A. PROJECT TITLE
Away From Nature
B. PROJECT STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The monarch butterfly is a beautiful milkweed butterfly. The eastern North American monarch butterfly is famous for its annual southward autumn migration from the northern and central United States and southern Canada to Florida and Mexico. During the fall migration, monarchs cover thousands of miles, with a corresponding multi-generational return north. The western North American population of monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains often migrates to sites in southern California but has been found in overwintering Mexican sites as well. (Cite from Wiki) However, the butterfly species are threatened by the pollution, forest fire, which usually caused by droughts, and manmade deforestation. Butterflies are just a representative of the animals which suffer from human activities. When the human approach to the woods, the damage caught by chemical pollutions, expansion of cities, over-hunting, changes of the environment also approach the woods and animals living there. My final project aims to let the audience being aware of what humans did to the environment and motivating them to do something to save us and the animals’ environment. Environmental problems are something related to everyone’s daily life, like air quality. By letting the audience interact with the project, I hope more and more people can be aware of the damage we cause when expanding the cities and industries.
C. PROJECT PLAN
To achieve this, I will apply both physical materials, films, and camera shots. The design of the device is basically a semi-circle box, connected with a transparent vertical stage, which can also show the computer screen behind since it is transparent. There will be a set of distance sensors on the arc of the box to detect whether there is anyone coming near. On the semi-circle box, there will be servo-controlled trees, which are cut by laser cut and painted. And on the other side of the servo arm, the laser-cut buildings will be connected. When the audience gets closer to the project, the servo will rotate and change the trees into buildings, which represents the expansion of cities and deforestation. Meanwhile, there will be butterflies connected by DC motor and set on the transparent screen. When the audience approach, they will stop rotating as if they are dead. On the screen, there will be a set of films representing pollutions, drought, forest fires, deforestation when people come nearby as well as a reflection captured by the camera and tint in different colors based on the settings. For instance, the camera shots will be tint into the red if the movies are about the forest fire. But if the audience steps back, or connect some buttons designed as the shape of trees into the circuit, these images will stop and fade away, as well as the physical buildings will also go back into the trees. Meanwhile, the films show on the screen will switch to a forest walk with peaceful background sounds. The rough plan is finishing the coding and finding the videos before 11/29, building physical outlooks before 12/3, 3D printing the buttons and building the circuit before 12/5, test and adjustment before the user testing.
D. CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
Interaction is a back-and-forth conversation between two or more participants as the interactive device must deliver fun or some deeper reflection to the user and the audience around. The targeted audience for my project is almost everyone especially for those who grow up in the cities. Because butterfly is a representative of the beauties in nature and is known by the citizens, the dying of the woods and the butterflies actually break their romantic fantasies of human getting close to nature. The expansion of the cities destroys nature as humans drag the natural resources in a greedy way. The significance of my project is to point out the destruction we bring to the beautiful nature which we all want to pursue and consider as a relaxing place for citizens to refresh themselves. I hope after experiencing and interacting with my device, there will be more people to understand the enormous impact on nature by human beings in a negative way.
There are a lots of researches and other interactive projects that help me develop my idea. For instance, the Curiosity Cloud “celebrates a moment in nature and plays on the interaction between humans and the natural environment – commissioned by Perrier-JouĂ«t”. Though it only represents a cycle of lives and species on the earth by showing insects representing 25 different species from all over the world, it provides me a new insight into the possible human interaction with nature. However, lots of species represented by extinct insects inside of the glass died out because of human industrial activities.
Junkai Chen, a speaker in the mandatory event Machine Art also offered me a good example of how to combine the 2D arts with the 3D physical stuff and performances in the
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