Royal College of Art School
MA Architecture ADS5-DOT
Project Location / Black Rock City, NV, USA.
program / Art installation
Material / timber, metal, plywood
Student / Chi-Jen. Wang
Tutor / Jon Goodbun, Benedict Singleton, Dr. V.A. Watson
That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
— Virginia Declaration of Rights —
—George Mason, 1776—
This Burning Man Art Installation Project was base on the speculation and narrative of American Dream, where the dream eventually ruining and toward to an endless space.
Field Study
Experiment
Deconstructing A House
This series of model aims to experiment and speculate the contradiction of a house, in which a house as a dream of American.
The “our dream” project aims to inspire the general public with the playful possibilities of the outstanding art installation. It took inspiration from the idea that a house as a symbol of “American Dream”, it explores the elements of a house then transform, and replace them in an unusual order. The installation comes up with a structural, social and artistic characteristic. The aspect of art installation most similarly connected to sculpture and architecture, and a place where people inevitably cross paths when participator try to climb up to the top of the structure.
The main structure is made by timber bean, staircase and double-side house-shape horn. The first impression of this main structure is a “huge house-shape horn” embedded to a timber frame, each side of this ‘visualizes house-shape horn’ toward to two stage platforms. Through the tube, the voice is transmitted in a bilateral way. The essential point of this horn is not either a perfect transmission or the form to intimate else things. It is to encourage participator communicate to others when they sit on the stairs, and also give an expression of its beautiful shape. The framework is designed to speculate that people are more likely to climb the timber-frame or stairs. They either follow the stair which may not continuously connect to each other, or spontaneously climb the frame. Through these motions, participator will become a member of this micro-community which everyone is part of this installation. Therefore, in order to create “the Dream”, every individual participator is vital, everyone is invited to play with these stairs and frame, everyone is invited to talk to others. The term of “Our Dream” has multiple meaning. First, it may be the dream of American (to own a single-family house), or the dream of the burner (they are part of this contemporary art installation). Last, the dream of urbaner( to own a wooden house in the wild field environment). However, the Burning Man event was meant to free the spirit through sequences of ritual. But, it appears this event is now controlled by and manipulated by a huge company, which dilutes their original connotation and meaning. This project intends to create a space which is not mentally or physically assimilate into the environments, and also to create a place where people are encouraged to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.
