So freeing myself of that element for now allowed me to start visualising toward a flat 2d graphics piece. I expected that the challenge was going to be that I would be cast adrift without a client brief, but that the familiarity of the form would help me get going. What surprised me has been that I have maintained the commitment I had to try something new and so the visuals and ideas have moved towards the creation of an installation piece.
Below are some sketches of what, for now at least, I am moving towards creating.
What has been driving the progress in the last 2 weeks has been a desire to persist with unchartered territory for me creatively and to ensure that my VET focus of viewer experience and involvement stays at the forefront. So rather than launch in to the design and layout of a flat graphics piece about synaesthesia I have moved first to to address those issues. My next step now will be to fill the format with content drawn from my interpretation of the research. But first here are some drawings of the plan so far....
The first image shows an installation space, dark, with a light source / vertical light box at the far end of the space. Suspended from rails in front of the viewer are 6 panels output onto acetate. The facing panel introduces the notion of synaesthesia with the 5 panels behind featuring one sense per panel. As the design is output into acetate there will be a visual interplay between the layered panels. (I will give more detail on how this will work and the kind of typographic and image based interplay I have in mind later).
Each of the panels can be slid out individually. This allows the viewer to isolate a single panel and view it independent of the others so that text and imagery can be read more clearly.
The bottom image illustrates another aspect I am considering - that as an individual panel is slid out a noise/ sound will be generated by attached implements dragging across the surface of the floor. (For now I am picturing these as spoons ( to tie in with the sense of taste) grating along a barred surface - like when you walk past a iron railing dragging a stick along it. The visual impact of the sound element would be more subtle than it appears on this drawing... (and viewers will generally be in proportion!)
It will be up to the viewer to interact as they wish with the panels - viewing all 6 initially, then seperately or in any combination of their choice. Each layout will work as a stand alone piece, but with bounce off and visually play all other layers too - to varying degrees be it through type/image/colour interaction/ die cutting etc
I have sourced what I hope might work for the sliding mechanisms for the installation - they are triple track aluminium rails (I'll be using 2, so 6 layers in total). There will also be aluminium bars top and bottom to hold the acetate and give weight to the base. There will also be draw rods to pull the panels across without handing the acetate sheets themselves. I will post an image of them in the blog in the next few days. I intend on the panels being approx A1 in size, but until I have progressed more with the visuals that will remain open. I will let the design dictate the format of the panels.
I will post my progress in relation to concepts for the design and layout of the panels in the next day or two.
to steph
ReplyDeleteHi Steph,
Its interesting to see how this idea is developing for you. The thumbnail sketches make it very easy to see how the installation piece will work. And the notion of the sliding panels which the viewer will have to engage with is a great idea. I can even visualise how it would work with motion graphics, but of course that is coming from someone who is not trying to learn 'after effects'
Since I read your piece, ideas have been popping into my head, which I will share but I do realise that their is a very fine line between being a critical buddy and bombarding you with new ideas, that you may not wish to consider at all. So please take these suggestions at will. Sometimes its good to hear things if even to clarify that this is exactly what you don’t want!
Sooo. Would it be possible for the viewer to walk around the panels, essentially making it an interactive walk-through of the senses. eg, if I was to look at one panel and then push it aside and walk forward, which in turn would activate another slide to light up/make a sound/ give a smell!? (This is sounding like a kids, touch and feel book and that is not at all what I am trying to describe.) I just think they would interact with the viewer much more if each slide reacted to the viewers response.
Another idea was that depending on each viewers reaction the out come would be different. e.g. If I decided to push a slide to the left and someone else decided to push it to the right (playing on the left/right brain thing) the outcomes of the same slide could be completely different depending on what was on the slide behind the left or right? therefore giving a different experience to the different brains!
I think the hardest part of this may be capturing it all in a presentation for September. It will be quiet difficult to capture the physical experience of your piece in a presentation or is it your intention to make the presentation interactive also? I think you are going about it the right way way, planning and plotting the ins and outs of how it will work will raise problems and force solutions. It would probably be no harm to set up a ‘box’ prototype and use tracing paper/acetates to see how the design on them will integrate with each other.
PS. I saw those panels in IKEA catalogue yesterday. I have a screen shot taken of them for you, I’ll email it on.