Over the past weeks my project progressed a lot both thematically and format wise. Here is an updated version of my project description and pitch deck:

 

Project Description(Updated Apr 21st)

 

Over the past three years, the pandemic has transformed our lives in so many ways. After one and another lockdowns that I experienced around me, I started to contemplate on the living spaces that sustain us as human beings but at the same time confine us and become our personal prisons.

My quest first started with elderly people who either live alone or who are immobilized to their homes. My subject later opened up to a wider group of people who are forced to be confined within their households because of continuous lockdowns. The project opened up and became a broader, more poetic exploration on the relationship between spaces and the people who are trapped in them.

 

 

 

As my friend reflected upon his individual and collective experience under the lockdown, “When I stare outside my window, every other window in the apartment complex looks like a pair of anguish eyes每一扇窗户都像是一双怨毒的眼睛……” This became my major inspiration in the process of reshaping my project.

I think the experience of living within a modern apartment complex is very similar to a bee hive. The individual compartments are isolated, yet in seamless ways interconnected as a collective whole, though the residents themselves might not know each other.

I’m looking to collect individual narratives under this grander, collective, political, social, and national narrative that’s going on in the mainstream media landscape and put those intimate, personal stories into 3D capsules that contain them. So the collection of capsules and stories will be like a virtual database that somehow resembles a bee hive: you can choose to enter any of the capsules and listen to the pre-recorded narratives told by the person who lives in there, why they are trapped in the space, and what’s their relationship with the space and the space beyond. So it is a documentary, but not in the traditional sense.

New Pitch Deck

 

Notes of Feedback Received during Show a Thing Show

 

Sarah Grant:

What kind of a database is it?

Can you search based on keyword? A collection of keywords?

What the 3D scanning is doing for you?

Ref: The Brother Quai

 

Marina Zurkow:

The aesthetic is telling you something, the word I thought of was “languish.” Consider if that’s the vibe you’re going for in your work.

The person capturing the 3D capture makes more sense. Yes.

Maybe make a A virtual Bee Hive, too.

Ref: Real Piece Janet Cardiff & George Miller— her long black hair.

Installation(sound design):Only when you listen closely you can hear the sound.

 

Eric Parren:

Super interesting!

There are actually collective support, connection with neighbors going on in Shanghai rn, and bees are highly social organizations. Maybe also take that into consideration.

Ref: Manamana

https://mana.art/project#!en

Situating the project thru language: what kind of language/vibe are you going for, poetic, fragmented, or a mix of all things?

Tone? Balance between openness and curation. How wide-ranged your subject pool should be. You want participation, but not too much participation.

epar@nyu.edu

 

Jung Hyun Moon:

3D experience is very immersive

Keep the VR immersive experience.

Create a bee hive structure and VR goggles for each hive

Physical space could be modular, so you can constantly update & rearrange the structure.

Audio walk, sound walk — describe the room one by one — participatory experience.

 

Chris Wray:

ref: Maria Maciek’s

Push for that languish feeling 

Low Res for the photogrammetry is not bad

 

Reflection

My major take away is that the medium of photogrammetry works well with my topic and creating a collective visual database seems to be something that’s relatable to many people. Taken Marina’s advice, I decided to make it a participatory, collective storytelling process by allowing my subjects themselves to capture the 3D scans of their rooms during their lock down experience. I also took Marina’s advice in creating the installation: each hive should has its own soundscape, from afar it sounds like a collective, muddled buzzing; and only when one gets closer, one get hear the distinct stories of an individual. So there I can play with that dichotomy between individual/private vs public/grander/political/social storytelling. I also think what Moon liked about the immersive experience of being able to look around inside the 3D capsule is something unique about my project and that I should keep it. Eric’s comment about the tone of the project and how open the database can be is also very inspiring.

My next step would be to spread the word and invite as many people from as diverse background as possible to participate into my collective storytelling project. I can start with the NYU Shanghai Network, according to what Eric suggested. I think I can start spreading the prompt with people and broadening my subject group and meanwhile conduct user testings and adjustments along the way.

 

Updated Production Timeline

  • WEEK 14: (from now – April 27th)
    • spread the word(questions, prompt, guidance)
    • Gather n organize 3D models n audios.
  • Week 15: (April 27th – May 4th)
    • organize n refine 3D models
    • edit&refine audios
    • Construct the bee hive structure in Unity n design the audio mix of the spaces n user interface(as much as possible)