Based on the discussions in previous mentorings, I took the advice to not focus too much on the room conditions itself but to keep it mobile and easy adaptable to other rooms and spaces. Particularly with regard to enable possible future exhibitions and to focus more on the data and the resulting installation itself than on the room conditions.
With this in my mind I analyzed the survey which I wasable to conduct with 29 creatives so far. What strikes the mind is that most of the people answered the questions about a graphical image for time with something very complex such as a «perpetual movement» or a «spiral» but also with basic shapes or concepts such as circles or lines and rotation. Of course, «a clock» or «a watch» were also mentioned. In terms of interactions they stated «walking and / or moving on» and «going forward.» Associated with the graphical image of a watch, they also said «tipping on watch» and «rotating.» Another interesting statement was «consistent stream»
The graphical image of birth was mainly a very emotional state or shapes which are hard to grasp within a complex image. Main outcomes were thus «something light, soft, clean, and smooth.» As a concrete graphic element, «circles» were mentioned very often as well as «dots + waves». Not very surprising were several mentions of «baby»
Interactions of this topic were something really interesting. Basic interactions such as touch, tap and press were also mentioned very often. This could be used in the installation as well to convey or communicate a concrete part of it. For instance further information about a particular n-gram. In terms of more complex concepts, most survey participants associated it with «coming from a dark narrow space into a bright and wide one» or the very similar «breaking free». A few people even said «walking into a garden with green plants»
With this information on hand, I sketched a very rough concept and went into rapid prototyping to spatially sketch this first approach of the concept. It uses the interaction of time as a path the viewer could walk upon and pass different stages of the birth reports.The whole room setting will be held in dark with very subtle lighting which will be particularly used to communicate the feelings of this certain moment of the story. The core of this parkour will be a room that works as a metaphor for the moment of birth itself. Practically, this room will be created out of styrofoam to create a warm and bright room, separated from the dark rest of the parkour. Entering is possible through some kind of a door which plays with the associations of a vagina. Since birth is a very complicated process, it is hard to pass. Inside, there will be seating opportunities to establish a comfort zone for the visitor where he can sit and relax and watch the «baby.» This baby is an undefined object till now but it can be thought of as a parametrically designed 3d-printed object. It will be presented in the middle of this area on a splinth with an acrylic glass cover to symbolize the incubator. Additionally, an infrared heat lamp will be used to recreate the warm, cuddly, and happy feeling right after the baby was born.
This very metaphor-driven approach takes into account most of the survey results and embedds them to create the experience. When examining the effect of this pathway, I quickly concluded that it is rather a representation of the birth itself than a reflection on the whole process. The data set was almost not implemented in this approach but what kept me going to execute this first concept was to know that this is a first approach and iteratively reflecting on it will bring me closer to the knowledge what is missing and what is too much. Only by doing and a prototypical creation of the possible experience, I was able to not only designwise reflect on it but also with the very basic concept of human emotions.
These are my main findings and the current state of the process I presented at the progress session #2 on 15th of March. The feedback was partly as I expected when the tutors expressed that I should be aware of not getting trapped in the metaphor itself; and partly new annotations and hints were stated, for instance by Nicole Foelsterl who said that rhythm is something that is crucial to giving birth, occuring as labor pains. After this presentation, I had a chat with Mirjam. We made an appointment for next Monday, 19th of March, to have a more profound discussion about the project.
Another important part of the project is sound and video, since these media will be essentialto provide an immersive experience in order to communicate the topic. I thought of several possibilities to embed it into my project, especially how to map the variables of the data set on hand into a sound scape and prepared some questions and thoughts for the sound mentoring with Daniel Hug the upcoming week.
