Collaborated Project with: Yuhan Ma; Yunqi Dong
MY GARDEN shows our research and perception of flowers through visual and tactile performances. The realization form is to sense people's dynamic and static state through PIR sensors. As an interactive device, MY GARDEN has a very intuitive presentation, which is mainly based on hardware sensing addition in space. The PIR sensors would send a signal to the servo motors that causes the flowers to follow people’s direction. In this installation, we use the concept of "responsive architecture". "Responsive design" is originally an architectural concept, and physical space can respond according to the situation of the people in it. The most typical one is that the structure can be changed according to the situation of surrounding people. We use this concept, hoping that this device can be displayed in the corridor or reception where there are many people walking around, so as to increase the frequency of interaction and make people pay more attention to it.
The interactive nature of MY GARDEN elevates the installation art from the original passive pleasing to the audience to the active attracting of the audience. The form of flowers rotating with people brings humanization, harmony and inclusiveness to the installation art. MY GARDEN is a diversified form of design expression, which can reflect our thinking on the user's psychology, understanding of the circuit and hands-on ability examination.
At the beginning, we planned to make a project about physical eyes movement that could follow people. Our starting point is to tell people when you are watching at something, the thing is also watching at you. During the research, we found many mature projects about eyes and we tended to find the representation of eyes under different art and cultural context. Then we found the surreal images below and got inspiration from it. We started to think why don't we create a vivid physical garden that the flowers of garden can follow people to move. Our interpretation of the flowers and eyes in this project is eye is not only give people personalities but could also give the flowers personalities. And when the flowers are watching at people while people are walking, it would create a feeling that this is My Garden.