During this week I have continued the research I started last week and have started to experiment with the ideas that this research brought me. I had already experimented with the film production but this week I started experimenting with the exhibition side of it and how I could create a 3D experience from the 2D footage I had. I spent a whole day in the project room doing recordings with projectors and mirrors as from Niccolas Schoffer I realised I wanted to create a mirror-based structure that could be moved by the audience to affect how the light moves within and creates space. I brought down a lot of tiny mirrors that I borrowed from the theatre department and was determined to play around with them. Of all the experimentation that I did during the day the most interesting happened randomly, when I wasn’t even projecting my film onto the mirrors but there was just a green background. Some of the mirrors I had borrowed from the theatre department were flexible and made out of plastic, so when I was pressing on them to stick them to the wall I deformed their shape for a second. It was of great surprise when I saw how the light bouncing back of deformed mirrors changes as you come into contact with them. As I pressed on their surface abstract geometric shapes started to appear on them, giving futuristic tones to it. Even if this outcome of the experimentation is completely unrelated to the projections I was initially looking at it seems perfect for the idea I had in mind as it is the way I had been looking to involve the audience and influence space. I have been thinking and I still have to get my head around how I can make this part of the exhibition but I think it would be great to have a full wall or floor covered with these plastic mirrors and to let the audience see the outcome of what they touch into a projection on the opposite side of the room. I am still thinking around issues of budget to buy the mirrors, how to see the projections even if there are people in the middle, and if I should use the recordings I had or forget them completely. But I am very excited about this new discovery and how I can unite it with the writing to make it an experience of space where the audience becomes self-aware of their presence.
These are some photos of the process:
This is a video to show the mirror-touching effect:
This week has also been very important for the writing side of the project as I have finally designed the poster for the open call and send it off on social media and a couple of university departments to send around. The design of the poster took me quite a while more than I had expected, but I am very happy with the final outcome. I am also very happy with the feedback I had from the university and the emails I have been receiving from students since.
This is the final poster of the open call and the document of the call’s requirements:
At the start of this week, I also had my personal tutorial which gave me the idea of changing my initial plan and postponing the exhibition for January and just hosting a tiny mock-up exhibition in the project room or the creative arts studio for the purpose of the module. In the beginning, I wasn’t convinced about doing it this way as it seemed too complicated and kind of postponing and delaying my deadlines, but after talking it through at the tutorial I realised that doing a pre-exhibition not only gave me a bit of time with submissions of texts but also gave me the ability to do a test run of the project and have a month yet till the real big exhibition to change anything that didn’t work. This week has been thus a moment to step back and take a decision, with this temporal decision I have also changed my mind about the exhibition space as the Arts Centre hasn’t answered me after all my tries so I have instead changed the venue of the exhibition to the Bandstand of Aberystwyth.