Laying Down and Looking Up

The installation is to be viewed laying down, facing up towards the sculpture. This was done to mimic the act of laying down on the grass and staring up into the sky.

I spent a lot of time as a kid laying down and daydreaming. There is something universally magical and whimsical about staring at the clouds. Sometimes people stare up at the clouds and try to decipher their shapes, telling stories about what they see. Getting down to the level of the ground and adopting this low point of view is not something adults do often, let alone in public. I hoped that this body movement would evoke a stronger sense of that childhood whimsy.

Jakarta doesn’t have a lot of clean open green space, so I spent a lot of days laying down on my bed and staring at the textured wallpaper and ceiling of my tiny bedroom. A lot of this daydreaming turned into storytelling. untitled aka cloudwatch is a homage to the vivid imagination I had as a child, and my roots as an artist.

Sculpture and Fabrication

The central object of untitled aka cloudwatch is the sculpture of light coloured stuffed animals hanging over the guest like a chandelier. The stuffed animals are my own and borrowed, and were joiend together with rope and yarn over a macrame skeleton.The chandelier’s “holder” was a stand weighted to provide stability.

The green carpet was selected for its similarity in colour and texture to grass, symbolizing the metaphorical hill that we all lay on to imagine and dream.

The projector sits right next to the guest head, positioned so the guest’s presence does not block the content of its projection. The video was projection mapped

Accessibility was an important factor in the construction of the installation. For such purposes, there was a mirror placed on the side of where the viewer’s head must lay. By looking down on the mirror, one can see the reflection of the projected content above without having to lay down.

Video Content

The video content for untitled aka cloudwatch comprises of footage of myself as a toddler, layered over hyper-saturated videos of childhood cartoons that I enjoyed. The use of vivid and high contrast visuals to portray a time long lost to memory gives the work a more positive and lighthearted whimsy, as opposed to a sad melancholy in looking back at the past.

A soft wind and cricket sound accompany the video, creating a relaxing, yet engaging ambience. Similar to the sounds of nature outside my childhood bedroom, I hoped to replicate the soft and safe environment that allowed me to daydream.