Once we started this, we realised there were quite a few things that we had failed to see the importance of before.
After a meeting with Victor in which we discussed the functioning of our installation, it was clear that we had a lot to do.
The mechanism to make the coat fall and rise on which we had spent a lot of time, was clearly not going to work. We had to find a different way to do this.
Another problem that we faced was that we were alloted a space different from the one that we had hoped for. This lead to having to change measurements and placements that we had planned before. Entering and leaving the installation as we had planned was not going to work in the space we had and so we had to think of alternative ways to make it work without having to alter the installation too much.
Placing the projector in the right place was also a challenge because we were told that it was not possible to mount the projector on the ceiling as we had planned earlier. We had to find a way to place it in such a way that it would not be visible once the installation was functioning but also as far away from the panels as possible so that the projection would be big enough.
Having realised all these things we were all a bit discouraged. How were we going to be able to pull this off in a week?
We saw that we had to get our act together and look at what was most important. Our installation is all about the experience, and there was no way that we could compromise on that. Having a functioning mechanism and electronics, with out the right look and feel would be of no use. So we decided that we would put the mechanism and electronics on hold for a while and work on creating the experience first.
For the first showing of the installation we would work all the mechanism and electronics manually. We figured out a way to work the cloak by attaching two pulleys to the ceiling. We attached a long piece of rope to both sides which we pulled through the pulleys to lower and raise the cloak.
Luckily for us there were a lot of hooks on the ceiling to which we could attach our panels. After hours of balancing on ladders putting up, taking down and putting panels back up again they were finally in the right place.
In the mean time, another challenge was to attach the collar to the cloak. We were hoping to be able to attach everything and complete the cloak without the help of a tailor, but after hours of fighting with the fabric that was extremely heavy and slippery we decided that it would probably be better if we got help from someone with a bit more experience. Even the tailor seemed to have some trouble attaching the collar in the way that we had hoped but eventually it turned out quite nice.
Now that the major parts had been done, we had to pull everything together. We felt that there was a need to add something to the panels to make it look more interesting. So we took balloons and tried filling them with various things to create the effect of drops. We finally decided water had the best effect, although the weight caused the balloons to start leaking after a point of time.
We placed the projector on a stool right behind the spot where the person would be standing so that it wouldn't be seen in the mirror. After trying to project we realised that it was going to be a bit smaller than we had planned but there was no way around that.
The entrance had to be through the back of the installation, but we had to make sure that the people walking in wouldn't be able to get an idea of what was behind them once they were in the cloak. This was a bit difficult because one had to walk through panels of of fabric to get there, but we managed to get the area so dark that nothing could be seen clearly.
The installation was now pretty much up and running, with a few hitches here and there that have to be worked on. Overall we were quite satisfied with the look we had managed to create, especially after the amount of mistakes and failures that we had been through. There is still work to be done but we definitely feel that we have managed to achieve what we had in mind, minus the mechanisms and electronics.
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