Greyworld

I had the idea to create a bridge half way round the path which would be made from wooden planks that produce sounds as they are stepped on. Thinking about existing sound installations I remembered a dome shaped permanent feature at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park which had a wooden floor sensitised with tiny sensors that were triggered as people waled across. Looking into the creators of this piece, Greyworld, I discovered that they had in fact also done a piece on a bridge inspired by the dome sculpture 'Playground'.
Greyworld are interested in public-activated art, sculpture and interactive installations. Their work tends to be rather subtle and environmentally reflective often allowing participants to opportunity to play through the work. This fits in perfectly with my concept.

Sally Heller - Faux Man River

I find this image really inspiring as it combines light within the eco theme.

Sally Heller

Sally Heller Installations

"Sally Heller’s multimedia installations are visual journeys that take the imagination through the looking glass into a fantasy and theatrical swampland of shimmering silver mylar, wrapping paper, webbed pipe cleaners, plastic plates, chicken wire mesh and whiffle balls. They entertain, but more important, they make one think about the absurdities of modern society and pop culture. The ancients built stone cathedrals for immortality; today’s world makes plastic webbed six-pack holders that will outlast the work of even the greatest stonecutter."

This quote from Louisiana Life Magazine describing Heller's work really helps to explain what I aim to do with my work. I want a visual, experiential journey that is magical and fantasy like. The more I think about how to integrate 'eco' within my work I think about using cotton (the past of Ancoats) alongside the concept of re-use and recycling which is a main feature of present day life that is being enforced within our daily lives to create a garden/park within a city location that never had public spaces especially parks. So creating what could be in the area in the future from the past and present without affecting the current state of the changeable Ancoats. It will provide a space for people to relax and escape and for children to explore whilst emerging themselves within a sensory experience.

The idea of using cheap manufactured products is really inspiring but I think I may focus more upon the theme of clothing due to Ancoats history with cotton, creating sculptures from thread, buttons, fabric etc. 

Cotton - Fabric - Light

These are just a couple of images from the internet of cotton fields. It reminds me very much of some of the installations I have already looked at using light.

Materials?

Now I've thought about what is going to be in my space I need to consider what it will be made from. My initial thoughts whilst thinking of my design was something similar to a children's indoor jungle gym.

However I want to consider the history of Ancoats more and intertwine this into the design. During my research I looked at the designers Luzinterruptus who used recycle bags withina few pieces of their work. The concept of recycling and eco-friendly could be a good route to look into. The mushrooms made by SITU studio provided the link to fabric, so I intend to look into ways to use fabric, clothing and cotton (considering Ancoats history includes cotton factories).

Guerra de la Paz is the combination of Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz—who recover landfill-bound clothing and render them into subversive art installations. This particular one reminds me of a forest with trees, grass and mushrooms and flowers in. I love the effect of it but if I were to include this style I need to consider how the participant can move through the installation.

Reorder - Installation

Fabric Mushrooms by SITU Studio in the great hall in Brooklyn Museum.  

Mushroom Installation

LED light installations

"Mushroom Patch” was welded from 1/2" steel rods by artist Butch Kanter over a two-month period. It is built on a heavily modified body of a functional Geo Metro car and covered by white Lycra and faux fur. The installation also has DMX-controlled custom LED strips.

Green Voodoo Experience

A collaboration with the Lighting Science Group and CD + M Lighting and Design Group, their exhibition “Garden Lights, Holiday Nights”. LSG, a leader in LED manufacturing, has scattered the garden with various glowing shapes. An LED topiary of space age tree shapes and small shrub orbs are arranged in a promenade on the Great Lawn of the botanical garden. The Atlanta Botanical Garden’s choice to outfit their grounds with an energy efficient display this year is a powerful message to their public that integrating low energy usage and recyclable materials are just as important as paying homage to the importance of nature and organic beauty.

 

Carsten Höller

Upside Down Mushroom, installation for his one-man show at the Fondazione Prada, 2001.

Concept

My idea is to create a sensory garden which will create an experiential path that each spectator is asked to follow in order to undergo the effects present. It will test their senses via discovery and exploration.

The main feature within the space will be a projected stream running through on a winding path. This will be accompanied by the sound of running water. The effect of the water sound will create a calm feel to the space. It will eventually lead to a waterfall also projected onto a curtain which will be the exit that the participant must go through.

Alice in Wonderland Garden

Alice in Wonderland provides inspiration for scale within my work, I think it might feel a bit more of a magical experience if features within the garden are out of proportion and a lot larger than expected, as though the child is an insect exploring the garden, crawling through grass, climbing up flowers and onto mushrooms.

Experia - Sensory Room

http://www.experia-innovations.co.uk/

Learning Through Play

Learning through play is a term used to describe when a child learns to make sense of the world around them via engaging with their surrounding environment. It replies upon children being naturally curious to explore and discover.
There are five elements in children’s play:

1. Play must be pleasurable and enjoyable.
2. Play must have no extrinsic goals; there is no prescribed learning that must occur.
3. Play is spontaneous and voluntary.
4. Play involves active engagement on the part of the player.
5. Play involves an element of make-believe.

Sensory Rooms

As I have worked in a special needs school previously I have experienced a sensory room which provides people with special needs a space to explore and develop their senses and skills. They usually allow for people to learn through play. They usually contain soft play areas with padded floors and walls alongside interactive equipment which allow for the room to become full of sound, lighting and fragrancing.

The Chocolate Room

The Chocolate Room is the first room the group enters within Wonka's factory. It appears as a huge garden and almost everything in this room is edible: the pavements, the bushes, even the grass. The trees grow jelly apples, bushes sprout lollipops, pumpkins are filled with sugar cubes instead of seeds and the mushrooms spurt whipped cream.The main icon of the room is the Chocolate River, where the chocolate is mixed and churned by the waterfall.

I realise this is quite elaborate and highly unlikely to produce but I love the concept and find it so magical. I would like to create something along the lines of this within my garden that people can taste.

Willy Wonka

Dual Gardens

ART + COM is an organisation formed to explore the new mediums applied possibilities in the fields of art, design, science and technology. I came across their work via the internet and particularly liked their garden installation thats plays with virtual and real plants.


Dual Gardens - Access this link to view video clip

Sensory Garden

I have now decided it might be more interesting to cover all the senses within the garden. It will allow the participant to explore a hidden garden in the dark through touching features which reveal themselves once interacted with. It will also contain smells and textures alongside sounds which will appear as a reaction once touched.

Rachel Davies - The Light Garden

Rachel Davies created an interactive light and video installation which is very similar to my idea but uses projection. I think this is a really good concept and would like to incorporate it in my design.

Sound Garden

As I tried to think of existing experiences that were similar or tried to achieve similar outcomes as I do I remembered back to my childhood and visiting the children's museum 'Eureka'. I loved going when I was younger and exploring and discovering. It felt like a truly magical place which is what I aim to achieve. I remembered an area they had called the 'Sound Garden' which had mushroom stools you could sit on and would make noises and musical grasses. I thought this would be a good place to visit and explore myself in order to get more inspiration for how to design mine. So I have booked a visit for the weekend... Quite excited! :)

Sound Garden @ EUREKA

Light Garden

My research so far has led me to come up with the concept of a light garden. It would be interactive and allow the participant to discover the space via light. It would begin as almost dark and the person would be armed with a torch in order to guide their way through the area. I want to transform the substation into an indoor garden that provides an innovative and exciting experience. My initial target audience is young children and families as it will be a discovery space with a theme of 'things aren't always what they seem'.

'A Cloud of Bags'

In early March, art group Luzinterruptus immortalized the plastic bag with an impromtu garden of light. The installation, called “A Cloud of Bags Visit the Prado” occupied the area near The Prado Museum in Madrid for a period of about 4 hours. It included 80 such recycled baggies, which inflated with the aid of the wind.

Andy Warhol floating Mylar Balloons

Robert Janson - Plastic Bag

 Robert Janson’s beautiful plastic bag installations range from delicate to heavy and resemble giant pink jellyfish. Using light, heat and air, Janson and his friends recycle the plastic bags into moving sculptures.

With his installations, Janson explores the ideas of color concepts, geometry, light and presentation to effectively transform his pieces from simple groupings of plastic bags into powerful floating sculptures. Recalling Andy Warhol’s floating Mylar balloons, the resulting pieces hover in space, moving with the viewer (and the air currents of the room).
The installation process begins with Janson and his helpers inflating countless plastic bags until they are taut. Then, employing geometry, Janson ties the bags into starburst groupings of six and eight bags, and then joins those groupings together. Gelled lights are then added, creating a spectacular luminosity as the light passes through the transparent bags. The resulting sculpture is a moving amorphous mass, looking more like a freakish (and grandiose!) member of the jellyfish family in appearance and movement, rather than a bunch of plastic bags.
Janson’s other plastic bag sculptures are equally transformative. By fully inflating larger bags and then freezing them, Janson is able to create the illusion of weight – the pieces look as though they were cast from bronze, instead of like they are full of air. He also “sculpts” the bags using an iron. With heat applied, Janson is able to melt a bag’s shape, creating more shape options without the pointed edges of the pre-formed bag. Using simple materials, Janson has achieved the difficult task of transforming something that we might throw away into something delicate and beautiful.

 

Plastic Bag Appeal

Paper Lanterns

Illuminated Recycle Bags

Luzinterruptus Releases a Colorful Army of Illuminated Garbage Bags for Recycling Awareness in Warsaw. Recycling is not yet a daily activity for many households in Warsaw, Poland, so Luzinterruptus decided to bring the issue to light. By illuminating an array of colored bags that other countries reserve for recycling, the group created an innovative art installation that brings recycling awareness to locals.

The project, called Recycling Sunday, was commissioned by Galeria Starter to occupy a local plaza for only twelve hours. One thousand colored plastic bags were scattered about the area, each fitted with a light bulb inside. Luzinterruptus chose bags in the three colors used for recycling – green for glass, yellow for metal and blue for paper. The blue bags were hung, forming an impromptu illuminated sky, while the yellow and green ones floated about like glowing tumbleweed. Visitors were allowed to take the pieces away with them, to the delight of children who treated them as balloons, and adults who carried them like fragile works of art.
Luzinterruptus and Galeria Starter created this grand spectacle in order to make the Warsaw locals aware of recycling initiatives and practices. By making an innovative public art installation, rather than an advertisement-style campaign, Recycling Sunday enabled Luzinterruptus to bring recycling awareness to their audience in a more engaging way.

Luzinterruptus

Luzinterruptus are an anonymous art collective who create urban installations in public space. They use light as their raw material and the night as their canvas. I've browsed through their blog and website and just love their work. Its so different to anything I've really seen before, it has encouraged me to look more into 'urban light art'.