Narrative description: Adrienne Kennedy’s Play Sun is a poem-play with one character (Man) and an environment that is at once responsive to and triggered by his emotional states. Of the objects in this environment, the main elements are the namesake suns: a red, orange, and yellow sun. In the script, they seem without unique identities– though they seem to respond to unique triggers, they also often act in simultaneity. The participant will effectively operate in the space as Man, surrounded by orbs of light that will illuminate both independently and with them. 

Sun is one of three Adrienne Kennedy plays I’ve been designing for this year, and it has been by far the most puzzling to our team. The suns and everything else in this environment are assigned incredibly specific stage directions, implying their importance and uniqueness in the play, yet despite months of collaborative dissecting of the script and dramaturgical research, our team never reached a discovery about what they actually represent, both as unique parts and a whole. It’s an abstract projection of a nonspecific person’s mind– an environment without simplistic organization or logic. We accepted this and moved forward, but as a personal project, I’d like to dive deeper and invent a system of logic for these suns, with their actions dictated by participants.

Necessary materials:

• Cylindrical encasing, either: 
  • Blackout curtains at least 7’ long + circular rod (probably sourced online)
  • Lauan lid: no more than 4’ in diameter; CMU scenic shop scrap or Home Depot)
• (3) spherical lamps 
• (3) light sources to be embedded in lamps
• 1 speaker

2. Additive color mixing

Because additive color mixing with light is less intuitive to our eyes compared to subtractive mixing with pigment, I find that no matter how many times I learn the science, there’s something magical about how it works. Using the logic of

Necessary materials:

• 3 light sources, RGB, either: 
  • 3 color changing LED lightbulbs (Drama lighting dpt.)
  • 3 white light fixtures with red, green, and blue gels (Drama lighting dpt.)
• shadow surface, like a projection screen (Drama VMD dpt.?)

I got this idea from the interview with Ezra Klein and Michael Sacasas about techno-optimism and the way minor inventions changed our lives. The piece focuses on the clock and light bulb, which are seemingly minor parts of our lives today but were the basis of scheduling our existence. I like working with lamps and dislike rigid schedules, so I want to explore that idea a bit more.

The installation is designed for a pair of participants to interact with clocks, lights, and buttons in a rigid unnatural way. The two participants are put in an empty room with three stations, each with a clock, incandescent light bulb, and button panel. There is a table and 2 chairs in the middle. When the clock strikes a certain time, the alarm goes off and the light turns on creating a sense of urgency. One of the users needs to go press the buttons as they turn on, likely lasting a few seconds. If they miss any buttons, they “fail” and can’t use that station anymore -> the clock completely turns off.

When any station is active, a ticking clock sound plays. The atmosphere should be tense and stressful.

As they continue, the stations get harder, unexpected extra requirements come up, and they are expected to fail all 3, ultimately leaving them in a dark room with no lights. I need to think this through a bit more, but I want the ending to feel calm and freeing, even though the participants failed in order to get there.

Logic

For each station:

(NOT task done) AND (NOT station dead) AND ( (3 stations left AND 30 seconds since last active) OR (2 stations left AND 20 seconds since last active) OR (1 station left and 5 seconds since last active)) -> alarm goes off

The logic circuit has 8 inputs… so I ommitted the “3 left/3o seconds” and “2 left/20 seconds” columns to reduce it from 256 states to 16:

Idea 2 – Umbrella Light

I really like the “take the umbrella” logic example, since it shows up a lot in logic classes yet also feels totally useless since I (a) never actually check any of the factors before leaving home and (b) this is Pittsburgh, forget about predictability. (I’ve seen it start pouring rain when it was sunny and there was no forecast.) This project shows all the contributing factors for the classic “should I take an umbrella” logic exercise, and ultimately ends up with a big excessive bright lamp that indicates if you should take the umbrella or not. Stenciled around the light, grafitti-style are phrases indicating to “bring the umbrella anyways” and “weather is unpredictable” or “ignore the lamp,” to highlight the pointlessness of rigidly defining stuff like that.

The actual logic example could be replaced with something else that’s a bit more complex/interesting to model than the umbrella problem.

The installation features 3 pedestals labelled “cloudy” “raining” and “weather forecast” respectively. The user can turn each input “on” or “off.” Each panel has a prop to indicate what it represents:

• TV with video of clouds for cloudy
• A shower head and spigot for rainy
• Fake weather radar and electronics for forecast. (or maybe a video of a tv weatherman)

If any of these three are active, the “take the umbrella” light turns on bright red, and maybe a sound plays.

Super simple logic:
cloudy OR raining OR forecast -> take umbrella

Table:

Possible extensions: Add randomness to the logic to actually represent that, maybe a separate light? More complex logic, or some better way to show that the logic is futile.

The general premise is to show an example of logic being used to represent something fundamentally illogical, or at least unnecessary to model.

Idea 3 – Are you ok?

I hate those logical, empty questions like “How are you?” or empty statements pointing students to caps or to “get lots of sleep” or empty sentiments like “I’m sorry for your loss” when you’re grieving. It always feels empty and scripted, but at the same time you can’t blame people for trying to help -> everyone has their own stuff going on.

Ultimately, the project is a simple emotional support robot with scripted answers based on user input to binary questions like “are you ok?” (Y/N). The project is in the form of a kiosk-style system with a smiling robot face, and buttons for Y and N. The face is a VHS display that alternates between facial expressions and text. There is also a speaker that reads responses aloud in a robotic, text-to-speech voice. The pedestal has a “start” button and a coin slot reminiscent of an old arcade machine.

The questions are very provocative and probe pretty deep, so it might be triggering to some users which is my biggest concern here. I don’t know the exact questions yet, but I want them to get pretty personal. The goal is to have the person open up to the robot, which fittingly only provides robotic answers in a scripted manner. There could be multiple robots next to each other, implying complete disregard for privacy.

Logic: I need to work on this. I’m a bit confused how to implement this as logic gates + truth table, since the logic I’m imagining is more of a response tree, like this:

1. Are you ok?
   1. Y – Thank you! (Session ends)
   2. N – Sorry to hear that (sad face). Are you depressed?
      1. Y – Sorry to hear that (sad face). Have you tried getting extra sleep?
         1. Y – Hmm (confused face). Have you tried talking to your professors?
            1. Y – Your professors are looking out for your mental health! Have you seen CAPS?
               1. Y – Hmm. Unfortunately, that’s all we can help you with here! Thank you! (Happy face, session ends.)
               2. N – You can make an appointment online! (Happy face, session ends!)
            2. N – You should reach out to your professors! They have your mental health as a priority. (Happy face, session ends.)
         2. N – Try getting more sleep! (happy face) (session ends)
      2. N – Have you experienced the loss of a family member recently?
         1. Y – I’m sorry for your loss! (sad face, session ends.)
         2. N – (continue with more questions, TBD)