DYNAMIC REFLECTIONS

When starting our design for this landscape installation for Amy Young’s cricket museum in Peabody Essex, Massachusetts, we began to look at the view from both the front window and the webcam. We observed that there were spaces hidden from view within the museum from both sources. In order to reveal those spaces, we used metal pieces as reflective structures within the space that bent to reveal places unseen by either the main window or webcam within the cricket museum.

First, we mapped out the hidden spaces created by the webcam and window.

DIAGRAM 1

Second, we took those shapes and reflected them into the space.

DIAGRAM 2

Third, we adjusted the position of the shapes in order to be able to reflect into the hidden places.

DIAGRAM 3

We turned these shapes into the reflective metal structures. Here, we reflected pieces of orange cricket chow.

REFLECTION 2     REFLECTION 1

Movement and light creates a changing environment that reveals the crickets’ most distinct characteristics: chirping and jumping. These are two things that are not often experienced by a static environment. Through this landscape installation, museum visitors are able to interact with the crickets and their environment, rather than merely observing the crickets.

The visitors of the museum have the option to explore how this process works. A pulley system using plastic strings controls the reflective pieces from outside of the cricket museum. When pulled, these structures modify the viewpoint, light, shadow, and experience for both crickets and humans within this installation.

HOW PULLEY SYSTEM WORKS     HUMAN INTERACTION

A mesh path leads crickets around and between these pieces containing food, water, heat, shadow, and a cricket’s simulated natural environment within the museum.

FOOD DIAGRAM     circulation

Here are some pictures of crickets interacting with our installation.

CRICKET INTERACTION 2     CRICKET INTERACTION     CRICKET INTERACTION 3

This is what the installation looks like from a cricket perspective.

CRICKET PERSPECTIVE

 

 

BY Cassie Giesken and Dominique Raymond