WALKING ON WATER - REFLECTION

using an old boat, live video feed and some creative thinking we transported the public into a reimagined freemans bay, pre-development. ...before the land broke the surface of the water.

our concept evolved from a starting point of wanting to showcase an interesting part of aucklands geographical history and involve people in this narrative.

innitially we sought to create a free-standing history/info booth with buttons. then we decided it needed to be interactive and fun, so we chose the location of freemans bay/victoria park and set about to recapture a snapshot of what was here before so that we could place a ghostly likeness of passers by into the shot which they could interact with like one does with a mirror.

the juxt of position of the of old and new landscapes, images of people in the old, reimagined scene and the boat with its cross shaped mast/ sail and dated lines, are cohesive with one another, suggestive of our overall theme, yet obviously out of place in the contemporary setting. i believe this is what gives our project much validity and intrigue.

we worked well as a group, bouncing ideas off one another and constantly scrutinising our actions/direction to ensure a good result.

on crit day we had a small glitch in that the person who is in charge of turning off the electricity at victoria park market had not been informed that we had arranged the two front sockets to be on until 7pm. fortunately we were able to track down a security guard to unlock a stall so we could feed our project the vital electricity. it took a little longer to set up because of this but when it was going the whole spectacle generated attention and involvement from people.

after the first showing at victoria park market we decided to use the sail to project onto rather than using the original, small lcd screen. this refinement proved to be the final piece of the puzzle - completing the aesthetic and lending the mystic created by using an uneven fabric screen and darkened setting.