Pat's proposal: Take a Bath

Site Research: This research focuses on contrast in Silom 20. Here, there are four culture reside together, which are Hindu, Islam, and Buddhist. When I first saw the site I was surprised because I didn't expect to see a Hindu temple, a mosque, a market together within Buddhist context. Two religious shrine are supposed to be quiet and peaceful, but once they are located near the market, the supposedly environment changes.

Left side of the street, there exist a market and a mosque

Right side of the street, a chosen shophouse and
 a new implemented program.

Take a Bath is a Japanese Bathhouse in Thai context which is placed inside 3 units of existing shophouse in Silom 20. I want to create an enclosed environment that contrast to the actual environment to create an unexpected moment once a person walk inside the shophouse.

The bathhouse focuses on water usage and how to create a cycle of water turing from clean water to grey water and back to clean water. The use of water give a clam, quiet, and relax senses, which are contrast to the outside environment.

1st floor is where lockers and an outdoor bath area. The place is separated into two zones, one is for male, the other is for female.

2nd floor is where indoor baths are located. The special thing about the 2nd floor is that water from bathtub will flow out of windows down to water pond and some of the bathtub outdoor to create a connection between the inside and outside and to express water looping cycle.

3rd floor is where a tea house is. The tea house is where people practice tea ceremony which is a a process of getting into a meditation while preparing tea. The place is to be even more quiet and calm. 

Pat's site research: Silom 20

Here is the link to my presentation.

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Pat's shophouse research : Zoning: Public: Private: Separation: Connection

Pat's ShopHouse from Patmala Boondej on Vimeo.

This video focused on the separation and the connection between public area and private area in the shophouse . In the 1st phrase of the video public area started on the 1st floor where the entrance was, and ended at the stair. Private area started at 1st floor stair and ended on 3rd floor. Then once the stair cases were moved forward, private area was extended. This showed that the stairs indicated a boundary line between private area and public area in each floor. In the next phrase, I moved an entrance to the 2nd floor. The result was that public area was on the 2nd floor while 1st and 3rd floor were turned into private area. For the last phrase, I had the entrance on the 3rd floor connected to the skywalk. Public area turned out to be on the 3rd floor when the 1st and 2nd floor became private area. The video also showed the dimensions for a generic shophouse, and how it was assembled.

Pat's research on Sophie Calle, and Joan Jonas

Sophie Calle's The Hotel
For this, I try to imagine what the room would be like through Calle's work

Calle worked as a maid in a hotel in Italy. There she took photograph of things hotel costomers leave each days as she clean out the room. She uses people's private belongings as her subject, and make it public in museum gallery.

                                                                   

Sophie Calle's The Sleepers
Again, I imagine what the space is like when Calle took pictures

Calle invited people to sleep in her bed, but she would take a photo of them sleeping. This project attracts people because it is something unusual and strange.

       

Joan Jonas's Vertical Roll
I recorded the frame when the image changes from one thing to another. As the images revealed themselves I can see that what I thought was not what it was.

Joan Jonas's Valcano Saga
Jonas uses technique of layering one image on another and put a sound on top. I didn't get the artist's intention to this work, but it is a strange combination between picture and sound that makes it interesting.

Pat's documentation and post-analysis on keep dark

Site: 4th Floor locker area: A private space for storing items

Installing Process

This is what inside No.139 before presentation.

No.139

 The ajarns, guests, and classmates ,  started to walk from Rm. 405 following the sound into darkness. It was a sound of traffic in the city, people talking, and loud music. First they walk closer and closer to a locker and listen to it, but it took few minutes for someone to open it. It seems like people just want to put their ears close to the locker and just listen to it.  

No. 004

This on a light from an iPhone's flashlight went out. I guessed it happen when I crammed all the balls inside and the ball touched the screen. When the guest opened this locker, she slowly opened the door. The ball slowly drop one by one. It wasn't what I intended it to be. However, I could see how the guest was unsure of what to do when something start dropping. She couldn't see what it is because the aisle was dark, but only hear it. Then I heard she asked something like should she open the locker. From this I could see that people do things slowly and consciously  in the environment they are not fimiliar with, and when they feel unsecured. I expected that people would be surprised after each lockers was opened, but all of them except ajarn Taylor were confused of what was going on, and what the installation was about. They couldn't find any relation why public why private why lights why why why, which proved dissociation though I didn't intend it to be that way.


EROTIC AND THE INSTALLATION

For me erotic is something that is attractive and makes me want to feel the attractiveness. After they experience the attractiveness, they should have a positive feeling towards it. This installation takes the idea of attractiveness by the use of curiosity. People attract to secret. They don't want to be left curiously. They want answers and proves and they will do anything to understand what they don't. The name "keep dark" means to keep it as a secret. For me a secret is a type of beauty and attractiveness because once I know the secret, it is done. Nothing is to be think about. My imagination stops. I can see through my work that the best moment is when someone is about to open the door. Once the door is opened, all the curiosity is gone. Truth is the ultimate, but sometimes it is quite boring.

Pat's installation development: keep dark

Site and Dimensions

This was how I connected all the lights to a battery. I chose a parallel connection because if one bulb burnt out, the rest would still work properly. However, this connection has a problem. The reasons being all the bulbs share the power from a small battery, and since many bulbs are connected, there is a need for a bigger capacity of battery.  After connect the circuit, the bulbs lit for few seconds. Then the battery dies. After I talked to the battery shop, a person suggested me to use a car battery instead of my 3A motorbike battery. This try doesn't work because a car battery doesn't fit in a locker.    

There were two mechanisms that I thought of at that time to make an object fall out of a locker after it was opened. One was using a spring mechanism, and the other was a manual method. However, before getting started, I needed to fill up at the bottom of a locker so there wouldn't be a front piece to block an object when it was about to fall. I found out that in order for the spring mechanism to work, I needed (1.) a spring that could work with a certain force applied (2.) an object that had some weight to be able to push the spring (3.) a locker's door had to hold so the mechanism worked only when a person opened the locker, and (4.) the spring should go out straight not bend, so I might need an addition track for it, which would make an installing method even more complex. There are too many variables, so I chose to leave it there.

For the manual mechanism, I thought of a sequence of how I opened a locker, and how an object was being pushed. So I connected a piece of cardboard to a string, connect they in the locker, and tie a string to the locker's door. That mechanism worked well because no matter how heavy an object was a person would apply his force just enough to pull both the door and the object itself.     

Pat's installation drawings: keep dark

Defining the installation

Here I have a position of the lockers, which my installation will be inside.

How to assemble a light panel & How to connect the bulbs to the batteries

This time I change a light bulbs from 12v/ 25w to 12v/ 8w so the batteries would last longer, but I get a dimmer light, which I'll have to figure out later on how to emphasize the light. I also choose to connect the bulbs to the batteries in parallel. I make three sets of six bulbs and a battery. As the result, the batteries last about 20 minutes.

No.139 A diagram of what being installed inside the locker

To emphasize the light, I put a reflective surface paper inside each sides of the locker, but on top and bottom of the inside I put purple foils to give color effect to the locker.

No. 004 A diagram of what being installed inside the locker

I connect a pulling mechanism to the locker. For objects I use several small plastic balls so when the balls drop, it will create a continuous sound for few seconds. I also put iPhone's flash light inside the locker so people can see when the balls drop.

 INTENDED EFFECTS OVER THE CONTEXT AND VISITORS.

For this installation, I choose to play with a concept of private vs public, expectation vs unexpectation and dissociation. The private and public came up when I did an analysis on artist Sophie Calle. Most of her work is about the exposition of either her private life or everyone else's. This is against social code on privacy, but because of that it keeps people's attention and engage with her works. The site, I choose 4th floor locker area because it is where my locker is. A locker is a personal space, where people keep their belongings.  I saw some of my friends decorate inside of their locker, and the locker become their private zones.

When people come to their locker, they come to store something or to bring something out. They go there with intention and expectation to see their belongings. What if people don't see what they expected, what will be their reactions? I want to see how people react to what they expect to see, but they see what they don't expect to see. The concept of expectation vs unexpectation and dissociation came after I studied artist Joan Jonas' work. She is a performance and video artist. The work that I studied were videos. The similarity in the two work is she makes her video ambiguous that when I see them I was not sure what I were looking at or where the story took place. However, after I took sometimes watching them I would know what the object the video camera captured was. I saw an image.  I guessed what it was, but at the end it turned out to be something else. Sometimes I don't see how the sound in the video relates to the image.  This is how expectation unexpectation, and dissociation come to play.

My installation took place in an aisle between two rows of lockers. I wanted it to be completely dark, and lucky me, the power went out on the presentation day. The way to draw people to the locker I had installed something inside is through the use of sound. The place was dark so the visitors could not rely on their eyes but their ears. When they come to a locker they would open it out of their curiosity and they would see what was inside.

The sound I chose were two types; one suggested private (sound in private space such as activities in the bathroom), the other suggested public (night time Siam Square walking street). The place that I put my installation in was quite a distance from each other(see the first diagram) because I want the visitors to be able to change their moods after they saw my first locker. The act of exploring someone else's locker also violates the code on privacy.  Exposing something private to public is what I got from the studies.

Pat's teaser: "Keep Dark"

Site: 4th Floor Lockers 02.15.13

Looking up outside BACC building. This photo makes me question is it an inside space: two walls and a floor in the middle ,or is it an outside space: two planes of the building connects to each other by another one.  

An installation at BACC. This object is installed on the ceiling, where people can hear their voice echoing back when they stand underneath it and speak to it softly. In this photo I like how the color at the edges is darker than the center, which directs the eye to focus at the center.

At BACC looking up from underneath an escalator, which leads to the ramp. I  like how the escalator acts as a separator and a connector at the same time. It divides the space into two sections, but yet rejoins it to unify the space.

Looking up underneath an escalator at Paragon. Normally there are lights on the ceiling, but it is interesting how Paragon also has a lighting system underneath the escalators. Yellow lights in the dim space looks energatic.  

The work of Pat Patmala Boondej