Ran Zhou

Inspiration

A Tranquil Night

Bowing,
Looking up, I find the moon bright;
Can it be hoarfrost on the ground?
Before my bed a pool of light.
in homesickness I’m drowned.
— — Li Bai (701–762A.D)

In Chinese culture, the moon metaphor is closely related to the feeling of homesickness. No matter how far we go, the moon we see is the same as our families.

Prototyping

Inspired by the ancient Chinese poem, I made a small wooden house in a traditional Chinese style to reproduce the scene in which the poet created the poem. To make it more lively, I integrated interactive elements driven by Arduino. With the moon moving around, the shadow of the tree, the window frame, and the person also move, creating a lonely mood and poetic atmosphere.

Reflection

In this installation design. I not only want to express my own feelings in my work but also expect to receive resonance from my audiences. I always want to bring happiness and warmth to others. Though the scene of my installation is kind of cold and lonely, with the home in our hearts, our world is filled with love.

As an interaction designer, I pay great attention to the participation of my audiences. I want each of them to have a unique experience. For the wood installation, I designed it into three separate “boxes,” which are connected with each other by the Tenon and Mortise. This is a special traditional Chinese technology in architecture and furniture design that can connect different wooden structures firmly without a nail. With this design, my work will have a big space for changes. For the further version, I will create more boxes with the scenes in the ancient Chinese poems, and audiences can combine the boxes freely. I would like to spread the Chinese poetry culture and provide people with the chance to create their own poetry. What I expect is to receive resonance from my audiences.

Professor: Fei Liu

2018. 12