WHAT DID I MAKE?
My project partner Sara and I made a gallery experience for people to move through at their own pace. It features six podiums with cast molds of body parts, images of the corresponding body part, and audio recordings of disembodied voices having one-sided conversations. We wanted users to walk away from the experience questioning what it means to know someone, and what they do to allow others to know them.
Here is a link to my project blog write up.
CONCEPT
When an individual’s life story gets stripped from their physicality, problematic assumptions can be made from such a limited glimpse. Our project, entitled Who Am I?, will inspire viewers to ask themselves: who am I besides my physicality? what do others see from me? and what do others hear from me? Using multimodality to execute our concept — cast molds, mounted images, and audio — we invite people of all abilities to enjoy our experience.
As a derivation of an earlier project that focused on cast impressions of body parts and audio of people’s breath, we plan to create an entire gallery showing off an experience which explores knowing a person’s physical presence alone. Many people may feel that their physical and outward appearances are extremely important and by titling our project Who Am I? we question these notions. We will have the physical; an impression of a body part, the audial; a person’s voice, and the visual; artistic representations of the body part which is cast. This will provide a multi-sensory experience, yet it is still stripped of any real information about the person – their name, interests, emotions, or background, and by finishing the exhibition with large vinyl text that reads Who am I? the viewers are left considering who they are without these attributes.
PURPOSE & CREATIVE OBJECTIVES
As the creators of this project, we wanted people to walk away from the experience questioning what it means to know someone, and what it is that makes them who they are. By showing the audience three major forms of a person, yet only in fragments, and following this information with the question: Who am I? the audience must consider then that they have heard, seen, and felt them in intimate ways, yet they have no idea even basic information about that person. We expected the viewers to feel uneasy in some moments, as gaining intimate knowledge of someone unknown can be uncomfortable, and at the same time, facing the question of who you are without physicality can be unsettling.
FUNCTIONALITY
For the posters, we took photos, edited them in photoshop, printed them at the VAC on transparency paper and mounted them on foam board to make them look the best on the white walls of the galleries
We recorded the audio on our phones in vacant studio rooms in the VAC, and played them from mp3 players from headphones. We embedded the mp3 players inside of the podiums so they would not be visually detracting from the experience. The audio was mundane conversations (mimicking those a person has with acquaintances throughout the day) and then ended with a deeper question, causing the viewer to reflect.
To make the cast molds, we mixed the plaster and made a holding container for people to place the body part to be molded in. We then poured the plaster into the container and let it sit for 30 - 40 minutes. Once it was dry we smoothed the edges and painted them white to ensure visual uniformity and to support an uninterrupted experience for the viewer.
