The Project to Build The Archeon Project
The Archeon project builds community within a large and growing group of artists, fabricators, makers, doers, clowns, producers, performers, and instigators who have camped, played, cooked, wined, dined, suffered and laughed together over the years in the Black Rock desert. The project activities will strengthen the bonds we created and keep the creative juices flowing throughout the year and help us extend forward our intentions for a brighter future through reconnection with our friends, loved ones and our community.
The project involves metal working, electronics, celestial mechanics, nerdy theories, logistics, project planning, and a bit of psychology. Here are a few details on its finished form:
Imagine a sleek, organice form emerging from a large, geometric base, extending ~17’ into the sky. The texture is dimpled with pores, like the skin of an orange.
The form is otherwise featureless but has many ornate petals, like antennae, or a flower blossom, extending from its upper sections. The antennae are lit with high-power, full spectrum LEDS and animated.
During night hours, human interactions at the base of the sculpture triggers the message sending sequence: animations that resemble a pulsing energy culminating in a bright beam of light pointing directly at specific celestial bodies.
Atop the stem is a set of panels, or leaves, that protect a delicate message sending organ (a big, green laser that has been celestially aligned) so it can target a number of planets and galaxies and send coded messages.
An apparatus at the sculpture’s base brings two participants together and engages them in a tonal call-and-response, guiding them towards singing notes in harmony. They face each other, 2' apart, hear each others' voices and vocalize notes together. The sculpture's lighting changes in response to their vocalization and guides them towards a successful outcome. The pairs are rewarded for the positive intentions with light animations.
Messages will be uploaded and broadcast nightly to the targets. The laser should look like a pulsing light directed at objects visible in the night sky. We can use Morse code so the messages will be readable by those who know it.
We will design a survey to collect messages and also people’s sentiments about how the recent pandemic affected them, created isolation, self awareness of their isolation and how they’ve worked to recover from it.
We also challenge participants to become aware of how recent isolation as affected them and to take specific actions to help others and to rebuild their communities.
The installation will be presented like a science fair project with the discovery story and also the “Isolation and Reconnection” backstory.
We’ll review the collected sentiments and publish an analysis of what we think it means about our group and how to proceed with the project. This will make a plan of how best to promote self awareness and reconnection.
A strong team capable of delivering a complex project in a challenging environment while still having a great time!
Want to know more about what and when, see the project schedule.
