What values do we need to take to mars? // "Our home, Our Planet", is a project that serves to ask what values and social infrastructures would people want to bring to a foreign land
The first course of action was trying to map out what it means to create a home? It led me to elaborate on our relationship with familiar things, as well as our desire to express ourselves through material objects. (Our objects serve as a way to express our value sets, and different companies will create a vision of the perfect demographic, which you then choose to buy into.)
This project became a 3 medium immersive experience that aimed to have individuals question the dichotomy between what we expect mars to be, versus, what it might be.
The first medium was a Virtual Reality experience viewed through google cardboard.
This was where the image first started. It was more of a visual experimentation, fading in and out the lifestyle we lead with advertisements, bustling streets, and people in a hurry. Under the image was photos from the mars rover.
The final image was two views on how mars might be. One is a replica of earths green and blue rivers, an attempt to bring a piece of earth onto a foreign planet. It is also littered with different advertisements, signifying that we may still try and bring our ideals of consumerism to a new place in attempts to create business and sponsorships. All of which should be questioned. Why does it need to be this way to be considered home? On the other side is the way Mars is projected to look now. Very white, clean, with individual pods in linked communities. Although it seems very clean and organized, is that would is turning people away from the perception of comfort?
The second medium consisted of a mock spacesuit.
It was a culmination of three different types of mars spacesuits that is publicly seen today. Nasa, SpaceX, and The Maritian. The purpose of the suit was to create an immersive experience. To feel a part of mars exploration for a short amount of time. The look of the suit served to be familiar, to help you identify it as a spacesuit in order to believe in the context I'm asking you to be a part of.
The third medium was auditory. I created a playlist of songs that were used in depicting space travel, space colonization, or home with the extraterrestrial. (All of which created different atmospheres for the audience member at hand) I added a layer of the pop culture perception of space and new planets. It blocked out the bustle of real life, asking the audience to indulge in questioning our reactions about space.
A peak into the research and making process
