breaking the 90 degree rule but Fizah stopped me. I guess the angular look makes it feel more uniform but also uneasy

Still, I love the solidness of the forms he give to the furnitures and the beams that hold up the structures. This leaves me wondering how the material itself can affect the hostility / hospitality of a space.

I don’t understand the pencils so I’m not gonna talk about it

Some other observations:

  • Why did he chose to use bricks to on the floor to welcome visitors into the reading room?
  • Why is everything so 90 degree? Could it be to create the idea of sharpness?
  • The books are welcoming, I wouldn’t mind reading them
  • But the placement of the books are at the bottom, which makes it hard to reach, intentional discomfort?
  • How would it look in an outdoor setting? Would indoor light affect the experience of being in the reading room? Or the other pieces? Especially the pieces with metal, as it is very reflective to light.
  • The hip-leveled sharp metal corners are a potential danger for kids

Another thing that attracted me was the compositions of his Tomb for Heidegger and the Tomb for Richard Rorty which features wooden ‘pens’ that has many holes that allow light in. I think I’m just fascinated with house-like structures that have an interior that one can imagine moving around in.

Also, I really love the computer-generated short films he made. Maybe I’m just a sucker for vintage electronic aesthetics, but there is something very satisfying about seeing computer generated mathematics-based interactions.

I also like his take on public art from his manifesto, particularly these:

“Public sculpture is less about self-expression and the myth of its maker and more about its civicness.”,

“Public sculpture is a cooperative production. … To give all the credit to the individual artist is misleading and untrue.”,

“public sculpture should not intimidate, assault, or control the public. It should enhance a given place.”

Through these, he suggests that there is a higher purpose in art that is in public, which I truly agree on. (if only this don’t just apply in public art) Art and their artists should not be self-absorbed and overly vague, but has a purpose. I think I appreciate what he do a lot more after reading this.

Conclusion:

I think this exhibition was quite informative in terms of how we can apply architectural ideas into our interactive spaces. I understand that it is not just the interaction, but also the setting and the feel of a space that makes up an interaction, which in my opinion is equally important to the interaction we design for the users of the space. I think his philosophy is also a good takeaway for me, and I’m glad to know that there are still humble well-known artists out there that truly wants to make the world a better place.