Felt it was worth sharing my idea for my final piece on here, as it helps me to be able to write and put photos in one place, and I’m hoping some people can offer me their thoughts and opinions!
So, by the sketch above, you can probably get a rough idea of what I’m thinking of doing. Basically, I want to create a life size, walk-in bedroom that will be filled with all things teenagery and detailed, and will be almost completely interactive for the viewer. The possible interactions will include (but are not limited to): playing my guitar and keyboard, playing CDs in a retro CD player, taking Polaroid photos, and the big one... playing a PS1. That’s right, I’m gonna have a PS1 in my final piece!🙌🏻 But why a PS1, you wonder, why not something more modern? Well, this is where it gets meaty.
Upon first glance, the bedroom will look fairly normal to the viewer - there will be posters, photos, furniture, fairy lights etc. But then they’ll notice that all the bands, musicians, movies etc that are on the posters are all from 2001 and earlier. There will be music playing on a CD player from 2001 and earlier. There will be American ‘items’ dotted around the room; flags, letters with a USA address, Then (I’m hoping this will be the last thing they see, as I’ll place this furthest away from the entrance), they’ll see a diary. The diary will be open on the last entry, and the date of this? You may be able to guess.
September 11th 2001. 5am. The “character”(completely fictional, I will not base them on a real victim) is getting ready to fly to Los Angeles from Boston, and she decides to say goodbye to her diary. Tragically, for the last time.
The bedroom will be messy, and lived in. The bed unmade, clothes scattered across the floor from where she’s hurriedly packed. A half drunk cup of tea on the bedside table or desk. There will be ‘clues’ all around the room, as to what happened, and why the room is empty, but I guess the diary will be the ultimate “inference” if you like. I don’t want to shove it in the viewer’s face that this person died in 9/11, I want them to work it out for themselves and react to it without any bias from myself. I think some people will be hit harder than others. I feel that people who are old enough to remember 9/11 will be more emotional than younger people, particularly if they are parents. Very recently, I conducted a survey whereby I asked “Do you remember where you were when you found out about 9/11?” For those too young to, I asked them to ask their parents if they remember. 90% of participants said either they themselves remember or someone older remembers. That is an incredibly large majority, particularly for an event which happened almost 17 years ago! This really shows the impact of 9/11, it was such a world changing event that it’s something which is almost impossible to forget. I guess, with this bedroom, I want to capture the last moments of peace (and perhaps naivety) that the world had. This room is quite literally frozen in 2001, as the girl who lived in it, who brought it to life, never came back home. It’s interesting to think of death like that. Everyone who dies an unexpected or accidental death (like the almost 3000 people who died that day, and the hundreds of thousands who have died in the wars and attacks since) wakes up in the morning, unaware that when they leave their bedroom, they’ll never come back. They may leave their bed unmade; have a cup of tea; a shower; leave clothes spilling out of drawers where they ransacked them, trying to find that elusive pair of matching socks. 3000 people left that morning for work, or to fly, or simply to walk round the city — and when they died, their bedrooms became like archives of the lives, dreams, relationships and individuality they left behind. The whole point of this piece is to honour each and every individual that died that awful day, as INDIVIDUALS, rather than just ‘victims’. Beautiful humans with dreams, hopes, fears, insecurities, secrets, flaws, and sparks in their eyes. What better way to show life at its core than a bedroom? This is just one room - a room of a fictional character - but it represents the rooms of thousands of people who never came home.
Often, when people die, their loved ones can’t bring themselves to clean their bedroom, or take posters and furniture down, as the room has become part of the person who has passed away. They preserve the room, in an effort to preserve their loved one’s character - all the little quirks they loved about them.
What I find interesting about this idea is the interaction that the viewer can have with the objects in the room, the belongings of “the character”. This room has been ‘frozen’ and dead since that day in 2001, then the audience come along and interact with it. Bringing life to death. I’m sure some people - after realising who the ‘owner’ of the room is - will feel uncomfortable interacting with her stuff, but some people will feel quite happy - even nostalgic - interacting with it. It gives the audience freedom. I will put notices inside and outside the room, clearly stating the viewer CAN interact with the room, just so that people don’t feel unsure. When I asked in my survey, “Would you enjoy interactivity in an art exhibition?”, approximately 3/4 of participants either said “Yes” or “If it was fun.” In my opinion, you can’t get more fun than a PS1, musical instruments, and endless 90s/early 2000s tunage, so I think it will satisfy that, while also having an extremely hard hitting emotional ‘slap in the face.’ A juxtaposition of innocence and horror. When people think of 9/11, they’ll see violent images; the towers enflamed and collapsing, people jumping/falling to their death, thick smoke engulfing NYC, chasing people down the streets like a monster. This empty, almost serene bedroom is the opposite of that, but it is in some ways even more hard hitting than those images, as it reminds us how it could’ve been us or our loved ones.
Nearly done. There’s still a lot more to go into but I feel I’ll do this gradually rather than unloading everything in one. One last thing I want to mention in how I’m going to go about the ‘little things’ - the photos, letters, posters, diary, sheet music etc - that will adorn the room. I feel these things are the CRUCIAL part of this piece - these are the things that will make people emotional, as these things are so beautifully human. I want to briefly discuss the ‘style’ of 2 of my favourite games, which are going to heavily influence ‘the little things’ in this piece: “Gone Home” and “Life is Strange”.
Sorry that you have to twist your head a bit to see them 😂
These images are examples of the many ‘little items’ that you find in the games, and the bedrooms which they are often found in. These small objects give the games - and its characters - so much personality and LIFE. The art style of both games will definitely influence how I go about creating the little things in the room - notes, mixtapes, photographs etc - but in terms of storyline, “Gone Home” is more ‘relatable’ to my piece. Basically, you come home to an empty house (like the audience will) with no idea where your family is. You progress through the house, gradually finding ‘clues’ along the way in the form of little things, until the end when you finally find out where everyone is. My final piece is basically a real-life version of this, but confined to one room.
It’s worth mentioning that today I did do a little brainstorm of alternative ‘events’ to happen that made the room empty, in case there was a problem with the 9/11 idea, and also to potentially cut down the research I’d have to do.
However, I still think 9/11 is the strongest idea, particularly after talking through my idea with Sara. I feel it relates most closely to my project, as it’s exploring both the individual memories of the character, as seen in their bedroom, while simultaneously exploring the memories of the audience about an event which happened a long time ago. What I like about using 9/11 is that it’s relatable to the audience, it’s something which everyone who’s not a young child knows about, even if they weren’t around to live it, and almost everyone is horrified and saddened by it. It’s a sensitive topic but I don’t see a problem with exploring sensitive topics, as long as you do it in the right way.
So, that’s my idea! Damn, I think I’ve been writing this for about an hour and a half😅 if you’ve read this far, kudos to you, honestly! Please feel free to offer your opinions on this idea, anything you think I should change or include, as I want to make this the best it can be! 😊
EDIT: forgot to include about the space I want to use! I’m thinking of the corner of the ‘dark room’ where the windows are, cos it makes sense that the bedroom would have windows, and also there’s lots of plug sockets there for the lights, PS1 etc. I’m hoping it will be possible to ‘block’ the bedroom off, perhaps with the movable wall things.
