Video of performance:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HVbOHsC84VzVxBWzZQiMFuq6cOAcauch/view?usp=sharing
About our ideas:
To decide our concept, we shared each one’s artifacts the first time we met together, and then we generated this new one by integrating different idea pieces in our artifacts.
This concept is from the fiction Newton’s Sleep, in which people got illusions about Earth after they came to a new planet. In fiction, people can not really interact with their illusions, and these illusions (which present the bond between humans and Earth) made them desperate. According to the reading The Art of Interactive Design, we wanted to do something have a higher level of interactivity. After reading the novel, which is written in an anti-utopia style, we wanted to make something that can express our humanistic thinking. Moreover, many of our artifacts mention the concept of projecting vivid things, so based on the situation at the end of the fiction, we just came up with an assumption: People wanted to do something to interact with their illusion to fulfill their emptiness in heart, but the illusions are still illusions, so they cannot really solve the problem. And since people rely too much on those technologies, once there is something wrong with the technologies, people may feel even more desperate.
So we have our concept: A kind of floor that can project interactive images according to people’s minds. In addition to the floor, there are also other accessories: a helmet, which can read people’s brain waves ( people’s illusion) and send information to the floor; a glove, which can enable people to touch the things projected; a receptor which receives the information sent from the helmet.
About the process and collaboration:
We started to make the cardboard prototype on Feb 25, Friday, after the cardboard workshop, and started to write our script for the performance on Sunday, and started to rehearse the performance on March 3, Thursday.
First of all, we brainstormed the concept together, deciding what objects we need to do, and drawing a sketch on the paper.
When doing the prototypes, we assigned the work, so each of us did some part of the prototypes. We cut the cardboard and folded them to the shape we want and pasted them when it was necessary. Younian also brought some paint so we could decorate our prototype and make them more vivid( such as the sunflower).
My main contribution was writing the first draft of our performance script. At first, I wrote a theater-style script in Chinese, and other group members helped me to translate it into English and gave some suggestions on how to improve it.
An analysis and assessment of performance from another group:
I want to analyze the performance of group2: The Time Stealer.
Their project could change the time speed of people who wear the project. Their performance started with the birthday party for the main man character who met someone having the same habits as him and wanted to spend more time chatting with her. So he use this project to slow down the time speed of they two so they can talk a lot of things even if it was just a few seconds for people who weren’t wearing the project.
I think their concept derives from the fiction “The Fish of Lijiang”, where there was also the concept about changing the speed of time. However, it is hard to feel that their stories happen in the same universe as The Fish of Lijiang. One of the features in the universe is that people use manmade technology to replace most of the things in the world, so everything just feels fake, but I cannot see this feature in their performance. It just looks no different with a birthday party in our life, except an advanced technology. Also, in a universe where time-speed-changing technology has widely experimented, this kind of machine may not be very creative.
As for the performance, I think it did show their concept clearly, and the acting skill of actor and actress is very natural and immersive and have very good interaction with the audience. However, since the aim of our performance is to show the artifact, I think it will be better if they spend a longer time presenting the function of their artifact, rather than the atmosphere of the birthday party.