Pam’s diorama: Shanghai Flash
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Concept and Design
The idea popped up one night when I went to Lujiazui with my friend. When we stepped up the bridge in the center of Lujiazui, we actually found that there was a very interesting mixed cultural phenomenon: high skyscrapers all around, with a celebration symbol of political event in the center, and a Disney gift shop on the other side of the square.
I was so impressed by this integration of different cultures and decided to make a diorama based on this integration.
Then as I started to work on my diorama, I found that I was also obsessed with the differences and intersections of different districts and neighborhoods in Shanghai, the modern business ones, the normal residential ones, the historical ones, etc. Thus, I expanded my idea into different layers of Shanghai city and the culture behind them. And this became the key topic of my diorama.
So basically, the design of the diorama is a 3-D model with three main layers: the paste-up background of the images in the city with the reflection of the skyline integrating into the background; the signals of surveillance in the middle; and the skyline laser-cut in the front.
Process
During the office hour, Cici gave me many constructive suggestions like using the Shanghai skyline and other abstract elements to represent different cultures. Also, it made me think about the metaphors in my diorama.
I chose a shoebox from my friend to be the container and painted it black.
The actual first step that I took was laser-cutting the Shanghai skyline. Since I didn’t use the laser cutter before, it took me a long time to figure out how to use it with the help of Andy. Happily, the product looked nice.
Then I painted the skyline blue. For me, the modern side of the city like the Lujiazui area is in the color of blue, because when visiting there on sunny days, the sky, river, and the glasses on the buildings are all blue, just like some dreamy blue fantasy.
Then, I stick the remaining wood board on the ceiling of the shoebox, integrating this piece of the shanghai skyline into the background.
The main part of the background of this diorama is a paste-up. I wanted to show different sides of the street scenes and cultures in Shanghai city. I collected many photos that I took while walking around the city, and downloaded some pictures from the internet. I intentionally printed the street scenes in black and white, for the background of the paste-up. And the people, buildings, advertisements, and other elements are colorful, to attract attention.
Also, I randomly stuck some points of the 24-word core value as a symbol of social/political regulation or propaganda in this paste-up, because I wanted to express this kind of culture in a mild but evident way. The fashion side of the city is represented by street shots on Wukang Road that I downloaded from Xiaohongshu, a popular so-called lifestyle app. And the more normal sides are reflected by the pictures of the residential areas in Yangpu and other Districts. The bag with a slogan on it was bought from Rockbund Art Museum, and I think this sentence saying that we can enjoy an international lifestyle without going to New York or Paris just fits in my diorama theme.
In the middle part, I stuck two signals of the monitor camera to represent the surveillance in the city. Because modern surveillance is ubiquitous in nowadays society, I wanted these signals to be distinct and eye-catching, so I placed them a little bit nearer to the front.
The laser-cut of the skyline as another main part of this diorama, stands in the front, with two street advertisements boards in front of it, representing the city as a whole.
I intentionally made the diorama a little bit colorful and childish, to show the fantasy and interesting contrasts in one city. And it is magical that this kind of contrast is what we are experiencing every day.
Challenges
Considering the layout is a struggling process as the culture is abstract and the metaphor is essential to the whole diorama.
Technical challenges: since I haven’t taken interaction lab, it took me a long time to figure out how to use the laser cutter and other equipment like the glue gun.
Limited perspective: the aspects and layers of the city that is shown in this diorama are all selected by me, with unavoidable personal preference.
Future improvement
The final product is rough due to time and technique limitations, and there is no actual caption that helps the audience to understand the topic right now.
Thank you