Fern's Proposal: Victory Hub

EROTIC EFFECT EXPERIMENT

Fern's site research: Victory Monument (Phayathai Island)

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The link will lead you to the presentation on Prezi

Fern's model behind the scenes

Fern's shophouse research

Animation showing the generic form of shophouse and its zoning according to the usage i.e. the public for commercial, private, and services

3D model of shophouse

Plan Elevation

Section of shophouse

1st floor : public space

1st floor : Kitchen

2nd floor : Laundry

3rd floor : Balcony

3rd floor : Bedroom

Staircase at the back of the house

Fern's documentation and post analysis on BOYS R WELCOME

Prior to the exhibition, some girls came and share their thoughts during the day.

Some comments during and after the presentation

"How come girls toilet is so illicit? How can you guys write on the wall? .... oh wait, oh! it's on paper!"

"An intimidation in the female restroom"

"Is the audio recorded from real life!?"

"This is so feminist."

"Not very often, maybe the only one chance, I can enter girl's bathroom"

Evaluation

The main objective and goal for my installation was to allow male audience to come and experience in a forbidden and unfamiliar area. The site that I chose suits best to the purpose. Girls bathroom is a space for a very private actions, girls sometimes come and socialized or gossip in here, so with this context, I decided to portray girl's thoughts into graffiti form, which is realistic and straight forward. 

I think my work is pretty successful in terms of drawing attentions to my target audience and arousing erotic sense. The site itself has already contained the eroticism because of the privacy between genders. 

When I invited boys to come in, also before and after the presentation, some hesitated to do so, some are excited and want to find out how it looks like. After they read the messages on walls, I could see some smiles, but with the eyes of thinking and reflecting on themselves and on society. 

Some texts are rude, some are thought provoking, and it reflects teenage girls thoughts in their daily life. With the contrast to the sweet words outside of the stall, it gives more impact and more shame of how boys usually hear sweet things, but there are also darker thoughts inside as well. 

Fern's installation drawings : BOYS R WELCOME

Plan and elevations of girls bathroom

Axonometric view of selected site

Eye-level at different stages

Dimension of the areas that will be covered with graffiti

Zoning

The red zone is the outside of the stall, which is the public space of girls bathroom. The graffiti on the mirror will be sweet and nice, which is like the icing on the cake. The boys will feel good about themselves when reading this. At the same time, they will see themselves in the mirror, which emphasize the idea of narcissism.

The grey zone is the inside of the stall, which is the private space for individual use. The graffiti on the walls will be really messy and quick. It will have girls' inner thoughts and what is normally unheard of. It is showing the darker side of women thoughts and truth. It is intended for boys to feel uncomfortable and a little shame.

Lighting

The installation will be presenting at night time. Although there're already artificial lights available, but i decided to add an extra light bulb on the top of my selected stall. This is to emphasize my installation, so that the audience ignore the other stalls and pay full attention to this area. 

Materials

On the mirror, the texts with be written by lipstick and erasable glass paint marker.

For inside the stall, I'll cover the walls with plan paper. The grey side has got the color that is similar to the original wall, so it can blend very well. Then normal pen or markers and be applied to the paper.

Fern's installation development : BOYS R WELCOME

Defining EROTICISM

::: I would define eroticism as a stimulating and arousing environment or situations which arouse your feeling suddenly and thoughtlessly

::: curiousity - the thirst to know or to find out about the ambiguity

::: inferiority - being minority, unimportance, and imperfection can lead to an arousing feeling and desire to get attentions

::: illusion - optical illusion can get you confused and curious of the unexpected things you see

::: guilt/hidding - erotic feelings sometimes come with guilt because you are not supposed to do or to think that way, but you can’t avoid it, so you feel very uncomfortable and shame of yourself

::: obsession - having strong passion with something

Chosen Site

Location: Faculty of architecture, 7th floor (707) Girls bathroom

Users: mostly INDA(year2-3) female students (age 18-21) , INDA female teachers

Research

Girls toilet and toilet graffiti

Sequence of usage

TOILET GRAFFITI

More erotic content in men’s

More romantic content in women’s

Male’s graffiti also tend to be more insulting, prejudiced, and image-based

Female’s graffiti usually offer advice or respond to previous remarks.

Women: social conventions and lesser sexual responsiveness.

“Psychoanalytic writers proposed that graffiti writing was a form of ‘phallic expression’ or that men pursued it out of an unconscious envy of women’s capacity for childbirth.”

<http://mindhacks.com/2012/06/01/the-bathroom-of-the-mind/>

Survey

To get various opinion from girls, I created a Facebook page and invited about 150 girls to share there thoughts.

Below is some examples of messages converted into toilet graffiti style

Electricity Supply

The diagrams below show the route of how I can connect my site to electricity.

The red line takes about 15 meters, and the blue is about 21 meters.

I think this is the main problem of my site, the distances are too long and hard to connect the electrical lines.

Mock-up 3D models

3D rhino model showing the selected site area

The initial idea of how I want to install my work

To develop from my initial, I need to make the two zones separated clearer i.e. the inside and outside of the stall should obviously show the contrast girls thoughts. So I'd make the graffiti on the mirror become neater handwriting and more in order so it is contrast in visual.

Soundtrack
I also decided to add a soundtrack with the sound of using toilet and toilet environment. This will evoke the imagination of men and they will get the erotic sense of what is usually unheard. They might feel like there's a girl in the toilet with them.