For my final presentation last week, I proposed an interactive installation taking place inside a dome which is going to stimulate the sensorial experience of being in heaven & hell. I chose this project because it allows me to experiment with different mixture of visuals, sound, lighting and environment all in one project. So this final post for Assignment 3 will be dedicated to the final presentation which I will summarise in this post. The reason for making it inside a dome is that a dome has no corners, giving the visitors the perception that it is in a infinity space. Furthermore, the projection on the dome has an immersive experience for the visitors to enter and watch.

To visualise Heaven & Hell is quite a challenged as nobody has ever been to heaven or hell and came back with a story to tell. Hence, I would actually get those descriptions from the holy book of different religions. For example, the bible and the Quran.

8But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

– Revelation 21:8

The above passage describes hell as a fiery lake of burning sulfur. From this verse, the visuals can be interpret in many ways to match the description.

Verily! The Muttaqun (pious – see V.2:2), will be in place of Security (Paradise). Among Gardens and Springs; Dressed in fine silk and (also) in thick silk, facing each other, So (it will be), and We shall marry them to Houris (female fair ones) with wide, lovely eyes. They will call therein for every kind of fruit in peace and security;

– Quran 44: 51-55

This passage from the Quran describes Heaven as Paradise and words such as Gardens & Springs are being used to describe Heaven. From those few words, some colours and texture immediately come up to mind. This will be one way for me to interpret the visuals and sounds that I will be making inside the dome.

Another famous description of Heaven and Hell would be Dante’s Divine Comedy. In the poem by Dante, he narrated the story of heaven and hell and how each has a different levels. Below is an illustration which many artists have interpret from the poem.

Another inspiration of Hell would be from Haw Par Villa, which depicts the 10 Courts of Hell. These Chinese folklore makes a good attempt in terms of really visualising what hell would look like. Definitely I am inspired by these different sculptures.

However, at the end of the day, I do not want to involve religion into the dome project. Those visuals that I will use will be interpret by my own artistic decision and will not have any attempt in making relevance to any religion. That will be my attempt in this project.

Next up, here are my Work Breakdown Structure. As you can see I have break it down to 4 parts and the above paragraphs which I will interpret from all the different source of heaven & hell would fall under Concept. Constructing the dome is also very important and how I am able to use the different equipments would be very valid. Programming is also essential as I want the whole process to be automatic. Lastly, Experimenting. This is a very important phase because in order to make the experience very abstract, experimentation of different visuals and sounds is essential in order to come up with a final choice of visuals.

Below are my Gantt Chart. I did a total of 6 milestones because I need to know the progress of my project and the milestones will do just that. The first mile stone is when I have derived on my Final Idea. And my final milestone is of course during the opening night of the ADM Grad Show! Simulation and experimentation takes a bulk of the time because I need to simulate different visuals as much as possible in order to get the visitors an experience of a lifetime. These period of ‘testing’ would make the final product more reliable and effective.

The Network diagram is made up of the different equipments that I am going to use. I am planning to use max msp for this whole project as the programme allows me to speak to all different equipments. The diagram below are just some of the equipments that I am going to use. I make add even more equipments because the possibility of different combination is endless!

In conclusion, I would like my visitors to escape reality when they are at my installation. This installation aims to provide an out of body experience which will then questions their existence. With the help of abstract visuals and daunting sound, I want my visitors to interpret themselves the experience which they went through. Like all great art, it raise even more questions than giving answers of what is Heaven and what is hell.

Thank you.