The presence of bean bags within the ADM library has made sleeping an important aspect of it. However, people tend to oversleep on the bean bag. Hence, Zzzzz, a site-specific installation, has been made in an effort to control the duration and quality of sleep through the use of colours.
(Easing section)
(Rising section)
(Waking section)
During the day of submission, I had the opportunity to hear a person who was sleeping next to the box her feedback about the installation. She removed the bean bag found in the installation since she felt that the colours being projected were to bright. When doing the project, I knew that the use of colours to control the quality and duration of sleep would not work for everyone. Prof Michael mentioned for his part that if I were to keep on with this project in the future, maybe I could consider sound such as white noise. In the end, I enjoyed doing this installation and would definitely do more if I get the opportunity to do so!
For the choice of colours, one of the main criteria to choosing them is brightness. So what I had in mind was to begin the napping session with a dark colour like blue and end with a bright colour like yellow probably.
https://www.colormatters.com/color-and-vision/color-and-vision-matters
https://www.quora.com/What-color-do-humans-see-as-brightest
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/attentiongrabbing-colors-74162.html+
I read some articles (links above) concerning the brightness of colours, and in the end concluded that blue was the darkest colour and yellow/fluorescent green was the brightest. However, what would be in the middle was not really brought up in the articels, so I had to test out by myself to see which colours would be in the middle.
After some trials, I finally settle on some colours which are: blue, purple, orange, red, aqua, yellow, pink and neon green. The order of the colours are arranged in increasing brightness order. With the colours decided, I then put the colours together into a 30 minutes video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdL82U5Yp3A (link to first video)
When I was done with the video, I realized that the function of the bright colours at the end of the video were not really working in terms of waking the sleeper. To resolve this issue, I changed the time frame for each colour and their order. In the first video, each colour had a time frame of 3 minutes. But in the new one, the video was broken down into 3 sections. The first section is the easing section which consists of displaying the colours blue, purple and orange on an interval of 1 minute each for 15 minutes. The second section is the rising section which consists of displaying the colours red and aqua on an interval of 30 seconds each for 10 minutes. The last part is the waking part which consists of displaying the colours yellow, pink and neon green on an interval of around 1 second for 5 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyMhoHwOVSQ (link to new video)
The function of the first section is to mainly help the person to fall asleep. Then the second section is to sort of start to wake the person up by displaying brighter colours. The interval is also faster. The last part is literally to wake the person up by annoying them with very bright colours. The flash intervals are also part of the waking up process. Compared to the first video I did with the colours, this one I believe is more effective since there is more progression along the video.
Below are the photos showing the process of constructing the box. First, the frame of the box was made.
After the frame was completed, black clothes and the translucent plastic were then nailed to the it.
And after hours of work, the box was completed.
After some thoughts, I found a solution to the difficulty I encountered which is instead of hanging the box, I can just put on the ground. The sketch below is an iteration of the box installation.
Again, I set up a small scale of the box to see if it would work.
Despite the experience is not as immersive as the first time I tried in my room, the box set up would work since the light is diffused enough inside the box to drown the space in the colours projected. With that done, I decided that this would be my final set up for my installation.
From my experiment outside the library being successful, I carried on with the idea of a hanged box above the bean bag.
Around the middle of the set up, I encountered a serious issue which was the difficulty to taped the paper onto the hanging metal panel. Due to this obstacle, I had to dump the idea of the hanged box.
On my way out of the library after I packed everything on the first day, I was thinking of ways to create an immersive space around the bean bag. As I came out of the library, I saw the usual projected announcement on the window and had an idea for my installation.
Below is a sketch of the possible set to be hanged above the bean bag. The plain rectangle in the middle of the box would be translucent plastic sheet so that the projected colour can shine the inside of the box. Another point to note is that the projector is found outside of the installation, hence removing the issue of noise and heat coming from the projector.
To see how effective the translucent plastic would work when light was projected through it, I set up a small scale installation and tested it out.
The result turned out to be great since the intensity of the light has been toned down and the light was more diffused.
The first day at the library was to try out whether what I had in mind would work. The picture below shows the projector displaying the changing colours onto the wardrobe. The result was an immersive experience where the room was drowned under the colours from the projector.
To start off, I projected onto some areas around the bean bag to see how much the area would be covered by the colours from the projector.
The end result was disappointing since I could barely see the projected screen. I then decided to cover the light source around the bean bag so that to allow the light from the projector to appear more.
After all the lights were covered, the image projected was clearer but still not strong enough to drown the area around with its colour.
Since directing the projector away from the viewer didn’t work, I tried shining it directly on the viewer. Since the light from the projector would be too harsh, I experimented with some translucent material to see the results.
The end result was not to satisfactory since the light of the protector was still to harsh despite the layers of translucent plastic added. The next plan would be to surround the person on all 4 sides so that to prevent light from affecting the intensity of the projection. Black clothes were used to cover all 4 sides of the bean bag.
The results were quite good since it was the closest I got to the experiment I did in my room, but it was still far from being immersive. Somehow, the projector shined onto the white low table and to my surprise, more light was reflected from it than any surfaces I tried on that day.
I then taped some white papers onto the black clothes to see the difference and again, the result was a little closer to what I want.
To end the day, I covered the top with white papers so that as much light is reflected back onto the person when the projector is directed towards the top.
At the end of this day, I realized that the design of the space I had in mind wouldn’t work. Another thing I realized was the noise cause by the fan of the projector which was quite loud. Hence the projector can’t be placed near the person since it would affect the sleeping experience. The heat from the projector was also another reason why it can’t be placed next to the person.
Below are sketches of what I was interested to do for the library installation. The first idea I had was sort of a sound proof booth where people could go in and talk. The reason behind this idea was to provide the people in the library a space where they could talk without disrupting other persons.
The main features of the booth would be a layer of sound insulation material so that the noise produced would be muffled from the outside. The size of it would be beyond human size so that it can fit around 4-5 people inside. However, one major criteria which I missed for this project was the need to have a media such as images sequencing or sound.
So after the consultation, Michael told me that the idea was good but maybe I can size down the scale of the project because of the limited time frame I had and also to think about what I medium can I add inside to make it more interesting.
After several iterations, I had finally settle on an idea which was to project water from the top of the person who will be lying on the bean bag as shown in the diagram above. The reason I wanted to use water as projection is to provide the person who will be sleeping an experience to sleep under water.
However, after pitching my idea to Prof Michael through email, he mentioned that my set up might raise some safety issues. So the I had to come up with a new idea.
After some pages of ideas storming, I finally decide to use colours to control the naps of the people who are sleeping on the bean bags. I pitched the idea to Prof Michael and he accepted it! The end result that I was aiming was along the line of Olafur Eliasson’s Weather project.
