After discussing it with classmates and friends, I got a lot of great feedback. I had three designs before, but now I narrow them down to two art installations, Mirror Ball and Random Portrait.

Mirror Ball

Seen from a distance, the Mirror Ball is a sphere suspended in the air, around 3x3x3m. Its surface material is composed of various types of cameras, displays and  signal lights. (Wide-angle camera, CCTV camera, telephoto camera, black and white camera, color camera, infrared camera, display as big as mobile phone, 14’,17’, 24’ inch display, camera display, meter display, thermal imaging display, transistor, LED, bulb, oscilloscope.) Its exterior looks like a Chimera monster, and it simultaneously has the function of photographing and displaying the surroundings.

In addition, these are almost 360-degree camera Settings, and the data they record can be combined into a virtual VR environment in the computer, which can be messy because different recording media produce different views and data. I want to use this chaotic VR space as a metaphor for the complex diversity of people’s eyes and opinions, and the scenery they synthesize should also be complex and random. 

At this time, the “eye of God” is not just looking at everything from a high place, I think it should be in all random places, with a kaleidoscope of ways to observe, feel and combine. What I want to express in the physical part of this work is how many different media can be used to convey the same thing in the context of today’s technology monitoring human beings, people monitoring other people. In the virtual world of VR glasses, people can rethink their relationship with the environment, and the same environment can also take different forms in different media. Break up the visual remnants and rebuild the new environment.

 

Random Portrait

This art installation, which can be displayed on any street in the world, it is structured as a combination of a display and a camera, (a camera hidden behind a screen). It shows the face of a stranger, either from the city nearby or from the other side of the world. The person in the picture is shown in the range like a classic portrait (chest to top of head). Participants were asked to gaze  at the person on the screen, trying not to show emotion or talk, for one minute. The “eye contact” between the two is actually a random combination. Images are transferred from the camera to the cloud and then randomly assigned to each art installation from the cloud. Perhaps for the convenience of synchronization, the art installation can be connected globally every 15 minutes to ensure that participants can see each other when they sit down. The whole device is wired in real time, but the connections between individuals are randomly shuffled. As the number of people more and more involved in this activity,  “the face” recorded by video camera are more and more rich, these data come from all over the world, different nationalities, different social classes, different age, different gender, different countries, different beliefs, different view of the world, I want to collect their faces, and compound  a “human face”.

I want to express the diversity of the current world through Random Portrait, to appeal to everyone to see what we can’t see, what we don’t want to see, what we can’t see within our capacity, and who we ignore. In addition, in the post-epidemic era, I think this kind of gaze can bring some warmth to each individual, because the power of eye contact is very powerful. The final synthetic “portrait of human being” can represent the collection of all individuals, the harmonious coexistence.