With just under four weeks until The Collector goes live, a lot is happening. Jason Lehane is 80% done with the construction of the room, and we will dive to the city and install this on Saturday. Cinda Manins is dressing the mask (the one pictured above) and the Raven is taking on her own persona. This happens with puppet builds also. Whatever you intend with a puppet, it has a mind of its own. A mask and a puppet each inform their maker - it’s a symbiotic relationship. Dash Agar is coming on board to conduct face-to-face surveys after each session and we are drafting the questions together, as this is a skill he’d like to test out. In drafting the survey questions yesterday, it was helpful to think about Dash editing, as this sharpened my intention with each question to the research. In iteration 1, Honouring Mr. Stevens, I didn’t have the time beforehand to really think beyond what I had drafted for my Ethics application. This time circumstances are different, and I am informed by the survey responses from the first iteration. I am including fewer questions that are more intentional.
Last night Jason and I tested the gramophone. We bought some 48” records yesterday from an op shop, and some of the music is well dramaturgically connected to the themes and aesthetic. The gramophone is very loud. Jason put a sock into the gramophone to dampen it, and subsequently discovered that the term “put a sock in it” comes from this exact situation - shove a sock into a gramophone that is too loud. I will take the gramophone and records to Pratyay Raha, our sound designer, so he can cast his ears over it and give his thoughts and opinion.
I have been working on the space contents and the audience experience: the two are entwined. Below are a series of images, that show the design progression, from Jason’s initial hand-drawing of the room which includes my contents notes around the outside of the frame, to the second design which I mocked up from the hand-drawn one, to the design I have made up today. There are still many decisions to me made and it seems like there is much in flux.
First sketch of The Collector space.
Design created in Canva taken from hand-drawn plan.
Design 2 created in Canva, still not complete, but ideas and audience experience are moving along.