UIUX | INTERACTIVE DESIGNER | TECHNOLOGIST
AMIGARA BOX
Interactive Spaces
Amigara Box (2020)
I think 2020 was a time of the year where I was truly experimental and sadistic. In a second rendition of this project, I even chained up my professors and locked them in a metal box. (See Filmbox: Captive)
I wonder what did Year 3 of University do to me?
For this interactive spaces project, it was analogue, so I wanted to take the chance to make everyone feel the pain of my existential crisis. Hence, I decided to create a project that would inflict actual pain. When I mentioned that I wanted to work on the theme of "pain", I had one professor gleefully clap and another professor looking at me with bewilderment. Ain't that a great reaction?
...Except, I didn't expect to suffer from actual pain when I spent 3D2N weekends in the studio drilling bamboos and wiring them together. And burning myself with hot glue. And pricking myself with wires and toothpicks. Why do I do these things to myself? I must be mad. I think I caught myself hollering to myself in the studio a few times at 4am and scaring my friends awake (they were also killing themselves in the studio overnight).
Amigara Box is an analogue project inspired by horror mangaka Ito Junji’s <The Enigma of Amigara Box>, where it describes an ancient torture (fictional) where a convict is forced to enter a seemingly never-ending tunnel that is customized to their exact shape and size. Escape or quitting is impossible, and the convict can only travel forward. The tunnel will gradually morph in shape and will eventually force the convict into impossible and awful proportions through blunt friction.
I was also inspired by Antony Gormley's <Passage>, where it features a human-shaped tunnel that one person at a time can enter. We enter tentatively and even duck a little, despite the entrance being tall enough to easily accommodate us. The tunnel seems to go on forever, but upon finishing the walk and turning around, the light pouring in from the entrance makes the journey back much easier and we stride out confidently.
The tunnel I created using bamboo, wires, toothpick spikes, paper flowers and fairy lights was an allegory of the rainbow after a storm. When we go through our difficulties, it can hurt us, make us scared, tempt us to turn around to escape our life. However, if we press on and survive our difficulties and look back on the journey we have travelled on, the road was actually a beautiful one.
A participant will experience this by first going through a pitch-black tunnel riddled with spikes while blindfolded- the goal is to make it to the end of the tunnel without turning back. After completing the journey, the participant can turn on a switch at the end of the tunnel, which will switch on a trail of fairy lights going through the tunnel, highlighting the beautiful flowers and shine along the way.
And no, don't be silly. I definitely did not just want to laugh at my friends yowling in pain as they go through the tunnel blindfolded. ANYway, you can view the full experience in the video below: