Narrative:
The narrative of the experience follows my personal path of discovering who my father is. The arc of the narrative is divided into four parts: Memory Fragments, This is the information and moments that I actually remember; Memories of Others, this section focuses on the memories I have of people related to my father and other people in my life who have served in the "dad" role; Things Overheard, as it says on the cover this section contains the overheard conversations and bits of information accidentally shared in conversation; and Things Shared, this is the deliberately communicated information, what people have told me directly.
Installation:
The installation consists of an array of gauze panels hanging throughout the space. The surrounding walls should be mostly black to focus the energy on the center of the space. Each panel has content projected onto it to represent the different "frames" of the narrative above. The art style of the content is a digitally distorted, washed-out, hazy look that is intended to represent the nature of memories. The panels should be loosely grouped into the different sections of the narrative arc, but should be arranged such that the audience can travel through the installation in any number of non-linear paths. The lack of a fixed path to travel is intended to communicate the feeling of fragmented memory. The content on the panels should come and go, either being obscured or fading out, it should last just long enough for the audience to recognize the type of figure but short enough to make them want to see it again. This encourages moving through the space at a faster pace but promotes returning to different scenes to see them again.
At the center of the space should be the silhouette panel. This panel is intended to be an interactive, and more playful, element to the installation. The audience is invited to approach the frame and see if the fit the silhouette of the person depicted.
Each grouping of panels should have an independent sound design to represent the information learned in that section. The sounds would be linked to individual playback devices that trigger different sounds as you approach different panels. This gives each audience member a different experience of the process of discovery. This also encourages individual exploration of the narrative. The memory fragments section should have minimal speaking, incomprehensible if present, but should feel like a dream. The memories of others should primarily focus on voices of others. These voices should not reveal any information about the figure, they should be very candid snippets of conversations. The section of things overheard should be exactly that: muffled conversations where certain snippets of information are intentionally made clearer. The section of things shared will be narrated by myself, quite literally sharing information with the audience.
Materials:
In order to support the installation there are a few materials that would be required. Firstly, the contend & assets, the actual images to be displayed need to be created. A physical space is next, this space could be a black box theatre or an art gallery, the ability to hang many lightweight things is required. The sound playback system is quite complex but could likely be adapted to work on personal smartphone devices with some sort of RFID tagging system. Another option is adapting existing exhibit technology. Finally, a projection system is required to actually display the content.
Content Demo:
Here are some demos of content for the installation, an example of the silhouette panel and some general scenes that would be depicted around the space.
Process:
My Process of designing this experience, much like the installation, was very non-linear. I started by thinking of stories that were close to me. I thought of some stories my family have shared with me of people who I had never met. These were all, to be brash, boring. SO i began to think of what could be more interesting, and perhaps, have the ability to become a non-linear experience. That is when I began to think about my experience of discovering my father. It seemed to be a perfect fit with distinct elements to the narrative, but fit well into a non-linear style. I felt inspired by the concept of a memory play where the different scenes are often non-linear snippets of memories. I felt that a ghostly art style with some digital flare would help set the mood while expressing my personality. I developed a couple of goals for the project: including visual mystery, and implementing sound.
The process of documenting and explaining the concept and story was the most difficult part of this project. The fragmented nature of the narrative was difficult to put into a visual presentation, I developed the different narrative sections to help explain the "story".