Proposal - UFO Baby Mobile
The installation is composed of two main pieces, a single-bed and a “hanging baby mobile”.
The bed and the furnishings on it are white in colour, acting as a canvas for the lighting elements of the installation. It also would have straps that could potentially be used to immobilise the person on the bed. The baby mobile would be made of a shiny, metallic or reflective aluminum material, and appear to be on a larger-scale than the standard baby mobile you would normally have for child cots. The mobile component would be hung from a solid arc-shaped stand.
The audience is invited to lay on the bed, when they look up, the baby mobile they are viewing has elements that resemble UFOs or alien flying saucers. The ensemble would initially spin/rotate on its own but the user can interact further with it by touching or pushing it, harnessing kinetic motion. The mobile would have three UFO pieces. Each UFO or flying saucer would have a light source on the underside, shining down. As the installation moves or gets pushed, the UFO’s create the illusion of those saucers carrying out “abductions” wherever the light shines. The accompanying soundtrack would create an eerie, surrealist atmosphere. It will present itself in “waves”, going between calm and ambient tones, gradually intensifying until it unravels as distorted noise.
There can only be one person on the bed at a time but other people can also observe the experience without lying on the bed.
The whole installation would ideally be placed in an area of a darkened room where people can have enough space to walk around it.
The sound source would come from underneath the bed to give the audience a sense of dimension using distance and how far they are from the installation. It also serves to encapsulate the user lying on the bed, creating an immersive and dream-like environment.
Blender, Unity, Fusion 360 will be used for 3D modeling for prototypes and 3D-printed scale models to test the kinetic components.
We are also looking at employing laser-cutting and carpentry to build the “flying saucer” components.
Audition, Logic Pro X: To be used for audio editing and composition of our soundtrack.
For now we are going to be using the following materials.
Metal Bed-Frame, Wood, Bed-Sheets, Pillows, Mattress, Metallic Paint, Aluminium, Lights, Rope, Speakers, Nylon, String, Cutters, Tape, Lights.
UFO Baby Mobile is an installation piece that plays upon our collective fears and dreams.
The whites of the bed and its furnishings represents a kind of “blankness” akin to a canvas. It could be a form of sanctuary, or a place of recluse, somewhere we could escape to and express our vulnerability. It could also be seen as a site of despair, a prison, or a play on the idea of the “death-bed”. It plays into the notion of the commonality of sleep between all of us, and our relationship with the act of sleeping and dreams. Dreams are often unclear and confusing but they stem from something embedded deep within our consciousness. There is a reference to the work ‘My Bed’ by Tracey Emin.
The UFOs or Flying Saucers, represents the future, something unknowable but inevitable. It could be a symbol for where our society is headed in terms of modernisation and the advancements we have made in technology, as well as how far we’ve come with space-age exploration and the potential consequences that it presents for us as a society. It forewarns us of speculative futurist scenarios, such as interspecies breeding with extra-terrestrial lifeforms. Thus embarking on a dialogue, about the future or continuation of the human race. It relates to our apprehensions around kidnappings or abductions as well as xenophobia.
The way sound is presented in the installation, plays on the idea of night-terrors or sleep-paralysis. The soundtrack evokes emotions that follow the pattern of a wave, going between a sense of ambient calm building up into a crescendo of unease and fear using distorted noise. These wave patterns are in parallel with nightmares and how they often bend from subtle absurdity before spiraling out of control.
The ropes on the corners of the bed, create an opportunity for an interaction between the person lying down and the observers around them, wherein they could choose to engage in bondage, manipulating the aspect of control within the piece. This would give the person lying down a lucid experience of entrapment or further playing into the idea of sleep-paralysis.
The baby mobile relates back to childhood innocence, and the stories we were told by our parents, how those dark tales were used to in-still fear, in order to teach us certain values and ideologies, and the enforcement of behaviours. Parents generally used baby-mobiles as a form of distraction in their child-rearing. It enables them to leave the child within the cot, and in that sense, becoming a form of control.
‘UFO Baby Mobile’ invites us to challenge our perceptions on control or our lack of it, reproduction and desire, and what exists beyond the current human state as well as how much value we place on life when we are faced with potentially daunting or unfamiliar circumstances.
Gabriel, T. (1996, September 12). Alien Beings Abduct Pop Culture. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/12/garden/alien-beings-abduct-pop-culture.html
Cheyne, J. A. (2003). Sleep Paralysis and the Structure of Waking-Nightmare Hallucinations. Dreaming, 13(3), 163–179.
Tate. (n.d.). Gothic Nightmares: Fuseli, Blake and the Romantic Imagination: Room 1. Retrieved August 29, 2018, from https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/gothic-nightmares-fuseli-blake-and-romantic-imagination/gothic
Tree of Life | Phil Price Kinetic Sculpture. (n.d.). Retrieved August 29, 2018, from https://philpricesculpture.com/project/tree-of-life/
Michael candy handcrafts helical kinetic light sculpture. (n.d.). Retrieved August 29, 2018, from https://www.designboom.com/art/michael-candy-big-dipper-kinetic-light-sculpture-08-07-2014
Worry in children is related to perceived parental rearing and attachment - ScienceDirect. (n.d.).
Westrum, R. (1977). Social Intelligence About Anomalies: The Case of UFOs. Social Studies of Science, 7(3), 271–302.
Art News: Art in Motion: The Story Behind Mobiles. (n.d.). Retrieved August 29, 2018, from https://canvas.saatchiart.com/art/art-news/art-in-motion-the-story-behind-mobiles
artnet. (n.d.). Works of Calder. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSF9C2AuIJM
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/oct/27/tracey-emin-my-bed-violent-mess-sex-death