Now it was improvement time!
Firstly we wanted to discuss the boxes we were using, as some of them seemed flimsy the last time we were experimenting with them. To resolve this we sourced better quality cardboard boxes. This benefited us as we could now write on the boxes without them topping over when the wall was built. We also wanted to work on the uniformity of the boxes as visually it didn’t seem to look right. We thought about covering them in paper but after much deliberation this seemed to take away from the effect and the bareness we initially liked about them. We finally decided on a compromise, that being that we would but black tape over the boxes in the style of a cross. Not only did this visually look good but it also meant when we would write on the boxes they were divided into small sections. I really liked it as it was beginning to look like a piece of artwork now.
On reflection of what our feedback audience had said about writing on the boxes with markers and that it was too noisy we decided to bring in other materials to experiment with. Firstly we tried chalks, however we felt it wasn’t vibrant enough and wasn’t particularly eye catching.
When then tried with paints, we really liked the effect it gave, especially the red paint, for us there was something about the paint brush strokes that just seemed so effective, it was artistic, it was contemporary. We stuck with it.
The positioning of boxes was important to the aesthetics of our piece. Initially we wanted the wall created to be completely filled, similar to that of a brick wall. It wasn’t until we were having a run through and started playing around with the boxes that we discovered the effect of taking away particular boxes had on the space. It started to reveal pockets of light, some big gaps, some small, and the fact the sun was beaming through the window, made for some excellent effects, creating shadows and areas of light and dark. We really liked this and decided this is how we would like to build the wall.
As mentioned before we were very interested in the parallel window space in the opposing gallery and we felt we could marry the two together in some way. Walking back and forth from either window space we realised they were quite far apart. But this didn’t necessarily mean we thought it would hinder our ideas. We decided to trial out the idea of having one area where we would have the boxes stored, we could build the wall and paint them and then walk them over to the other space and leave the boxes there. It was important to us to think about the walk to and from each window. To begin with we walked very fast paced however we felt this didn’t correspond well with the idea of the monotony of life we then practiced a rhythm to walk to so we would all look the same. There was three entrances to the other gallery so when leaving the first area we decided to each take a different entrance into the gallery, this was effective as it felt we were invading the space from different angles. We then randomly placed our boxes in the alcove to signify the deconstruction of the wall.
Taking on board what our feedback audience said about the writing on the boxes being too obvious we decided we would write roman numerals on them. This arose from our original ideas about the four seasons and the concept of time. Time is a constant the clock will always be ticking. Similarly the seasons will always stay the same. We felt roman numerals would tie this in well. Also it was acknowledging the roman city that was once there.
Another problem was it was too much having music and a voice over, to compensate for this we instead recorded the dialogue which we would have on a loop.
Finally after the wall is constructed and we’ve taken it down, and moved all the boxes to the other space we want to come back to where we initially started and be left with one box in the alcove to which we open and release four balloons.
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