Bonfire of Despair
Bonfire of Despair
Photos by Jimi Liu
Bonfire of Despair is the first station the visitor encounters during the visit of Bridging ACTs.
This work employs the technique of Creative Hopelessness and intended to help the visiter to acknowledge that being fused with negative thoughts about downgrading their identity can lead to negative emotions, and continuing this pattern may adversely affect their mental health and daily lives.
Before entering the space, a narrative text about this work is presented:
Bridging_Hopelessness - Bonfire of Despair
Welcome to the Bonfire of Despair, a space where you can take your time and face the negative thoughts.
Before entering this space, please take a moment to reflect on any cultural difficulties you have experienced recently. What thoughts come to your mind, and how do they make you feel?
Take a moment to immerse yourself into these thoughts and emotions, and observe how they make you feel.
You are also welcome to contribute your thoughts to the installations by using the computer here.
The visitor is asked to fill out a short questionnaire on a computer system and contribute a thought written as a short phrase that is associated to one of the five provided categories of emotions used for the research - Frustration, Anger & Hatred, Lost & Loneliness, Disappointment, and Helplessness. This contribution will then be saved into an archive of thoughts and be used in the whole exhibition.
Once entered the exhibition, five short compositions created by Chi Him Chik for this specific setup associated this five categories of emotions are played back on the sound system. Thoughts from the archive are also occasionally read out at different position of the sound space using live generated text-to-speech technique.
At the centre of the sound system, a TV statue with four screens on the side and one big screen attached with a custom- developed Pepper’s Ghost illusion frame on the top is seated on a large carpet. An algorithmically-driven fire is displayed on the screens the texts of the thoughts are shown when read out in the sound space. The visiter is encouraged to sit down to experience the work while immerse themselves into the confrontation and reflection between these thoughts and emotions.
Materials:
48" TV Screen
4-channel TV Statue
Custom-Developed Pepper’s Ghost Illusion Frame
11.2 Sound System
Production Credits:
| Artistic Concept | Audio & Visual Content | Programming: Chi Him Chik