Feel Alive — Being

Day Two & The first part

Ran Zhou
Ran Zhou
Sep 2, 2018 · 3 min read

Idea

This part of work is designed to make visitors realize their existence. The first step is to confirm that they are entities. Here are some of the ideas:

• Leave some trace

It is inspired from the depression on the sofa. When you go through somewhere and leave some changes to this place, it can prove that you have been there.

The elastic deformation of sofa is temporary. Maybe the material with plastic deformation will enlarge the effect.

Memory Sponge
Depression on the sand

• Block the light

In some horror films, one of the ways to tell the ghost and human is whether he has the shadow. Because blocking the light is a special feature for entity. So I will create a work based on shadow this time.


Rules

Visitor will stand on the place for foot besides the sandpit. Then, he should lie down on the sand. When he get up, there will be a depression in his shape in the sandpit.

There is a light in front of the visitor. When the light is on, the shadow appears. Visitor need to adjust the position and angle of the light to make the shadow have the same size as the depression and also in the same place. There will be some patterns appear around the shape on the sand to show that the shadow and depression have the same shape of you. They are existed because of you, and they can confirm your existence.

Technology

The position and angel of the light can be adjusted by kinect, visitor can control it by their gestures.

When the angle between the light and the ground is 45 degrees, the shadow has the same length as the entity. This principle can be used to confirm that the shadow and the depression are in the same shape. After that, there will be a feedback. Maybe some patterns around the shape projected from the ceiling.

Modeling

I use arc type LED plate instead of the point light in the storyboard.

Question

This is the first step of the series of work. I don’t want to create an oppressive atmosphere at the beginning. I don’t know whether should I design in the game mode or not. Interactive games will trigger the interest and participation but may lose the key point of this work.

The point light may lead to some problem about the shape of the shadow.

Ran Zhou

Written by

Ran Zhou

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