Wishes from Quarantine (WfQ) is a project developed during the pandemic of 2020-21, using the constraints of the time as part of the piece. The cross-platform experience pulls live data — written and recorded wishes participants generate via the project’s web interface — into an immersive physical environment, a ‘wish container’. There the wishes get displayed and animated in large-scale projections and spatial audio of the recordings. Participants across the globe are guided via a web interface in articulating a personal wish. First they can choose between writing an absolutely free wish, or they can follow prompts. Next they can choose to record their wish in their own voice and expression.
Wishes from Quarantine reminds us of the existence of millions of others and their wishes, so that we may be meaningfully connected, even while physically apart.
Then the wishes are launched into the physical space where they are projected onto the walls and interact dynamically with one another. Guests close to the physical location of WfQ — be it festival visitors or passers-by when set-up in public space — can visit the installation in person, send live wishes via their smartphone and enter the physical space and immerse themselves in the projections and listen to the recorded wishes from near and far. In order to meet COVID safety guidelines, those visitors can book a slot on the website to visit the installation alone or with their viral partners. Those not physically on-site can watch the exhibit via the live online video stream.
All wishes are archived on the website’s wish archive where they are categorized with Google's Natural Language Processing (NLP) tool. Virtual visitors can see the overlaps in the wishes of people across space — people who will likely never meet, yet may share aspirations. In the future visitors should also be able to listen to the recorded wishes by browsing through a sound map.
Formulate your wish and send it live to the WfQ website and see it shared online, as well as as projections in the physical wish container on-site!
Formulate your wish and send it live to the WfQ website and see it shared online, as well as as projections in the physical wish container on-site!
On the website the visitors see a video livestream from the gallery space. Like this, not only the people present at the physical installation can see how the wishes — their own and the ones from around the world — arriving in the space as projections, but everyone online. At the end of the ‘wishing process’ the users have the chance to record their wishes to contribute to the spatial audio-visual installation in the gallery space.
(picture above) On the website the visitors see a video livestream from the gallery space. Like this, not only the people present at the physical installation can see how the wishes — their own and the ones from around the world — arriving in the space as projections, but everyone online. At the end of the ‘wishing process’ the users have the chance to record their wishes to contribute to the spatial audio-visual installation in the gallery space. (picture below)
Visitors can book a slot on the website and enter the installation and immerse themselves into the audio-visual installation and listen into the recorded wishes.
Of course also via desktop computers visitors can contribute their wishes! Above and below the desktop version of the website.
Photos: (c) Sarah Berger, (c) Julien Menand, (c) Magdalena Kovarik