Forms in context: hybrid exhibit environments
Objective: “create a temporary (3–4 week) exhibition featuring an artist (or issue*) currently on exhibit at one of the three museums. The client wants at least one piece of the artist’s work to be on display, but they also want to use digital technology to enhance the visitor’s experience in ways they are not currently doing.”
Target audience : Students, faculty and staff in the College of Fine Arts and those with an interest in art and immersive experiences.
For this project we have been asked to create an exhibition for a particular artist. For the purpose of this project I will be creating an exhibition for the Artist Bruce Nauman. I absolutely loved his work when I saw it in the Carnegie Museum of Art.
Initial Research on Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman’s work spanned from a broad range from photography, sculpture, neon, video, drawing, printmaking and performance. I was particularly intrigued by his neon works as he tried to enunciate the simple messages of life to his viewers. His work focused on his interest in language. He focuses on manifesting visual puns. He likes playing with language in terms of putting the metaphorical and the descriptives characteristics against each other. He seems to be especially interested in language as a tool for communication and the problems that come with it. Nauman’s use of neon as a medium can be seen in his work over the decades. He uses neon to use connotations of light to his advantage and he uses it ironically with private, erotic imagery as seen in his Hanged Man.
At the end of the 1960s, Nauman began constructing claustrophobic and enclosed corridors and rooms that could be entered by visitors and which evoked the experience of being locked in and of being abandoned.
To summarise what Nauman does, here’s a quote from him. He tried “investigating the possibilities of what art may be.”
The Miller ICA
For this project, we were asked to create this exhibition for the Carnegie Mellon University’s Miller ICA exhibition hall.
Conceptualising for the Exhibition
What I found most appealing about Nauman’s work was his exploration of different media and the creative and unique ideas that he had. Therefore, I believe that for a viewer to truly understand the magnificence of this artist, it is integral for them to witness the broad range of his works and the different media that they employ.
With this in mind, I chose to create a linear interaction for the viewers in which they get small glimpses of the different kind of periods that Nauman went through.
This idea of a linear progression has four stages that intend to let the viewers experience these different stages of his artwork.
- Neon Installations: This part of the experience would directly lead the viewers to see his most appealing media exploration: the Neon lights and his works with it.
- The second stage would refer to his works from when set up his studio in a small grocery store. At this time he spent time making several videos, in which he used his body to explore the potentials of art and the role of the artist, and to investigate psychological states and behavioural codes.
- The third stage would be about the people experiencing his installations that captured entrapment. So it would simply be a long corridor that is extremely narrow to just allow for a single person to fit into at one time.
- After that they will experience another video installation to further the idea of the immense exploration that the artist has done and has therefore helped broadening the idea of what art can be.
MOODBOARD
I created this mood board to create the general idea of the elements that I am going to use in the story that I am going to convey about the artist. I want to create that experience of low lighting, neon colours and at instances I want to depict that idea of entrapment that Nauman wanted to show in his work.
Further Ideation on the Concept
I kept the four stages in mind and started to think about the ways in which I could modify the space to better appreciate my concept. I wanted to make sure that each stage can be experienced individually but still be a part of the overall “story” of the artist.
In this, I thought about how I could establish subtle threshold points in between stages without creating too many walls because the space is not really that big.
I use small makeshift walls that could work both as dividers and also spaces that I could put information on.
With this concept in mind, and it being a little more refined than the start. I spent time working on the storyboard to better understand the experience that the users would go through.
STORY BOARD
Explaining the Story Board
- The person enters the Miller ICA through the vestibule
- The first interaction would be being greeted by the employed at the front desk and receive their headphones.
- On their left, they would see the information banner that would introduce them to the artist and the Carnegie Museum of Art.
- They move forward to enter the first stage with the Neon Art and experience.
- Then they enter the second stage with the black and white videos from his works from the studio in the old grocery store.
Hybrid spaces reflection: What other types of environments are becoming hybrid?
As the world sails through technological advancements, we see that there are several environments that are turning hybrid. One of the most relatable example is with the smart homes. Smart home instruments like Google Home and Alexa are increasingly changing the way in which people experience their daily routine.
I believe that this new way of living has both pros and cons. The pros include the fact that they make daily life easier in terms of making a lot of actions done verbally. For example, you could check who is at your door without having to walk towards it.
However, where I come from, the idea of a smart home is very questionable in terms of efficiency. This is because of constant WiFi issues and power outages. One other problem is the fact that this technology is not necessarily learnable by yourself if you are not very well versed with technology. I often see my Mother struggling to perform a lot of simple actions like turning off the Home Alarm or opening the gate. So does it really make life easier or harder?
Internet Of Things in my work:
- I could embed sensors in my space throughout the room and connect them with the earphones that the viewers could get in the first part of the space where they would be greeted. Since Nauman’s work involves both visual and the sounds, walking through the space would trigger sensors as they enter the stages and hence they would hear the different audios in related to the space.
- In the same manner, I could connect that with lighting so that only the specific stage can be lit at that time. This can help build curiosity and also help the viewers understand the stark difference in the different mediums that he used for his pieces.
Partii Diagram
This is the Partii diagram showing the interaction stages of the 6 stage of experience that my viewers would experience in the space and their respected areas.
FEEDBACK
- Think about the amount of the space and the amount of activities that are happening: seems to be too much
- Re-think where you would place your time-line. Would it make sense to place it in after the viewers have already seen the artworks?
- Rethink where you put the desk for the employee. Right next to the bathroom door does not make sense
- Rethink where you would place the artist introduction because if you place it where you have it right now, the back would be shown to your employee.
- You do have interaction ideas but is that it? How you can make it a unique experience that is not really being offered right now in traditional museums
WHAT NEXT
- Think about interaction through space — Research ideas and interactions
- Rethink design of the whole space. Do I really need all pieces that I am showing right now. I would need to rethink my space to include my interaction.
INTERACTION
This is my idea for the interaction. The over-all interaction would include lights and speakers being prompted through motion sensors. This would help users move through space in a linear fashion, focusing on a single art piece at once. For example, walking towards a screen would prompt the video of that specific screen and the audio of that video into the ear pieces.
How is the role of an architect and an environments designer different?
This is a very interesting question. First of all and in quite literal terms, the scope of the possible tasks for an environmental designer is far larger than that of an architect. Architects would be required to only build for the physical realm while an environmental designer could have to design for a large spectrum that spans from a fully physical realm to a fully virtual realm. This project for example would be placed in between the two extremes with both a physical and a virtual aspect to it. Furthermore, an architect would have to think about the physical details to the very technical aspects of it as well. They would have to consider the science behind making sure that a building would physically stay up right. An environment designer would only have to think about the experience that entails with the user being in the space. They would have to go in to think about how their customers would think in that space, be it physical or virtual. Their main goal would be to conceptually portray to a team of workers about how the user would experience a specific space.
INTERACTION ROOM
For my main interaction, I came with the idea to create a separate space for it. Within the space, I want to give off the idea of the studio being a space everyone can do whatever they want to do and it can still be turned in to art. I wanted them to get the idea that if they think creatively enough, art does not have any boundaries.
Self-Reflection Meta-Cognitive Experience :
What motivates you? What distracts you? What keeps you engaged?
Over-all, I would say that this project was a great experience in terms of learning. It was great to expand my skill sets in terms of the digital skills that we learned through Lab. Since this was our first project for the Sophomore year, the biggest change that I saw from the year before was the open-endedness of it. This gave us more agency in terms of what our projects could be. This played both ways. This challenge of researching through the possibilities was very engaging and motivating for me. I was really fascinated by what we were learning in terms of making the digital and the physical be a part of one another. This topic was very interesting for me and that helped me move forward in the project with my own pace. I was very excited to learn about how to make something that I did not how it could work to making it work. Questioning the possibilities and the requirements in the process of designing helped me keep a track of my own thoughts.
On the other hand, this open-endedness was also as distracting to me. This is because at some points it was very over whelming to think about all the possibilities and coming up with one design specific to the project was a little hard. It was very easy to stumble into a loop of researching for more and more interactive technologies.
