Secrets Box
葛雪梅 | Xuemei Ge
Interactive Art | Jun 2023
Do you have a secret ?
I often hear friends around me confiding their various secrets to me ......
Whenever I quietly listen to them revealing their emotions and feelings, I feel like an emotional vessel that accepts all kinds of emotions from different people. This sparked an idea in me: is there an object in real life that allows people to express those secrets they can't tell others?
Like Pandora's Box, it collects people's emotions infinitely in a limited space.
Interactive components :
There are seven main interactive sections throughout the artwork
1. Calm state: The secret box will keep playing the secrets stored in the box randomly and anonymously (the sound will be processed).
2. As the audience is drawn closer to the Secrets Box by the sound, the box will gradually stop playing the sound and begin to display Tell Your Secrets on the box.
3. The audience can choose whether to tell a secret or leave. ( The audience began to tell secrets to the Secrets Box )
4. The secret spoken is broken up into individual letters to be displayed on the Secrets Box. ( Different languages can be recognized )
5. When the audience put their ears close to the Secrets Box, the Secrets Box will start to play the stored secrets.
6. When the audience walks around the Secrets Box, the words on top of the Secrets Box will also follow the position of the audience.
7. Leave the box and the Secrets Box will return to the calm state.
Visual part:
In my initial vision, I wanted the Secrets Box to have a minimalist appearance, using a simple geometry as the vehicle for the installation, allowing the audience to focus more on listening and expression.
However, during the creative process, I realized that this design could potentially bring about some issues, such as how to use visual symbols to guide the audience's understanding or how to generate more interest without visual elements.
Therefore, I embarked on a series of explorations, ranging from experimenting with different sculptural shapes to incorporating luminescent materials. Ultimately, I decided to adopt the method of 3D projection mapping for the appearance of the secret box.
Compared to a fixed physical sculpture, this approach offers greater possibilities, allowing the box's surface to interact with Touchdesigner and enhancing audience interactivity.
