Facey Thing
Walking along Marina Bay waterfront promenade with my friend, we spotted a crowd of people standing in front of a huge screen. The kaypoh singaporean in us started to arises, so we joined in the crowd. It turn out that people were trying out the interactive installation titled Facey Thing.
Facey Thing is an interactive installation where the screen will capture all the passerby walking pass the screen. However, it will only detect faces that near the screen. In other words, as you come nearer to the screen, your face will get detected by the camera and your face will be blown up on the screen then it fades away.
Our experience: A big screen with people crowding around that area > Join in > Face was not detected > Gets nearer to the screen > Face gets detected = Happy Us!
“Facey Thing is a fun and satirical celebration of the coming together of selfie culture and universal surveillance to create hyperreal simulated images of ourselves through the art of play.”
Through the description of the installation, it reflects our tech savvy world where selfie culture and universal surveillance are widely and commonly use. Most of us had taken selfie of ourselves or as a group (as known as wefie), then posting it on social media. To me, social media such as Facebook and Instagram is also a form of universal surveillance., other than CCTV. People from anywhere can observe us just by clicking into social media or even Google-ing our names. This can also be a link to stalking.
But through the interactive installation, it does not show the negative part of universal surveillance, which is staking. Instead it uses it as a form of playfulness, where people come and have fun without thinking about the cons of universal surveillance.
More information here: https://www.ilightsingapore.sg/Discover/Installations/Facey-Thing
The Floating Lighthouse
As we walked down the Marina Bay waterfront promenade, we spotted another interactive installation titled The Floating Lighthouse.
6 floating objects are places on the water. User will have to press and hold the button, at the control centre, to active the sound that complement with lights on the floating objects. Each button is connected to 1 float, by pressing and holding onto all 6 buttons it will create an overall symphony as one.
The intention of this work is for the user to press the button to activate the sound. However different button has different sound.
- Press any 1 button: To activate the sound of one float
- Press any 2 to 5 buttons: User are able to create their our own symphony
- Press all 6 buttons: There will be an overall symphony
More information here: https://www.ilightsingapore.sg/Discover/Festival-Map
Reflection – As compare to both Facey Thing & The Floating Lighthouse, Facey thing is more interactive as it include audience into the work. For the The Floating Lighthouse, the music and lighting are all given which gives audience a limited choice to interact with.