Defining our user
Our primary users are passers-by and customers for the services inside North End Way (a hotel, a cinema and a number of restaurants). The space is under-utilized at night, and we want to make it a more attractive place to go – with greater personality. In light of this we’re focusing on a non-business audience including tourists, restaurant patrons, hotel guests and movie-goers. What can we do to bring the space to life for them?
Creation myth
One day Narcissus was walking in the woods when Echo, an Oread (mountain nymph) saw him, fell deeply in love, and followed him. Narcissus sensed he was being followed and shouted “Who’s there?”. Echo repeated “Who’s there?”. She eventually revealed her identity and attempted to embrace him. He stepped away and told her to leave him alone. She was heartbroken and spent the rest of her life in lonely glens until nothing but an echo sound remained of her. Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, learned of this story and decided to punish Narcissus. She lured him to a pool where he saw his own reflection. He didn’t realize it was only an image and fell in love with it. He eventually realized that his love could not be addressed and committed suicide.
Defining our intervention: as thing, base sense, content delivery
Reflective objects only become sources of vanity when observed. Our object utilizes and in some ways toys with its own core property – reflectiveness. As it moves, bouncing light becomes fractured and ambient, responding to the elements in the environment. Through the material we manipulate the way light passes through the space.
Two potential new interventions
Mylar has a great organic quality but it’s hard to control when it’s not stretched taut or pinned at corners. Through our experiments we learned that people react well to reflecting and bouncing light in a open space. One way we’ve been able to achieve this effect is through mirrored tiles made out of Mylar that act as pixels/facets.
- We want to explore ways to both emphasize and undermine the reflective properties of our object in relation to people / observers. By making our object cease to function as a mirror in the presence of people, it compromises on its expected purpose, it becomes a “shy mirror”. This is one avenue for creating playful interactions and engagement, and responding to our creation myth.
- We want to expand upon the effect our material can create – multiple lights, wider field of reflective material, colors, and projected images could all act in parallel with the elements in the environment to create new and surprising ambient light effects.