Miller Gallery Exhibit
Visiting the Anthropocene Room at the CNHM
While looking at the exhibit I thought about how they chose to display information . There were articles that you could remove from the wall and read about as well as books to read. There was a couch you could sit down and read the material in which is a strange thing to see in a museum, but seemed appropriate for the intent, which was to get people wanting to learn more and not just brush through the material. It was a smart idea and the room itself has a very naturey and inviting feel to it which I enjoy.
Initial Research & Inspiration
A few days before we started this project, I was getting ready for school pretty hard and dropped to the ground. I felt so bad about it that I decided to keep my blinds down in order to prevent this from happening again.
On the way to class, I told Janet about this and she told me that this was a major issue for the Tepper Building and that she has seen dead birds on the ground outside there before.
I had learned about bird collisions in highschool when a residential artist named Lynne Parks came to my school to talk to us about the photographs and the films to put over the glass she had made.
Birdland and the Anthropocene
I did more research on her because I thought it would be nice to do my exhibit on an artist from where I’m from while still covering anthropocene. I found out that she had put together her own exhibition titled “Birdland and the Anthropocene”, in 2017 which included work from other artists as well as herself. The purpose of the exhibit is to address the decline in bird populations and to make viewers understand the importance of birds.
https://www.thepealecenter.org/birdland-and-the-anthropocene/
There were multiple interactive components such as this one piece above by Cathy. C Cook, that was made by using gaming software to track the movement of people and causing cranes on the screen to move/dance with the people. She did this because she wanted to show that the way cranes move and communicate is not so different from people and that wanting to connect with these animals is not strange. I thought that this interaction was very effective because many people were able to get involved in it at once and it gave people a reason to move around and have fun in the exhibition space.
I learned about one artist in particular named Ashley Cecil, who contributed art to the exhibition and is from Pittsburgh. She makes wallpapers that include endangered or threatened birds in them and she made one specifically for Pennsylvania while she was a residential artist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (what are the odds). I would like to use her work in my exhibit so that I can connect this issue to Pittsburgh.
I also found another artist named Miranda Brandon, who depicts bird collisions in a very dynamic/powerful way. I think that including her work could help people connect more with the birds.
Storyboard
I started off trying to make my story board by writing down what I wanted to happen as people went through the exhibit on post-it notes and rearranging them on a wall. They weren’t in-depth notes on what would happen at each step, but they helped me get an idea of what key points of the experience would be so that I could map out where things should go in the exhibit.
From there, I made a sketch of the floor plan with components of the exhibit labled.
I made a mini storyboard so I could get an idea of what my final storyboard would look like.
Final Storyboard
I decided to seperate my storyboard into three main sections: learning about the issue, AR interaction, and learning about solutions to the issue.
Learning About the Issue:
- Reading info on bird collisions
- Observing bird specimen
- Viewing Artists’ work on the subject
AR Interaction:
- QR code,link, or app (idk) to open AR
- Use camera to view AR birds interacting with exhibit
- Tap on birds to pull up more information about them
Learning About Solutions:
- See glass films made by Ashley Cecil
- See/ touch other examples of solutions (glass with patterns on them that only birds can see bc of UV light, dotted glass film, netting/screens in front of windows to cushion birds)
- Sign petition for CMU to create a more bird safe campus starting with Tepper
Parti Diagram
I made my parti diagram out of post it notes because I wanted to be able to move things around and add/take away things as my idea of the exhibit changed. The layout changed from my initial sketch because I learned that we couldn’t use AR for our interaction for this project so the new interaction involves people’s movements being tracked so that projections of birds follow them along the wall until they reach a certain point on the wall and collide with an invisible barrier. After experiencing the interaction and learning about the issue, people would then see art made by Lynne Parks and Miranda Brandon on bird collisions as well as get to look observe bird specimen on the table that they can scan to pull up more information on a screen in the table. Then they would move on to see Ashley Cecil’s work and the bird films she made as a solution to the problem. After that, they would be able to design their own film and see how it looks on Tepper.
Mood Board
The purpose of my exhibit is for people learn about bird collisions and the impact it is having on bird populations. I want people to be invested in what is going on without making them too uncomfortable by the idea of dead birds. I chose images and colors that were calming and put them up against the images of the dead birds documented by the two artists, Lynne Parks and Miranda Brandon, in order to counterbalance the discomfort the two images may cause.
First Model
Exhibition Experience in Steps:
- See glass film
- Go left and read about bird collisions
- Walk down passage with birds tracking movement
- witness bird projections bump into invisible barrier at the end of the passageway
- Read more about issue in depth and see how it applies to Tepper building
- See art made about the issue by Miranda Brandon
- Learn which birds are most endangered in Pennsylvania
- Scan bird specimen on table to pull up information about them on the table
- See Ashley Cecils work and Series on Pennsylvania Birds
- See Cecil’s solution/ bird safe glass film she created
Feedback:
- Change wall color
- Make all content to scale (table and text)
- Consider other interactions
Second Model
This is an image of my model after Daphne moved some of my content around so it’s not exactly what it looked like before, but I will be using this feedback to help make my final model
Changes I made from the first model:
- removed other artists and focussed on Ashley Cecil’s work
- Introduce artist first, then transition into issue+ solution
- Bird collision graphic on back wall rather than left wall
- Smaller bird specimen table
- Removed wall of endangered birds
- Glass wall with film moved to back inner wall
- Added a wall showing Cecil working in NHM and with bird specimen table+ scanner below
Daphne’s Changes:
- Create curved wall with bird projections
- Move information on series to before issue introduction
- Have wall on tepper issue at end
I also talked with both Daphne and Peter about doing a design your own glass film pattern section of the exhibit which they both agreed I should look into. It was an idea I had a while ago, but didn’t pursue because it was too similar to something at the Cooper Hewitt Museum.
Cameron also brought up a good point that I hadn’t thought about in a while which was that people might not want to touch the dead birds.
Third Model
For this model, I have three interactions now. The first is the touch screen wall with the wallpaper Cecil made for the series on it. You can click and drag the wall paper to see the birds and tap on the birds to pull up more information on them. This solves the problen of people not wanting to touch the bird specimen while still learning about the birds in the series.
The second interaction is the projection of the birds that track the movement of people as they walk to the next section. The main difference from before is that the bird would no longer hit an invisible barrier and fall at the end. I like that it’s being used more so as a transitionary element rather than a commentary. It also comes up after you’ve seen the glass film/solution which is nice because then it depicts the birds in a more hopeful light.
The final interaction is the section where you design your own glass film. You start by drawing it on a tablet and what you draw is projected onto a glass wall allowing you to see what it looks like blown up. You also would have the option to see what it looks like on the Tepper builing. I still need to design the table for this interaction.
Feedback:
The main feedback I got was revolved around my first interaction with the touch screen. Peter and Daphne both said that the touch screen wall might be difficult to interact with because certain parts of the projection would be out of reach and that people might not know to click and drag. Peter suggested having a table of buttons that pulls up information about each bird instead. He also suggested that I incorporate the bird specimen into the buttons by having the buttons be glass boxes with the specimen inside. Amrita and I also talked about having bird sounds play when the buttons are pressed that could be heard from all around the exhibit space.
New Mood Board
I made this mood board because my exhibit has changed a lot and I wanted to update it to reflect my current exhibits themes and emotions. I decided to make a grid because of the importance of pattern to my exhibit now that it focuses on Ashley Cecil’s series. My exhibit is dominated by the light blue color that I use for the walls so I made it prominent in the mood board. The mood of the exhibit is still supposed to be calm, but also elegant and simple as well. I used fewer images and the ones that I did use were cropped to emphasize the colors and patterns in them rather than the context of them. I also included serif fonts in it because that was a change that I made to my exhibit after Daphne noted that the font should match the overall mood of the exhibit.
Final Model
Most of what I changed for the final model was craft related, but I also added the two tables in and a wall that says “for more information, visit the CNHM” at the end.
Final Parti Diagram
Steps:
- Discover Artist
- Learn about her series and learn about threatened birds within the series
- Learn About Bird Collisions
- View Artist’s solution
- Transition (movement tracking wall projections)
- Applying it to Tepper+making wallpaper
Interactions
Bird Wall and Buttons
For my Little Bits model, I downloaded mp3s of the bird calls of each of the birds in Cecil’s series and put them on a micro SD card that connects to mp3 little bit.The button produces the birdcall sounds when pressed and causes a light to go off behind the wallpaper screen in order to indicate that the information is being pulled up about the bird. Initially, I thought that I’d have my model have all its buttons able to be pressed down and produce a different bird call into the speakers however, I learned that I would need an OR bit to connect all of these different buttons and mp3s to the same speaker. I had to decide whether it was more important that the same sound be heard from two different speakers or that multiple buttons could be pushed that would play different sounds. I went with multiple speakers because I felt like hearing the bird calls from all around the exhibit would connect people at different parts of the exhibit (inviting people into the space or reminding people of their experience with the interaction) and allow people at different parts to enjoy the sounds.
Screen for design your own wallpaper
The make your own wallpaper section is comprised of a touch screen table that you use as your workspace as well as a wall of glass that has the pattern you’re working on projected so that its life size. I designed a tool bar so that you can select different colors, shapes, and brush sizes. The screen is split in half so that you can see your pattern next to you as you draw. There’s also an option to see what it looks like on the Tepper building.
Reflection:
I really enjoyed doing this assignment because I got to research things I care about like the environment and art. I enjoy seeing how artists use their skills to create change outside of the art world so it was really great to learn about Ashley Cecil. It was also interesting because before I even chose to have her in my exhibit, I had seen the scarves she had designed in the gift shop with her pattern on them and thought they were cool. I had no idea who made them or why and now it seems I know everything about them.
I always have been more interested in the 3D/spatial aspects of design so getting to make models and build things in sketchup were my favorite parts about this project. I really enjoyed making the model for my Little Bits interaction because I had to think about how I would build around all of the Little Bits and make the interaction clear within the space. Getting to do things like this motivated me through parts I didn’t enjoy doing as much during the project.
Getting feedback from teachers also motivated me. There were times when I felt stuck and I didn’t know what to change, so getting clear guidance helped me to move forward with the project.
When I was stuck, I also found that cutting things up and moving things around helped me to think visually and consider other options in a way that drawing it out or making edits on sketchup wouldn't have. The 3D model kept me actively thinking throughout the project so I see now that it’s important to make these 3D models even when you’re working on a project in sketchup.
I got most distracted in the beginning by having too many ideas for what I could include in the exhibit. I understand now why we were only supposed to choose one artist or climate change issue. Looking back at my initial exhibit, it was very disjointed and there were too many artists. I think that the more I began to narrow it down, the better it beccame.