Frankly speaking, I didn’t dare to imagine what the world would be like in 2122, as things develop and change so fast nowadays. Pandemics, wars, and other disasters make the future so unpredictable.
But I believe that it’ll be fantastic to have a physical tenement museum reflecting the lives in 2022, in a highly-digitalized world in 2122. Therefore, I stubbornly want to keep the physical objects in my home as authentic as possible. To set up a traditional tenement museum in the cyberpunk era. High-tech installations and interactive experiences will be used as supplements to help illustrate the life image of 2022.
All the furniture remains the same as it was when the family left. Time has left its mark on their surfaces. Visitors are encouraged to touch the furniture gently to feel the texture and temperature of the wood and marble.
There is background music playing at certain times of the day, the same time as the previous family used to listen to music. When a visitor turns on the chandelier and steps up the stairs, the piano in the corner of the stairs will automatically play. It always surprises visitors, but after they get used to the sound of the piano, they may be able to sense and imagine the image of everyday life behind it. Life has its lasting melody here.
Opening the drawer of the desk, visitors can see the collection of postcards and snapshots of the family. Every time an item is drawn out, there is a holographic projection showing the story behind it. The item is real, the movement of the visitor is real, but the visitor is immersed in the virtual reality of the family’s memory. So simply looking at the collections turns into an experience of watching life movies.
All the furniture can be touched and used, visitors can sit on the sofa for a while, but they need to follow the rules in the museum. Otherwise, the sensors(everywhere in the museum) will set the alarm.
Also, to guarantee the visiting experience of every individual, the number of visitors per day is limited. There is no in-person guide, but the audio guide with visual aid is embedded everywhere in the museum.
P.S. idea of the interactive furniture
The chandelier near the stairs only opens when someone is playing the piano(right under the chandelier) in my home. So I would like to craft an interactive furniture installation at this corner to show the family life around the piano, through the ups and downs of the stairs.
When I was young, I learned to play the piano and the learning process can be marked by different songs from elementary level to higher ones. When I entered high school, I hardly played the piano due to the busy schedule of high school life. At that time, my father, a passionate classical music lover, decided to learn to play the piano by himself. So the melodies around that corner turned to the elementary level again.
To demonstrate the changes in the sound of the piano in my home, I want to design an interactive installation on the stairs. When the chandelier is on, every step people stamp on will result in different piano songs. This is partly inspired by the piano stairs. But here, it is important that only when the chandelier is on, everything will happen. The warm yellow light of the chandelier and the simple melodies will recreate the atmosphere that can bring visitors to the scenes that once happened in the house.