WEEK 2
Shtilyan, the lifesaver
In the beginning, the fact that Shtilyan was in Bulgaria was a bit frustrating. In the end, it turned out to be our solution to our problems. He, with a fresh mind, came up with an amazing concept inspired by Chaldni's technique. We then talked about it, and tried to implement this idea into our concept. We then decided to create an interactive installation with a hologram as well as sounds, that people can control with their hand movements.
Getting our concept clear was not an easy thing. We had to talk to a lot of professors, as well as Jacob - a super cool artist - and the owner of the skate shop in the city. We god a lot of inspiration, and we finally got our concept straight.
WEEK 1
Finding a team
Speeddating worked great for me and my partner, Indre. Indre already knew Sacha so she suggested we go and talk to her. This is when I met her, Max and Marieke and immediately, we agreed that we would worked together. They explained their "City Orchestra" concept to us, and we both thought that it would be really cool to work on such a project together.
We all believed that we would be ahead of everyone, since we already had a concept and the design of the installation. Little did we know, that two brainstorming sessions would "destroy" everything, and that we would have to kill our darlings.
As soon as we started brainstorming, we realised that we could not move forward with our concept. We started thinking about the design and the concept of our installation, but we realised that we were not creating an unforgettable experience. We then wrote down what we think about when we talk about an "immersive experience" and this discussion was very fruitful. We came up with many new ideas, which would add a lot to our installation. Furthermore, we also came up with a little scenario:
" The new music and instrument (music industry) killed the classical music and the Harp as well.
People need to find the notes back to make the Harp playable again.
Everyone is sharing their joy
Harp = classical music
Notes = audience
Sharing joy = how fun classical theatre can be"
After a long day of brainstorming, we decided to go home, relax and start talking about the concept the next morning, with a clear mind - at this point, we were all brain dead.
Well, the next morning came along with another endless brainstorming session, which ended up like this:
We always came up to a different problem because we were stuck with the idea of an interactive harp, and a concept focused on classical music. This is why, I suggested we leave everything out, and we start thinking about what Enschede really needs, or what we could offer in order to advertise cultural activities? What was it that we really wanted to achieve with the interactive harp? Was it for people to start listening classical music again, or for them to engage in other cultural activities?
We had so many ideas in the table: I talked to my team about the company Bare Conductive, which sells a conductive paint which I used last year for Project Exhibition. I thought it would be cool to use it for our interaction ( I also have a discount code because they have published my project on their website, which would be really helpful). Having said that, we started thinking about the possible designs of our installation and we completely lost our way. We started talking about projection mapping in order to create an interactive map with all the cultural points in Enschede, but again, we were lacking things.
brainstorming - design of the installation
