Nightingale floor: Core theme and change of plans

Today we went to the audio foundation again with Ben so that he can see the space too, since he was sick yesterday, and so that we could decide on some measurements for our floor. As a group with all of our inputs, we decided on a different space and as a result our idea also took a completely different direction in terms of construction.

For us the original floor was going to look pristine and pure, going with the Japanese Zen theme linking back to the nightingale floor's Japanese origins. However, the spaces available were warm, fuzzy, and somewhat chaotic in terms of the objects already there within the space. The original floor as such would seem very out of place and it won't be communicating so well with the rest of the room, especially with the audio added in to it.

To fit with the surrounding environment we're going for more of a DIY, found objects aesthetic. This also allows for more exploration in the aesthetics of the design as well. I'm thinking of contrasting materials and colours. Something like Juliana Santacruz Herrera's decorated pothole art.

Here's an example of her work below:


I like that splash of colour amongst the dull, grey path there. Also, we'll be raiding rubbish heaps tomorrow to get any possible materials we could use. We spotted a whole load of wood and cardboard, so we'll be getting those tomorrow.

As for the idea, the basic idea we drew from, which is the nightingale floor hasn't changed. But we still need to pin a core theme to it to help inform and expand our work to a deeper level. We've decided to go with the idea of "presence/existence". Since the nightingale floor highlighted the presence of people. There's no place to hide on that floor. How this relates to presence is how even if you don't know that a person exists, they do exist. Only that you don't know that so they don't exist to you only. This is like the question "If a huge tree falls in the middle of a forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?" With this theme of presence we got the idea for the audio as well. Recording the sounds of the floor being constructed, then let people trigger those sounds through a variety of sensors after it is finished, built, and running. This acknowledges the floor's own creation into reality.

We also discarded the switch trigger, as it seemed too literal and it's too easy to relate the action to what the audio does. We'd like something more random and unpredictable for a wider variety of experiences from the floor.

To link the presence of the walker/audience, we're going to try and have the sensors detect the people and record the environment as that time in an audio sense, and have that sound played back for an echo effect. A bit like an acknowledgement and evidence of a moment, an existence gone by.