The staging and concept design teams have been working for several weeks to reach a creative and plausible stage design for our INDI|VIRTUALITY event. Several great Ideas have come to light, but unfortunately not every design is fitting for the theme of the event. The team is getting close to finding a concept design that is aesthetically pleasing and equally functional.
We began with a few quick sketches of the floor plan, trying to fit five separate stations into one large room. During this process we explored different ways we could use the floor space provided and still filter as many people through the event as possible in the three-hour period given to us. In the end, we decided on having one open room with five separate stations that a person could visit in any order. The next line of business was designing one station for each of “The Big Five” psychological areas. We reached the agreement that each station should be somewhat closed off from the room as a whole, but still open enough for observers to see what is going on in each station. We also decided to color theme each room based on the area of “The Big Five” that it tested.
For emotional instability, the theme of the station will be purple and have a forest of mirrors surrounding the player. In the Extroversion station, the room will have yellow walls with several triangular cutouts that onlookers can peer through. The station for openness will have only two walls and an orange floor with several triangles in rows. In the compatibility and tolerance room, we would like to have Three large screens in a room made of large rectangle blocks. And for scrupulousness, the room will be a blue box suspended from the ceiling so the viewers can see the feet and will also have a cutout in the middle to give a view of the hands.
For each station, the concept design team made mood boards to help along the process. The initial ideas were all very good and helped to create a set of solid ideas to work with. When we reached the sketches for the stations, however, we reached a few problems. Some designs were too complicated to build, too expensive, or did not fit in with the general theme of INDI|VIRTUALTIY. We are much closer now to narrowing down exactly what we would like to build and have begun making lists of products we will need and debating price vs. practicality. The entire group is anxious to begin building and to see their ideas come to life in the process.
Erica Hitzman