Manchester - HOME, The Whitworth, Paula Scher

HOME - Alternative Realities

Call a Deer a Horse

This was a game based on the Chinese Idiom. It tells you whether the answer to the statement should be truthful or not in the corner and you have to answer accordingly. It was really enticing once we'd realised it was an interactive piece, it was really difficult to play and messed with your mind a lot. 

- It was very inclusive of the audience, it encouraged you to play it again and again to increase your score. Thinking about how to make a piece that is simple in it's design bu well executed.

- The use of buttons as well of headphones made the experience familiar. Could this be an element to include in the project? 

Another Dream

This installation was about a lesbian couple choosing to leave their home in Egypt and move to the Netherlands. It was an interactive VR installation, at points you had to trace the Arabic text to reveal the English. The piece itself was placed in this wooden frame, making those taking part almost an exhibition in themselves.

The visuals were illustrations, there were moments when you felt like you were moving, or when the characters were right next to you as if you could touch them. It was a really inclusive experience, you were completely immersed in the experience. 

- This element of transportation to a new place could be something really interesting to play with in own project, is this something to incorporate in my own work?

- VR is a vessel that can be combined with other elements such as animation and illustration to create a new experience we can't have in the real world.

- Is this idea of transportation accurate for the effect I'm wanting to produce in own project? Wanting people to experience something I've experienced but not in the exact same way as me. Wanting everyone's experience to be slightly different - not predicable. 

4 Feet: Blind Date

This was another VR experience, here Juana an 18 year old woman in a wheelchair cover comes worries and an inaccessible city to meet Felipe for a blind date. It was another headset piece but this time it was videoed from real life, but had animations and audio added over the top. It was lovely to see the combination of drawing and real image visualised in such an immersive way. It did, however, make you as an audience member feel distanced from what was happening, whether this was intentional or not I'm not sure. I feel as though the experience could be replicated in AR theatre, having something presented on stage and the audience have glasses on that incorporate a different reality into the scene. 

The Whitworth - Elizabeth Price: A Long Memory

Navigation/Wayfinding for Gallery 6

Navigation/Wayfinding for Gallery 8

Notes on the pieces in the exhibition since we weren't allowed to take photos:

The gallery space itself really enhanced the experience. The surrounding,s even though the rooms had no light source other than the screens, were really serene and calming which was an interesting juxtaposition to the intense audio being played.
The gallery space also allowed for the settings to always be right, the experience was artificially created allowing for the perfect conditions every time. This also meant the whole experience did feel very artifical, you weren't "transported" somewhere else as you were with the VR pieces in HOME, but they were equally as immersive. - Something to think about within own project.

^Audio Recording of 'The Teachers'^

Manchester School of Art - Paula Scher

This exhibition was very underwhelming, there was no context provided for the exhibition, the posters were just slapped onto a wall in the space. The poster's themselves felt as though they hand't been considered as to which when where, they were all over the place in the gallery space.

As the posters were in the centre of the entrance to Manchester School of Art people were just walking past and it didn't really encourage you to stop and look at the art. I think people didn't understand or realise it was an exhibition, there could have been more added to the exhibition to simple let people know it was on.