Concept:
Invite people to come view objects collected in Schenley Park (such as leaves, flowers, rocks etc.) through microscopic (displayed on my laptop monitor) and capture their reactions with a high speed camera (and an audio recording of their voice, recorded on my computer). I’m expecting them to see bugs, but I am also interested in having them observe some other things, specifically things they have collected*. In general, I’m anticipating some reaction of surprise, some of wonder, and some of disgust. This certainly happened to me when I was looking at the microscopic images. What was especially interesting to me was that it made the observed objects feel totally new! It makes me realize that observing them with the naked eye can only ever go so far, and that there is always more to see! This kind of discovery feels eye-opening and mind-expanding.
*Note: I have previously invited a bunch of people to go on walks with me to Schenley Park, during which I asked them to pay attention to small objects (among a few other things) and to think about small objects as individual things to be observed, but also as interrelated parts of a larger landscape. I’m including some worksheet images of what kinds of objects people were observing at the end here.
Besides capturing people’s facial reactions with the high speed camera, I plan to take videos with the studio microscope of a collection of small organic materials found in Schenley Park (including plants and non-living materials like rocks or trash).
Things to think about:
How could I/ should I display this together? I’m wondering what the best presentation format might be. Also, is there something interesting I could do with the high speed camera that I’m not thinking about?
Lillian suggested that it could be fun to show people in a sort of bug’s eye or worm’s eye view of the people. This sounds potentially fun to me. But not sure how to execute. Any other thoughts or ideas? I want to do something cool, challenging, and fun…
