Objects and Spaces
We were tasked with a semester long project detailing a ’space of celebration’ of our choosing. I selected superstition as my theme. Superstition can be defined as “a belief, not based on human reason or scientific knowledge, that future events may be influenced by one’s behaviour in some magical or mystical way.” When I began the project I was interested in superstition because of sentimental and playful reasons, however as the course progressed I began to see superstition more objectively and set out to demonstrate it more as a sort of flawed and bizarre behavior.
My intention was to create a diabolical “Mad Max-esque” ampitheatre space, I wanted to create an ironic superstition-producing machine for those that dared to visit. I went down the path of relating two unrelated things beginning from the creation of my symbol for superstition. The reason for this is because the process of creating a superstition and believing it to be real is to delusionally link two unrelated events and believe that one has an effect over the other. So the floor space in my space has been created to be a surreal sort of giant roulette wheel. And, in order to be an active participant in my ampitheatre one must carry a large 8-sided die to the tower in the center. Dropping the die into the center activates the demonic machine, twirling the participant around as the two concentric wheels spin. It is from reading meaning and purpose into what side lands up on the die and which pocket it lands in that one can generate their own false belief. I want the overall experience to be unpleasant, because the more extreme the experience the more legitimate the outcome seems.