#experimenttwo

EXPERIMENT TWO CONTINUED.

Filled the tub. With water.

And I watched these beautiful boxes swim. Some of them drowned. And I didn’t know where this second experiment would get me.

EXPERIMENT TWO.

Next, I threw the boxes in the bathtub.

This experiment harkens back to the very first group project in COFA1002, and in which we made a chatter box to represent the elusiveness of desire and how our desires change drastically as we age. 

The survey I conducted for the first colour experiment proved to be only semi-successful; to extract information regarding on how it elicits emotion. However, after feedback from tutor Jess, it became clear that I only gathered “numerical” data and in no way could I use it in a more abstract way. In other words I couldn’t make anything expressive with it.  So I tried a different approach, I made a chatter box and represented it with four different colours on the outside, and then I proceeded to ask people to choose a colour.  (Below)

The response gathered had meaning, or so believed the participants, many picked their favourite colours. Which is not to anyone’s surprise, but the real experiment began when shown what was underneath. (Below)

You see instead of anything to do with their favourite colours, the inside of it was something completely different (in terms of colour). The reasoning behind this was that I wanted to see what kind of emotion I would elicit from this? They wanted to see more of their favourite colours right? Happiness, sadness, adventure, calm etc etc, all the symbolic colours and what they SHOULD elicit right?

Drumroll....... Well, WRONG. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t really anything like that described by the psycho-analysis article. When presented with casual conversation and asked to pick a colour, many picked their favourite without thinking, but when presented with something else, it wasn't disappointment that came, no, not AT ALL. It was complete and utter apathy. They had picked their favourite colours, at least, they believe they had.  It seems that most of these people aren't 12 anymore. The colours in which they believe wholeheartedly that was their favourite no longer applies as exclusively as it did when they were younger. This chatter box was also shown to my younger cousins, and the response was incredibly different; there was frustration. anger and sometimes even sadness that they couldn't get the answer they were hoping for. 

I asked the younger participants why they felt so sad that they didn’t get what they wanted and they just simply replied with: “they just really really liked the colour”. Whilst the older audience went a little deeper with their responses. They argued that it wasn't practical anymore and that in reality, they no longer have an actual favourite colour, as more and more things are biased towards actual aesthetically influence. 

It’s been implied throughout several texts about the invention of mirrors, that nature herself was the first one to create such a contraption. So that animals and other living creatures alike can look at their own reflection when appearing in front of a stilled pond/lake. 

This fascinating concept of using water as a mirror I believe is something I definitely want to use, or at least respond to in my creative poster utilising the Desire question.     Since Desire and Mirrors are something that is constantly alluded to in popular culture - (see Mirror of Erised), I feel like what would be better than to recreate a look that harkens back to the good old days before time. 

   In this experiment, I played around with the reflective qualities of water, and left it in a bowl for sometime to make sure it’s completely still. It was very fascinating to see that it does reflect very well. Pictured Below: (You can see the light on my ceiling, so the reflective properties are quite high at a large surface area)

   I also made ripples through it to see if it was capable of reflection at all if the water was disturbed.  Pictured Below: (Distilled Water make really poor reflections indeed)

   Even though the above produced a really poor reflection, it inspired me to do something different with my mirror concept for my poster. I knew for a fact that I couldn't create a water tight poster in the span of less than few days, but this influenced me to try to recreate that sort of rippled haze on a mirror, something which I know I will be capable of doing in a few days; but I don’t know how effective it’ll be, that will be explored in the next posts. 

I’ve been thinking about where i can take my box. I’m still really captured by the wax. I still really like the idea of taking a box and turning it into a light made out of wax. I like the irony of taking something practical - a box -  transforming it into something which is practical again - a light - and then by creating it out of wax I’ve ultimately created something impractical. 

I also really like the idea of filming the process. I think that filming the creation and destruction of the piece would be really interesting. I also like the idea of making people watch something as mundane as wax dripping onto a box and turning it into something really fascinating. 

Assessment One ~ Experiment Two