Bury and Grow // analogue project

Inspired by the book “The Law of the Garbage Truck”, Bury and Grow encourage participants to bury their negativities away for positivity to grow. The reason I chose this topic was that I myself was going through some negativity in my life that I wasn’t able to let go. In short, I was holding a grudge against someone over something that happened and that was affecting the people around me.

I spent what felt like an eternity trying to figure out how to execute this project. I had many different ideas, but none seemed to be able to deliver my message. Eventually, I thought the Bury and Grow was the most meaningful and achievable idea and decided to execute it

The basic idea is that participants were tasked to write down two memories; one positive and one negative.

Negative

Positive

Reflections
  • Several comments pointed out the fact that they felt disconnected from the project because it was too literal. The catharsis effect of negative emotions was not strong enough. I wasn’t able to capture the emotions effectively as the actions they performed were not effective enough to convey the message.
  • I could have created a stronger narrative by connecting the positive message to the negative. By adding that connection, I believe participants can see the correlation and also reflect on how to react to a similar situation in the future.
  • A feedback given was that the message was powerful that I could bring into my digital project, even though poorly executed, which I hope to improve on for the digital one.

digital project // bury and grow to the fragment room

From the analogue project, here are some feedbacks that will be taken into consideration for the final digital project:

  1. the catharsis effect that I was hoping for in the form of burying the negativity wasn’t strong enough
  2. when transforming it digitally, have to take into account of “cloud storage”. how do you assure the audience that what you entered into the system is permanently deleted?

Through the feedback, I decided it is time to bury the tree and come up with a new idea.

The fragment room

Participants enter into this space where they encounter a laptop and a button on a stand.

On the laptop, instructions are given to type in your negative experience. Once you submitted your story, it gets projected onto the wall. After which, you are to press the button that has the word delete on it. With each press of the button, you will see your story getting disintegrated into fragments.

Image from: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RaNSwijShuE/maxresdefault.jpg

However, these fragments transform into floral patterns that beautify the wall surrounding you.

Image from: https://cdn.getyourguide.com/img/tour_img-1649775-146.jpg

Thus the message this time around would be that by deleting the negative experiences from your life, would you then be able to see and focus on the positive.

By letting go of your negativity, will you then be able to grow beautifully.

 

Concerns:
  • When participants submit their negative experiences and it gets projected to the wall, would people feel uncomfortable as everyone else in the room would be able to see their words? – maybe an anonymous means of submitting your stories would be better?

 

project 1 // ideation and concepts

Another rendition of the Let Go and Move On idea, which you can find here:

evoke body and movement without presence idea

I was thinking of a way on how to improve the design of the idea. I decided that maybe its better to let go of the garbage concept because firstly, it may not be “aesthetically pleasing”. Also, wouldn’t want to attract any unwanted pest, do we? Secondly, it requires participants to contribute an object which might be an inconvenience to them.

After much thought, here is the new idea:

CONCEPT

Based on the previous idea, the artwork is a sentimental piece that delves on people’s negativity. As we approach the middle of the semester, many people seem to be clouded by some sort of negativity, be it from school, friends, family, etc. Personally, I’ve been struggling with managing my negativity too and I wished that there was an outlet for me to let go of these emotions. Thus, I hope that this artwork encourages the students of ADM to turn their negative energy into something positive.

IDEA

From my understanding, analogue refers to no technology and technically, mechanics isn’t technology, right?

Anyways, the artwork first begins with participants writing down something negative on a ball that they experience recently that they wish to let go.

Picture from https://www.canva.com/photos/MADGyIIplI0-photo-of-ball-pit-balls/

Afterwhich, they will insert the ball into the slot indicated and will hear the sound of the ball rolling down. The ball will eventually exit the box and join the rest of the ball in the ball pit.

Taken from https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/stainless-steel-rolling-ball-sculptures-by-kinetic-artist-tom-harold

(Of course, the rolling ball set up won’t be this complicated, but this is an example of how the ball will be moving around in the box.)

As more and more people participate in this “cleansing” activity, the pit will be filled with more balls for people to play around in. Thus, transforming these negative balls into a joyful experience.

Soooo… More people participating = MORE BALLS

Why a ball pit?

I wanted some form of reward system so that participants receive something for letting go of their negativity and hopefully, playing inside the ball pit brings a little joy to them. The idea is basically to transform this negative energy that has been implanted onto the ball into something positive that they can have fun with.

SET UP

The set up seems a little complicated, so here is a sketch:

Other ideas

Confetti

Similar to the ball pit idea, but instead, uses confetti. When participants insert their negative letter into the slot and pull down the lever, their letter will disappear and they will be showered with confetti to celebrate the act of being rid of the negativity.

However, the set up seems quite tedious, as I’ll have to set up a booth sort of structure with multiple pulley systems.

Vending Machine

When you insert your negative letter into the vending machine (like inserting cash), the snack that they receive in return is a positive note to cheer them up.

Wasn’t too fond of this idea because it seemed like a passive interaction.