A. Retrace Previous Reading
The Veldt by Ray Bradbury is a short story that explores the dangers of technology and its potential impact on the natural world. In the story, a family lives in a high-tech “Happy-life Home” that can create any environment using advanced technology, including a simulation of the African veldt. The children in the story become obsessed with the veldt simulation, and their parents begin to fear for their safety and mental health.
For The Veldt, the portrayal of technology is the disruptor of this balance between man and nature. The Happy-life Home, with its ability to create any environment at the push of a button, suggests that humans have become detached from the natural world and are no longer able to appreciate its beauty and value.
Furthermore, the veldt simulation itself is a manifestation of the human desire to control and dominate nature. By creating a digital version of the veldt, the characters in the story are attempting to master and conquer nature rather than coexist with it. This desire for control ultimately leads to the destruction of the family, as the children’s obsession with the veldt becomes all-consuming and dangerous.
Therefore, I came up with such a theme that can reveal the relationship between man and nature, which I will talk about it in detail later.
B. Idea Sketches
This picture is not quite clear, the two words in the lower right corner are:
Role:
1. people (imagine himself as a hunter)
2. (narrator*1)
3. animals*3-4
Things to make:
1. nursery (shape like TV?)
2. Gun
3. animals (lion, rabbit, zebra…)
4. natural environment (grass, tree…
5. human leg, body, arm…
Initially, we wanted to use cardboard to make a box (like the one circled in the upper left corner of the sketch), or nursery, to represent the interaction part of our project. The performance part is roughly presented as initially, the person outside the nursery is hunting the animal inside the nursery, but then the picture turns and the person enters the nursery, while the animal appears outside the nursery. People become the prey, in order to express the theme that when humans endlessly destroy the ecological environment for their own benefit, it is humans themselves who suffer in the end.
However, as we worked on this, we discovered some problems.
1. Making nursery is difficult (too big) and not that beautiful. More importantly, it was difficult to demonstrate its interactivity through performance, because it was only placed in the middle of the process as a “barrier” between the real and the virtual world. So we changed some of the original ideas, through a similar to VR glasses but more advanced glasses (including but not limited to smell).
And a hand sensor, this can make the user touch any object into his / her immediate “virtual world”.
2. We found that we need to find a way to let the audience discover something. For example, before Andrew (hunter) put on the interactive equipment, Victor (clerk) told him (also in telling the audience) to wear it for a long time will have some terrible consequences.
We also made a board to tell the audience about the change of scene:
C. Success or not
I think our group did great in fabricating the artifact. Everyone did his/her own part great. And during the performing, everyone did a great job, too. No one forgot the lines! Also, we set up two different scenarios to present.
As for the failures, I think the our artifact is not that up-dated and interactive. And also we explained too much in the presentation. The ending could be a bit more complete and rich, just like the professor’s advice to us, some follow-up could be added, such as what kind of changes appeared in Andrew’s life afterwards. This can make our performance more complete!
D. My Role
Firstly, I came up with the initial idea of our project, but the idea still has many imperfections (as I mentioned before), and it is constantly being improved by the joint efforts of everyone in our team.
Secondly, I am responsible for organizing the works we are going to do.
Thirdly, In the cardbox production part, I made the interactive VR glasses. What is more, I just helped him/her cut cardboard and other basic tasks when anyone needed help. Pictures are shown in Part B.
E. Working process
After Tuesday’s class, Victor made a Wechat group to contact each other. We settled the time at Saturday’s morning. However, none of us had some ideas at that time. So we decided to have another meeting on Monday and each of us should have some thinkings on what we are going to do.
Everything went well on Monday except Andrew was late for a while and Victor forgot to come to the meeting. The rest of us, (Jess, Gloria and I) had a nice discussion and we made the decision quickly and smoothly. What is more, we agreed anyone who had time would attend the cardbox workshop and began to make the props we needed.
Andrew and Victor have finished the shooting gun and Jess and I cut (almost) all the pieces I needed for the glasses. After the workshop, we set the time to have one more meet (for the other props and scripts) on Thursday’s afternoon.
We had a really wonderful cooperating experience! Everyone was trying their best to prepare for the Friday’s performance.
Andrew was responsible for the script writing, because he is the main character in this! Also, he made his own sensor.
Victor helped Jess and Gloria make those arms and legs. Furthermore, they glued the animal pictures to the head ring. But I didn’t know why I can’t print the picture in color when I printed them!
And here are some stage photos of our performance!
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F. Critical analysis and assessment another group
I’d like to talk about the first group’s project and performance. They had a wonderful and vivd performance and an intelligent helmet. Wearing this interactive device, the person can remind of his/her dreams by experiencing a very real virtual world. The person who put on the helmet described the scene of his dream and others performed this dream. Their performance vividly showed the multiple functions of this device. I think their device does fit the setting in the fiction because it’s really intelligent. It also fits the requirements of this assignment, because the person and the device create a connection and interaction. But I think they also have shortcomings, for example, at first they didn’t make how this helmet operate (while explain this in the later Q&A part). Also, I felt confused if the device is more like a “dream reader”. As well as the fact that people do not give the device too much interaction, basically, it’s always the device bringing people experience. These are my brief comments, but I still really like their creativity and performance!
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