flying for the first time
flying for the first time is an installation that seeks to (re)create that first moment when a
superhero must look over the precipice before stepping out and soaring over
everything below or falling, falling to their doom.
Skyscrapers created from cardboard and a cityscape drawn in black Sharpie on paper on the walls, the scene evokes the minimal lines and suggestiveness seen in comics. In addition to the cardboard shapes, the cut out “S” and the reddish towel call back to childhood days when when you put on that cape, you really thought you might actually take off into the air.
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The interaction: First, the user sees the cityscape and walks around it, sizing it up. Then he or she realizes that the middle building (the most prominent object in the installation) is actually a ladder they could climb up. Seeing that his or her view of something on the ground (perhaps other boxes, perhaps details of a city?) is obscured and due to the inherent suggestiveness of a ladder (in an interactive piece), they climb up the ladder. At around this time they see the reddish towel with a very prominent yellow felt “S,” hanging off the side if they haven’t seen it already. They discover that it is tied at one end and decide to put this “cape” on. He or she climbs up up the ladder as far as they wish, until the second to last or third to last step. Then people look over the edge and are rewarded by seeing a small-scale representation of the city street and sidewalk below. In doing so, a mixture of a rush of fantasy (and suspension of disbelief) coupled with a real feeling of teetering and potential danger, comes from the fact that that person is standing at the top of a ladder leaning forward precariously.
There is a first time for everything. You know that you might have the ability to fly– perhaps you flew
a little bit by accident, perhaps it came out during a time of great danger, like falling off of a cliff– but
now you are aware of a great new power you might have. Flying for the first time is about that moment when the superhero (that superhero we all are) is faced with his or her fear, human frailty and death, and must decide if he or she is ready to find out if they are indeed super-human. Will the hero soar above the crowds or plummet to their death? This one is for all those kids that jumped off their roofs, leaped from treehouses, or hung onto the garage door as it went up (as I did)!
superhero must look over the precipice before stepping out and soaring over
everything below or falling, falling to their doom.
Skyscrapers created from cardboard and a cityscape drawn in black Sharpie on paper on the walls, the scene evokes the minimal lines and suggestiveness seen in comics. In addition to the cardboard shapes, the cut out “S” and the reddish towel call back to childhood days when when you put on that cape, you really thought you might actually take off into the air.
{image 2
The interaction: First, the user sees the cityscape and walks around it, sizing it up. Then he or she realizes that the middle building (the most prominent object in the installation) is actually a ladder they could climb up. Seeing that his or her view of something on the ground (perhaps other boxes, perhaps details of a city?) is obscured and due to the inherent suggestiveness of a ladder (in an interactive piece), they climb up the ladder. At around this time they see the reddish towel with a very prominent yellow felt “S,” hanging off the side if they haven’t seen it already. They discover that it is tied at one end and decide to put this “cape” on. He or she climbs up up the ladder as far as they wish, until the second to last or third to last step. Then people look over the edge and are rewarded by seeing a small-scale representation of the city street and sidewalk below. In doing so, a mixture of a rush of fantasy (and suspension of disbelief) coupled with a real feeling of teetering and potential danger, comes from the fact that that person is standing at the top of a ladder leaning forward precariously.
There is a first time for everything. You know that you might have the ability to fly– perhaps you flew
a little bit by accident, perhaps it came out during a time of great danger, like falling off of a cliff– but
now you are aware of a great new power you might have. Flying for the first time is about that moment when the superhero (that superhero we all are) is faced with his or her fear, human frailty and death, and must decide if he or she is ready to find out if they are indeed super-human. Will the hero soar above the crowds or plummet to their death? This one is for all those kids that jumped off their roofs, leaped from treehouses, or hung onto the garage door as it went up (as I did)!