The pyramid shuttle
We made this installation in the background of the science fiction: Folding Beijing. The world in that story is divided into three parts, the living condition and even time are depend on their classes. We made a pyramid-like installation, which is a space cut apart by layers of earth, on each of which lives three classes of people. The pyramid is a copy of the real world, a fate campus or a controller as well. When the ball is played around amid, one will get traveled to where the ball reaches.
We created a story of Tang Tang looking for her missing dad. The interaction of this installation is reflected in two methods:
1. the interaction between little Tang Tang and the ball.
When the pyramid was given to Tang Tang years ago, it was just a toy that the player could manipulate the little ball inside the pyramid to pass the difficulties (for example, the maze) by using gravity.
2. the interaction between human and different space when Tang Tang grow up and Lao Dao is missing.
This time, the toy becomes the space shuttle, which leading main characters to different spaces in the “folding Beijing”. The difficulties of entering higher classes are visualized to some customs passes, which reveal the hot issues in daily life, like the crowd people, the air pollution and so on. By turning the pyramid, people could experience the holdback and traverse different spaces.
At first, we focused more on the installation we made instead of the story we told. We drew graphs and analyzed statistics to make drafts of the pyramid. In addition, we even prepared the Ai files for laser cutting and maze models for 3D printing. However, after listening to advisor’s explanation, we changed to use boxes and ink to make this pyramid. And I bought a little iron ball on Tao Bao. Maybe we thought to create the installation in a improper angle at the first glance.
Luckily, our final project was successful with a pyramid with maze and barriers inside. We even figured out a way to fold this installation in order to explain the background of the science fiction: Folding Beijing. We made an excellent performance.
During the Q&A session, our idea was actually reinforced by other classmates’ questions and many bugs were found by them, and we thought then explain more to convince the audience. What is more, the professor’s explanation of different classes told me that he got our idea, which made us contented.
For others’ work, I especially remember a digital pet, which protect its owner and grow up with the owner. It is like a robot pet that people could raise it. Through the performance, the robot grew from a little iron man to a huge robot with weapona, accompanying the little girl for decades. Based on The Lifecycle of Software Objects, their robot is capable to communicate and interact with people. From my perspective, their performance contains not only enough details of the pet’s growth but also some comedy elements. To become more clear to understand, their performance would show more changes about the transition and growth of the robot pet.
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