Dundee University
First Class Honours
Message on a Bottle
Atelier Project
As a group we were instructed to conceive, design, prototype and craft an interactive physical digital object or space inspired by our group's insights around ‘making’ gathered from personal projects. The object or space could be political, playful, practical, instructional, poetic and/or provocative.
After many discussions, meetings and getting to know each other we found a collective interest in exploring “communication” and settled on designing and making a playful, poetic reflective space.
“Message on a bottle” is a sculptural installation meant to foster sharing of personal stories with strangers. Why? We found it to feel personally rewarding to share memories with one another during this project and as a result wanted to design a way for others to feel the same by sharing memories though are installation.
The challenge now was how?
​
The older you get, the harder it is to open up and share stories with others despite the benefits. We explored different forms of communication including “messages in a bottle” the act of sharing who you are with someone you don’t know far away because it feels good. This led us to our modern take with “Message on a bottle”.
The user would approach the lit-up table and read stories on bottles while having a wee smile to themselves. Wanting to add to the stories, they would then find the clear bottle under the desk and prompts graffiti'd onto the stand.
Once the story has been written, they would add their bottle to the collection above. Continuing the cycle of sharing stories for others to enjoy.
Installation development
As part of the build team I was heavily involved in planning and designing what could be practically made with the time and facilities accessible to us.
Here are some of the models and drawings I used to explain to the group our final outcome as they developed. These were also used to problem solve with workshop technicians on logistics of how to construct.
​
These models illustrate the impact of the decisions with the expert technicians. Note how the design did change dramatically from what was conceptualised to what could be possible without changing the idea.
​
What led to these changes were the availability of materials, unintended difficulty with designing with circular shapes and time constraints.
Construction
