Collaborators: Adam Parrish, ChoRung Hwung, Ana Gutierrez, Shin-Yi Huang.
Keywords: Mood mapping, public space, architecture, visualization.
This project is an effort to define the mood of a space, not to have the architecture of the space define the mood of the people moving within it.
We observed the movement of people through the Canal St. subway station in New York City, a "non-place" where ten subway lines (N, R, W, Q, 4, 5, 6, J, M, Z) intersect, and trains come and go in twenty different directions. This station welcomes people from all areas of NYC: people come and go from Queens, Brooklyn, uptown and downtown. They enter and exit the station from Chinatown.
Canal St Station is therefore a mosaic of the different lives and cultures of New York City, and a prime location for an installation that reflects the culture of the space.
During weekday rush hour periods, people commuting on a daily basis tended to move through the station anonymously and as quickly as possible, paying little attention to the other people or environment around them. In the afternoons, tourists would get lost and wander through the station searching for the correct connection as if the structure was a maze.
We decided to build an installation that would allow people to define the mood of the space, possibly connecting people with others traveling in the same or completely opposite directions.
Our installation is constructed throughout the space: it has kiosks on all of the twenty platforms and in the long empty hallway that goes between two of the trains. At each of the kiosks, commuters will be able to leave their mark on the station by pressing one of four buttons indicating their mood (in a rush, in love, happy, lost), thereby taking a photo of themselves. The data (location, direction, time) and image are logged in a database, for later use.
In the main hallway, a 40-foot screen will be constructed to map the moods of the people traveling through the station. Animations will be generated based on the data logged at the kiosks, describing the mood in the station and at different platforms throughout the day. The computer generating the animation will be exploring connections between and amongst different anonymous commuters, while revealing their images and creating a more personal space. In the process, the computer will be determining emotional patters that occur throughout the day and over the course of a year.
Though the idea was developed for the Canal St. subway station, the idea can be applied to different spaces. We are currently proposing this project for the Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Canada and would appreciate your feedback and input.
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