Expanded Media Space

This group project challenged us to transform a given space using projections and videos. My group utilized the space in Igoe hall where the computer lab used to be. We wanted to turn one of the corners of this room into a child’s bedroom that filled our audience with feelings of nostalgia. Our group, all having grown up in the early 2000’s took inspiration from our old hobbies, toys, bedrooms, and childhood fears.

One of our main elements of our installation was the monster that haunted this child whose bedroom we created. The idea was for the monster to be lurking in this space that was supposed to be comfortable and safe for the child. This is why we hid our monster behind a two-way mirror holding a camera that is pointed down at the child’s bed. The mirror allowed for the monster to be concealed when looking directly at it, but when the video taken from the camera is connected to the child’s tv, the reflection of the monster is overlapping the live view of the child’s bed. This live video of the bed allowed for viewers to see themselves in our installation, although it still gave an unsettling feeling since the live video would be recording the back of their head. This illustrated our theme of being watched.

Surrounding the bed were scattered drawings of the child’s memories of the monster, along with crayons and pencils strewn about. The floor was also covered with many of the popular toys from our childhoods, Littlest Pet Shops.

Many of the Littlest Pet Shop toys were broken or dirtied from many years of use. However, the toys that were in the worst shape were being recorded and live streamed through a projector onto the back wall behind the bed. This projection helped to transform the wall of the child’s bedroom into a space that felt unsettling with the beloved toys being extremely distressed and broken.

To close off the space and make the computer lab feel like a bedroom, we hung a white sheet from the ceiling. Through this white sheet, the viewers saw the silhouette of a woman’s torso and head. The woman represented the child’s mom passing by their bedroom. This further developed our theme of being watched.