open-house is an interactive sculpture—

a fabricated hybrid form of toy, object, installation, and art piece.

The rear wall of the house was a projection mapped compilation of videos and motion graphics. Using proximity and motion sensors, an Arduino Uno, and Touch Designer, the projected videos increased in brightness and clarity as the guest approached the house, creating a sense of wonder and intimacy.

Yarn

Almost every item inside and outside the dollhouse is either made of or covered with some form of  yarn craft. For the many textures and objects in open-house, I had chosen to use a variety of gauges, textures, and sizes of yarn. Textile and yarn is used to encourage interaction, and to evoke soft, warm, and intimate feelings. Adding to the narrative theme of  growing up, textile and yarn are materials that are associated with objects such as stuffed animals or blankets. The associations between softness and femininity are used in order to emphasize the themes of girlhood.

Covering the entire house in yarn, and doing all of the yarn work by myself was not just an aesthetic or interactive design decision. In performing all the labor required to cover the house by myself, I hoped to highlight just how much labor women take on that often goes unnoticed. The foundations of this principle are established in girlhood, which can be succinctly put as “normalizing invisible labor.” The term “invisible” is not just used to speak about physically laborious activities—the emotional labor and space women take on for men is another invisible form of labor that often goes unnoticed.

The (Doll)House

In our ever-connected world, the house is one of the only spaces that remain private and personal to ourselves. More than just a space of domicile, the house is the site of coming of age, where girls learn their role in their community and the world, and where memories are made and unmade. Across many storytelling traditions over time, the house is portrayed as a powerful and evocative symbol of the human psyche.

open-house’s physical infrastructure is a modified children’s dollhouse, constructed in a 1:6 dollhouse scale. I chose the dollhouse for its connection to our establishment of the ideas of play, its rich symbology, and its potential for emergent storytelling.

Mechanics

Interactive mechanics in open-house include drawers, lock mechanisms, tactile and textural difference in spaces, motion sensor lights and sound, “touch-and-and feel” pits.

Interaction and the Invitation to Touch

Foundationally, open-house is built on the simple act of physical touch, and priming the guest to do so as early as possible became the key to inviting them to engage in the work’s more complex tactile activities. By placing simpler, touch and feel only interactions closer to the front of the piece and bottom floor, I hoped that this primer would be inviting enough to allow the guest to explore deeper into the sculpture. Moreover, small ribbon labels are placed near the interactable elements of the piece, providing the guest with simple instructions and prompts.

Despite there being an onboarding process that attempted to emphasize the importance of touch in the experience, the guest still had the freedom to choose how much or how little interaction they engaged with. Therein lies the spirit of the interactive sculpture—it is an experience that allows for freedom of interaction and exploration from varying levels of comfort and proximity.