From "Repair" to "Decoration"
The challenge now was how can we repair memories of those precious objects without modifying them, because we didn't want to destroy others' treasure. There were two solutions: 1. Photogram. After the tutorial with John, he suggested us to focus on the objects and the stories themselves, and keep things simple; Following this idea, we attempted to extract the outlines of objects and relevant memories on one paper; 2.Projection. Zhaolu proposed to use a self-made projector to bring the memories we collected to light.
Due to the limitations of the environment, we were unable to display the first idea in the studio. Although we didn't chose the first idea in our presentation, I still want share our interesting experiments in darkroom in next blog!
Film Workshop
Finally, we decided to make a simple projector to play images of memories on objects. In this way, we wouldn't modify objects, but people could "watch" percouis memories. We learnt how to make a projector on youtube and tried to make things easier.
In the Thursday morning, we went uni early to make and test projector.
Choose materials and Test model-Photo by team. Please switch to see all processes.
Create Your Own Memory
Our idea was projecting "memories" on your treasure. Every object has its own story, our job is helping people to retrieve those impressive memories and externalise them in a visible way.
John Fass's Memory
For example, from John's story, we collect several key words: grandfather, bathroom, early morning and BBC Radio 4, we tried to draw those elements on a rectangular piece of transparent paper, then project images on his old radio. While moving the paper, it looks like a movie about memory.
Alex Newson's Memory
Alex shared his old clock with us, it was a birth gift from his grandmother. Although he needed to correct time twice per day, he never considered throwing it away. We summarized that the keywords of this item were grandma, childhood, bedroom and dinner. He used watercolours to reveal those precious memories so that all of us can both see and listen to his clock story.
Presentation
At the bagining, we exhibited decorated artworks prepared in advance as examples, and also invited Sebastian and Max to share their memories during the presentation.
Overall, it was a successful experience, people involved. One stand out point from the feedback was that it would be better if could make movies more real, adding recordings of interviews as background music, or project images on a bigger wall would increase the sense of experience.
References
Navin Khambhala (2016) How to make a projector using bulb at home. 6 May. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKWsHRgkzLU (Accessed: 23 November 2020).