I thought I would be dropping in to UNI for about an hour to set up today. Oh so very wrong. There was the physical mounting and connecting to be done which all went relatively smoothly (thanks to my purchase of 10m usb and 10m vga cables).
The interesting part was the placement of the Kinect. I found a stool that I decided to have as the focal point. This proved to be an excellent (lucky) idea. By placing the stool in front of the screen it shifted the focal point of the work. The stool invited the viewer to come and sit down, thus it drew them in to the Kinect zone. It also by getting the viewer to sit down this suggest this is a work to contemplate to take your time over. Now you are sitting it easier to spend a little more time taking it all in.
In another piece of inspired placement I placed the kinect in such a position that the viewer wasn’t seeing them selves front an angle people often see them selves in a mirror, the Kinect behind and of to the side revealed the viewers profile they weren’t watching them selves the were looking at themselves looking off in to the distance (this slight shift would also gain me some more contemplation from the viewer) Finally placing the kinect further away from the screen meant people trying to hide of in the background were likely to move close to the Kinect and thus make more impact that they might have thought.
I would have tried dozens of placements with the kinect spending several hours to find my final setup. I was fascinated by how much difference the placement of these 2 objects made.
Finally I adjusted set up a single spotlight to softly illuminate the stool, again adding importance to it (as well as ensuring it wasn’t lost in the dark)
Having this full day to play with the space was vital in the success of the work, I also understand now why my showing to the class previously was so unsuccessful. This day also helped me to realise why choosing to focus on installing this work is a valid goal with this day just being the first step. I am also determined to ensure I will always endever to tailor any work to fit a space and not just assume I can plug it in.(hopefully have several days to do so).
So after some tweaking to my settings and a check that my images were being sent online it was a matter of giving Ryan a run through on starting it up.