The Finshed Piece

Here is a pretty bad video 'tour' of the finished piece, but combined with the (also poor) photos, you get a general idea of the whole thing.

Small summery of our project and final outcome for this Options week:

For the theme of Body and Identity we decided to create an installation that represented there can be a divorce between who someone is and what they look like. How they are and can be two completely different things. The old, 'don't judge a book by it's cover' saying.

The booth was the 'template' of our person, our 'characters' exterior would be a beautiful perfection,almost sickly sweet, representing a heightened image of perfection, the idea of beauty only being skin deep. 
The interior would represent a rotten core, their ugly, vain identity on the inside. 

This is the outside, it was painted white, like a blank canvas but with all these ideas of beautiful things being projected/stuck onto it.
Images and scenes of picturesque landscapes, nature, and a close up of a girls eyes blinking, were projected onto it, over white rose petals.
Rose petals and pot puree were sprinkled around the base, giving off a floral scent and we would associate with femininity. 

All these metaphors together were used to project an over-the-top idea what is beautiful and perfect, linking back to Hollister their their projection of the ideal on the customer. In turn also how the media dictates what is considered 'beautiful'. 
Also how the Nazi regime tried to create  the 'perfect race' through Eugenics.

The interior is painted black and the only light is from the small entrance, it is small and claustrophobic, the high black walls around you only enhance this feeling.
Ahead is a lambs heart on a dripping plinth. The smell of the heart is unpleasant, showing the viewer how potentially gruesome and unpleasant something/someone can be on the inside, despite a beautiful exterior (body).

On the walls surrounding are broken mirrors, reflecting back at the audience a jagged, distorted self, making it all slightly disorientating.
These represent a bad, self absorbed vanity, how when someone can be so caught up and self absorbed in their own refection and identity, that they don't have time to notice what else is going on around them. And can "loose one's sense of direction, position, or relationship with one's surroundings".

(Here you can see my refection and then the heart on the plinth in the bottom right shard)

At the base of the heart bearing plinth are melted and distorted Barbie dolls. They have their stomachs and breasts burnt out, some have faces too. This is to  also represent vanity and how destructive it can be. In the search for a vain 'perfection' people can ruin their true pure beauty. Their rotten core had burnt out.

Don't judge a book by its cover, the perfect physical body you see on the outside may have a rotten core to their inner identity.

The Week of Contruction

So this week has been the week we have to create our installation.
Firstly we had to start thinking about the logistics of the whole thing...

 

Next, more planning...

 

And working out the final design...

 

This is how our week went:

Monday

-Made the plan for the installation (see above)

-Located boards

-Made shopping list and designated out who would purchase what.

Tuesday

-Boards detached and sanded down ready for painting

-Plinth located

-Projector reserved

-Asked/booked in help from the wood work technician to help us construct the boards on Thursday

Wednesday

-Re-evaluated what we had each purchased so far, and decided what else and what more was needed.

I was allocated candles (for creating texture on the plinth), and to look out for cheap mirrors

-Painted boards

 Thursday

-Found a location: the film/tv studio. We marked this up with where we wanted it to be.

The line half way across the left hand side marks where the half board would be, ie. the entrance. The cross marks the plinths location.

However, just as we had moved in all the boards to construction it turned out another group needed the space. We moved to the theatre, but as it was in use that afternoon we had to save setting up for the next day.

-Mirrors were smashed (on an off site location to avoid health and safety and risk assessments)

Friday

-Split into two groups of three, half on the construction of the installation and the other on the decoration. I was in the decoration group.

We started with the plinth, and dripping wax down it to create a sort of messy, horrible texture. We used white and red candle wax, red signifying danger, anger, lust, hate etc. All very strong and potentially malicious emotions. 

This was also done on an off site location to avoid health and safety and risk assessments.

Here is the process and the finished piece. The heart sits in the center, so the red wax will look like the heart is dripping blood.

-Meanwhile, the majority of the booth had been created and the video that Nick had created representing beauty was being set up to be played through the projector.

-Next we glued on the smashed up mirrors into the interior using a glue gun borrowed from wood work, and then the flower petals onto the exterior.

-Then finally the finishing touches, the heart on the plinth went in, the melted Barbie dolls that Charlotte had made went at the foot of the plinth, pot puree and petals were scattered outside, and it was done!