When first approaching this project, I was very excited and intimidated at the same time. I was scared by all the requirements the brief presented but after going through suggested research in the briefing such as being visually inspired by operas and other live performance sets, I felt more at ease. I do not watch many light entertainment shows which may have also contributed to my hesitation. I also found the idea of having a theme a comforting thought as it allowed everything to be tied together.
For my theme, I decided to do the environment in support of the cause to save our planet. I saw it as a one-off event whereby musicians would come to sing music from 3 eras all addressing the need to save our planet. I knew from the start that I wanted to use technology to transfer design-wise between the decades as it was the most eco-friendly way to go about it. But I still needed a basic set that could be manipulated by technology that fit with the decades as well as the themes. I was first inspired by the 2014 Copenhagen Eurovision set design that was inspired by the skeletal shape of a cube. It also used water in this set which helped highlight the technically enhanced set. This structure also reminded me of the Eden Project (an ecological project in Cornwall), which has domes created with a combination of hexagons and pentagons. I thought I could combine both concepts to create a structure of my own. To simplify the 3D shape of the Eden project I decided to print off the net of a football or otherwise known as a truncated icosahedron for experimentation. I found the process of experimenting through modeling more useful than trying to sketch my idea as it allowed me to develop my idea at a quicker rate and see it from all angles. In the end, I had concluded that I would use 2 truncated icosahedrons; a bigger one that defined the performance space and a smaller one that defined the chat area. I want the dome to be broken to represent how we are breaking our planet and to have pentagons and hexagons hanging throughout the studio to add to this effect. Each area would also be on an island, as I wanted the whole set to be surrounded by water.
When making the model, I chose to laser cut the hexagons and pentagons which would make up the dissembled domes. I thought it be less time-consuming and wanted to learn how to laser cut things from vector works. I then assembled the required shapes using wood glue that I had determined in my experimentation. I then went on to spray the structure’s silver using the spray booth. In the end, I decided the silver was too pristine and that I needed to make the structure appear almost rusty to show a manmade object such as this was not invisible and that we needed to prioritize the earth. I then added wires wrapped around the structure which would act as LED lights that could be activated during the performance. I wanted the positioning of them to also appear like vines wrapped around the structure to represent the earth regaining power. To give the illusion of water I used acetate as well as crinkled foil underneath to give the water texture. For the rest of the floor, I used a combination of black and green shiny cards for the island. The floor was predominantly black but I wanted to use an accent colour to highlight how all the shapes on the floor were crooked to show the off-balance of the earth we have caused. Lastly, the furniture was created by using scraps of what the laser cut had produced and painting it green. I created a sofa and a single chair.
The brief also required us to create a logo for the show which should be prominent on the set. My logo was inspired by the recycling sign. The use of arrows as well as the title of the show being Back to the Music Future worked visually well together. I also chose to use different shades of green in the logo as green is commonly associated with the environment and is the accent colour of my set.
When selecting the decades, it became apparent early on that I would have to choose music post 60s for as a society we were not yet aware of our effect on the environment. I wanted to choose environmental disasters from each of these events to accompany the design in a design compacity. All the events I selected and song choices can be seen in the table below.
Having selected the artists, songs, and the event, I next had to think about how I could express the event in a style that matched the decade it occurred. When looking at the 70s I was inspired by the artist Roger Dean who specialized in Vinyl Album Cover. Most of his work incorporates nature and one of his pieces reminded me of the atmosphere created by the agent orange used in the Vietnam War in the early 70s. I combined all these influences to create the visual seen below. I intend for the projection behind the set to appear with only the night sky at the start of the song but as it progress and the plane flies across the sky the area becomes more orange and the devastation of the scene becomes more prominent.
For the 80s I was inspired by the retro 80s sun and early video games which I thought would perfectly match the song Two Suns in the Sunset which is about the nuclear situation in the 80s. To strengthen the visual of the event of Chernobyl I chose to impose an image on top of the sun of the silhouette of the Chernobyl explosion. Originally, I used an image of the actual cloud seen from the explosion at Chernobyl, however, because the explosion was not actual nuclear but was a steam explosion due to a flawed reactor, the cloud lack the dramatic appeal needed. And so even though it was not historically accurate, I added a nuclear mushroom cloud instead for dramatic effect.
Lastly, I struggled when approaching the 90s aesthetic as it was the start of the copycat eras. It was heavily influenced by other decades. So I needed to find something iconically 90s. So I looked at album covers again and could not help but be inspired by the Nirvana cover Nevermind cover and its potential to be linked to the Persian Gulf War Oil Spill which was the first time that a natural resource and specifical pollution was used as a tactic of war. I changed the image of a baby to be a turtle and then wanted the appearance of oil on the surface of the water to become more apparent as the song progressed. In the end, I decided to keep the money as war is all about money and so is oil (what causes ecological disaster).
Lastly, we used the photo studio to capture our models. I found this very fun as it allowed me to experiment with proposed lighting and then I could edit these images to then reveal my visual intent for each of the decades.
Overall, I did enjoy this project, as I liked trying to tackle a cause that I am passionate about in so many ways. In my feedback, it was suggested that make the water space bigger to allow the image on the back of the set to be more reflected and to include more floating pieces of the set that can get further and further apart as the decades change to show the ongoing damage we are making. I love both of these suggestions and will try and incorporate them into my end-of-year portfolio, in some way or another.
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