Project Proposal – Tim & Matt

Proposal:

For this performance we wanted to effectively utilize the space to its fullest potential. Since it is fully possible to use lines and capstans throughout the room to set up fabric above the audience, we wanted to take advantage of the potential for interaction and participation that this would bring. With this in mind, we arrived at an idea that we felt would best capture this while being realistically riggable. The central “theme” of our piece will be balloons. Using ones filled with helium we will be able to effectively suspend and control a massive piece of fabric above the entire audience without the unfeasible need for capstan lines on the ceiling. The helium balloons will be affixed in the center of the suspended fabric, with capstan lines at each corner, allowing for the possibility of iterating the, fabric through a flat form, to a cone like one when the lines are allowed to go slack. After realizing this potential, we considered the idea of using this as a way for the fabric to hold objects when flat, and release them to the audience as it changes shape. What better to put there than more balloons? This aspect would provide the audience interaction that we desired, as we could drop balloons inline with shifts in the Exploded Ensemble’s score. We hope that we can also make this process change with time, perhaps having more or less balloons drop at desired times by controlling how slack we allow the lines to get. This is the base of our idea, and if time and materials allow we are considering adding pleating to create a more interesting form for the audience.

Milestones:

3/22: programming test capstans to create desired iterations

3/28: measure theatre and create base fabric for performance

4/2: involve balloons

4/15: debug performance and rehearsals

Bill of materials:

-100 to 200 yards (must get more exact measurement of theatre) of fabric (likely cheaper option due to size, polyester likely)

-150 balloons (likely only need around 50 – 60, but wide margin in case of obstacles)

-Helium

-Line

-Small lights and batteries for inside balloons

Our proof of concept prototype began to explore how fabric can be suspended by a balloon. After purchasing a helium balloon we attempted to use it to suspend fabric in the air. One problem that we ran into very quickly was that one balloon could not hold very much fabric aloft. This made us realize that for a full scale version the amount of helium and the weight of the sculpture must be carefully calibrated. We realized that we will probably need more helium than we initially expected. Despite the small scale of the fabric we were still able to experiment with some of the movement that we hope to achieve. While we were not able to attach a pleated piece fabric we were able to experiment with the relationship between the pull of the balloon and the pull of four lines. We found that we were able to make the fabric change from a loose crumpled state to a stretched state with the lines. In this process the fabric would also move up and down. The resulting motions have an appealing listless almost dreamlike quality to them.