Inner Experience Of A Climate
The design installation Eco Focal transforms Fort Lane, an inner-city service lane in downtown Auckland, into a cinematic scene. Typically a cinematic scene is experienced visually but not haptically, this design intervention aims to achieve both, and in doing so creates an immersive embodied engagement for the viewer. The cinematic experience is refigured as a cinematic micro-climate environment drawing out the cinematic processes of lights, camera, and action. ‘Lights’ draws on the organic Voronoi pattern and casts light and shadow onto the laneway. ‘Camera’ is referenced as a series of apertures in the structure which enhance the cinematic techniques of focus and blur. 'Action’ is a microclimatic sequence featuring a rain shower, wet ground, and surface reflection. The make-believe world of cinema achieved through visual effects is experienced in this work as a felt experience, while at the same time exposing the cinematic apparatus which is normally kept out of view.
This installation opens a portal to a cinematic environment in Fort Lane in the form of a hybrid-film-weather-machine. Inserting this imaginative microclimate installation into the everyday life of Fort Lane mirrors the filmic technique of montage where different places are spliced together. My Interest in viewing the capricious weather of Auckland from a different perspective led me to explore microclimates as a local atmosphere that differs from the reality of the surrounding atmosphere. The proposed installation structure is a parametric shape known as Voronoi. It is a very organic pattern, also it can be seen in cells of leaves, dragonfly wings, and beehives, etc. The structure collects storm-water and then creates thin streams of showers that simulates rain.
Further, my design explores spatial transitions in relation to the cinematic techniques of focus and blur effects. The multi-coloured feature that is installed in between the empty spaces of the installation is a 3M Dichroic Blaze film on Perspex. This feature has various sizes of void spaces in them. The dichroic help’s warp the surrounding with its distorted reflection and sets the focus on what’s in the center. This is where you can see the effect of focus and blur. This design aims to condense a meteorological system within the urban interior of Fort Lane drawing on the whimsical attributes of movie-making, where ordinary scenes give way to magical imaginings.
