Phase 4: Week 24+1
Define, Test and Prepare
More Iteration and review
Further development (go back and re-read points in the blog)
Studio Practice PDF
Weekly learning objectives
- Rethink Kindermood Room
- Lighting discussion with an industry professional coming up
Design Development
Kindermoord
Text for the room – in Dutch or English? Recreate the press clippings as they were found or reset as a whole page? The same setting for the type or pull out features?
Visitors surrounded by text, include the floor – visitors walk over the details of the movement?
Should the headlines room be a bit disorientating?
If the room is filled completely with headlines then the edges of it might become unclear. I’ve included the pic below to help illustrate this, look where they’ve added perspective into the layout and imagine that’s the room (in this case it’s someone’s kitchen).
Hmmm…not quite the impact I thought
Now the visuals (first run!) for the Kinder Room are there I’m not sure they have the impact I thought they would. Maybe it’s the proportions of the room, or is it too simple?
Back to the drawing board…
There’s something more to the white room but not sure what. Maybe the graffiti-style signs are having more impact and meaning than all the press did?
There are two parts to this story; the protests, noise and traffic and then the success; the cleaner, safer environment. Should this be two rooms?
Development of Kindermoord Room
What’s lacking?
- Interaction?
- Mood?
- Impact?
Highlight (?) the hazardous situation of the early demonstrations; blocking traffic, placards.
What are the main features?
- Blocking the lanes
- Children protesting alongside adults
- A local issue, not global (at this point)
What are the visual elements to exploit?
- Protest signs – recreate
- Campaign posters – recreate
- Press
- Photo archive
- Documentary film – show in the room
A local issue – could the content be focussed more on individuals involved? Focus on the children, their classrooms, their artwork on the banners. The documentary has the story from the point of view of one boy who lives in one of the overrun areas and he wants his street back – asks why more people don’t cycle.
Should he be the focus? The journalist who started the movement is a more key figure, his daughter who was killed is even more so. That would take a shed-load of research to find out about her; too ambitious at this stage?
Ben ended up giving me the advice in the end which was to keep it simple…
Keep things simple
Industry Feedback
Lighting was the main issue – I’ve no experience in immersive lighting. So, in the end Jotta Studio ended up giving the advice on how lighting can be used to enhance an experience such as this. The studio, based in London and Berlin, develop narrative-led spaces including temporary exhibits and permanent architectural installations.
The main advice was to pare things down; keep things simple. Where I was thinking the more that’s going on, the more immersive it would become and therefore the better the experience.
Not so…
Early reflection…
At this point in the project, I need to tell the story of how the experience unfolds as the user progresses through the room, to work out the staging and the story I want to tell and not just unleash everything to the user to cause confusion. The story has to be clear.
Once I’ve established a sequence of events, storyboard it. The technology comes in at the end (although it’s useful now have an inkling of what can be done and how), to work out how the events I want to happen can be produced, I need to firm up what those events are. At this point, I’m just pulling things out of a hat and assuming they’ll go together.
Reworking the Kindermoord Room
Tell a story as the visitor walks through.
- Starts with background noise
- As they walk in, depending on which side, the lights follow their path
- Noise increases as the visitors go deeper into the room
- Markers on the floor represent the boundaries of the roads
- Images and information play on the screens
- At the far end of the room is a maze of signs, recreating the protest banners, to work through
- All leading to the back wall showing the documentary film about the situation in Pijp (Amsterdam 1972)
Traffic noise slowly changes to crowd noise as visitors walk through.
Lights follow across the walls
The room views above feel too empty, needs more interaction – keeping it straightforward
View showing the addition of the maze of protest signs
The maze will create the feeling of the crowds, pushing through the signs represents pushing through the crowd. Showing the statements from the protest banners on the maze walls at a large scale will emphasise the collective strength of the people on the streets.
The opposite wall (our viewpoint in this image) is filled with red tail lights from the traffic. These tail lights operate in the same way as the headlights in this view.
Make a bigger maze?
With this layout, visitors work their way towards the maze. Shouldn’t they step straight into it?
Should the maze be all the way through the room? I’m not sure the large format press articles I’ve been thinking of originally will work, the earlier visuals didn’t cut it compared with the other rooms (and they’d be in Dutch). I’ll try just using the headlines along the floor area I’m calling the pavement and see how that fits in.
Simplify things but also use that to give more impact with what you end up with.
I don’t like the idea of walking on the names of dead children.
Make it a memorial wall, put their names on there. Have the wall as an arch to go through to the result – the bikes?
New memorial wall – last name listed is the girl whose dad started the movement (remember the name for next time)
Walk through the arch to find the modern Amsterdam – bikes flow (more than just the one) off the edge of the stand.
Reflection
Relief. Trying too hard to make an impactful room with an over-enthusiastic view of what would make an interactive room. The visuals for the Kindermoord room came on massively once the calm down message was received.
To do for this room: Work out a soundtrack for the visitors as they go through the arch. Further development would be to create the films for the touchscreens and the data-vis for the back of the arch.
