3/23: Initial Brainstorming Session

For this project, we are considering ways to improve Octavia, the octopus art piece and central fixture of the garden. The central question that we have been revolving around is as follows: how can we create a system of communication in the garden and the greater community with Octavia as the nexus?

In this first session we tossed around a number of questions and ideas:

• How could light and sound play a part? Both in the garden’s environment and as cues for how and when to leave messages?
• Is there an opportunity for AR here? Possibly leaving messages around the garden and searching for them with technology people bring into the garden?
• How can we fit this in with how kids and adults already play with the octopus?
• How can we use this installation as a way to get people (strangers walking past as well as community members) to respect the space and understand appropriate ways to engage with it?
• What might the nature of the messages left be? Confessions? Wishes? How are people prompted to know what to say?
• What is the meaning behind the prompt? Wishes are whimsical and playful and positive. Confessions might be darker.
• Might Octavia become a sort of genie or fancy suggestion box? If Octavia holds onto wishes, what does she do with them? Does she work on them somehow? Does the community collectively try to make them come true? Is this out of scope? Basically, what would be the long-term vision of this system we are trying to design?
• What ways might these messages be transmitted to the community? By Octavia herself? Some kind of web or mobile platform? Are they broadcast by voice or by text? Both? More generally, how might we define the inputs and outputs?
• Might there be themes to keep things fresh?
• How might technology help people interact with the garden remotely?
• How might Octavia “know” or recognize you? Might Octavia have some kind of personality? How would she build your trust? Might Octavia have some intelligence?