Ariel, Bhavesh, Elisa, Rong, Sajal, Steven
Idea 1: Bridge between Science and Art
One of our ideas is to visually represent how on a campus so polarized in courses of study, the Pausch Bridge connects Gates, a very STEM building, and Purnell, one of the artistic buildings at Carnegie Mellon University. The bridge represents something much larger than ourselves, and we hope that this piece would display how we as a student body need to see what connects us all, regardless of what type of major we pursue. Be it Computer Science or Drama or anything in between, we all have the opportunity to cross our own bridges and close the gap between our programs to meet new people and grow our community. We strive to embody this idea throughout our academic and social pursuits. It is a lesson to learn in college and to carry with us throughout our lives beyond Carnegie Mellon University.
Idea 2: College Experience (growth theme)
As a team, we all thought that it’s important to recognize the growth that students make when they enter college. At Carnegie Mellon, students are always learning new things, resulting in almost infinite growth to fuel the future of our world. Students are always pushed to the edge not only to grow academically, but also to grow in other aspects of their lives. Whether it be growing as an adult or in their community, students at Carnegie Mellon constantly push themselves to become better people. We thought that it would be a good idea to use the Pausch Bridge lighting, in addition to sound effects, to showcase to the community that growth as a human is important. We could use colors representing development and hardship to represent the different stages of growth cycles that we may experience in university.
Idea 3: Decades in Music (with a twist)
In order to make the lighting display more accessible to a casual audience, as lighting can be abstract and difficult to interpret, we can theme our show alongside American music from recent decades. Each decade has a defining genre/style of music that features prominently in public memory, such as 1920s jazz or 1960s rock, and by playing famous songs from these genres we can cue audiences into the tone and message that our lighting display is meant to carry. Stepping in chronological order, we can move from the 1920s to modern times through music, crafting a nostalgic statement about remembering the passage of time. Our show doesn’t have to merely be an observation of history – we can provide commentary as well by continuing with music past the 2010s to hazard a guess at what our tastes may sound like in the future. Beyond that, we can utilize dramatic lighting to signify the onset of climate change and the disasters it would create. We can end on an optimistic note of providing an alternate ending to this timeline, where we take action against climate change before it’s too late and are able to preserve our future.