Xianying Yao
I am an interior designer interested in how design affects people’s lives. I pay attention to social problems and future challenges. I hope to change and solve the deficiencies through design. Good design can guide people’s behavior. Behavior become habits. Habits affect people’s daily life. Good design is a process of changing a way of life and a process of in-depth communication with others. Therefore, I am curious about how to use space to have a dialogue with people. This is also the inspiration for my postgraduate project.
This is an exhibition space design project. In this project, I examined how network media violence is formed and why it becomes seriously under the Internet Age. Here I mainly refer to the cyber violence caused by keyboard warriors. After research, I found that there are three identities involved in cyber violence, namely the victim, the perpetrator, and the bystander. Therefore, different space reflects the perspectives of different characters. The process of visitors passing through different exhibition spaces is also the transformation of different perspectives. I hope that visitors can realize the harm of cyber violence, so as to restrain their behavior and do their part to create a healthy online environment.
Circulation
There is an exhibition on each floor. Each exhibition space has a theme, each representing a perspective.
Entrance
At the entrance of the exhibition, there is a front desk. After opening the curtain, the exhibition journey begins. The reason why a curtain is used here is to echo Erving Goffman’s ‘dramaturgical’ theory which is mentioned before.
After opening the curtain, we entered the Internet age – ‘Digital maze’.
The ground floor – ‘Digital maze’
On the ground floor is an exhibition called ‘Digital Maze’. What I want to show is the virtual Internet space we live in now.
When surfing the Internet, we are faced with a large amount of information all the time. At this point, we may feel lost, as if in a maze.
The first floor – ‘The way of truth’
Visitors can’t get all the information or the whole storyline at once. Only after walking through all the platforms and watching all the screens carefully, can the visitor gets all information. Otherwise, what the visitor get is only one-sided fact and one-sided opinion. I used this space to express the process of receiving information as a bystander.
The long stairs and platforms also symbolize that it is a long process to truly find and understand the truth. As bystanders, we should not dominate by emotions. We should not make judgment quickly and and send aggressive comment randomly on the social media platform.
The second floor – ‘Please don’t be one of them’
There are many light pillar on this floor and there are electronic devices such as computers and mobile phones in front of the light pillar.
Whenever a visitor uses these devices to send a rude comment or message. The light pillar will be lit. Theses light pillars are connected to the installation on the third floor. As more and more malicious comments were sent, more and more pillars were lit. This is the start of cyberbullying.
The third floor – ‘Please don’t be one of them’
In the beginning, visitors could pass the space standing up. In the end, due to more and more rude comment sent by perpetrator. Visitorswere forced to bend over to pass the space. By creating an installation and space for such an experience, I hope visitors can have a refelction that ,in real life, malicious comments sent by tapping the keyboard will actually cause great harm to other people.
Additionally, I divided the space on the third floor into two parts. In addition to the interactive installation space mentioned above, the other space is the lounge. Between these two space, I designed a one-way mirror. Also, due to one-side mirror, they can watch other people playing installation in a relatively relaxed environment. The reason why I designed a bright and harmonious atmosphere for this space is because I want to create a contrast. I want people to rest and have a reflection in this harmonious environment.
The desperate pain of the victim is in contrast to the bright and spacious environment we now enjoy. I hope that visitors can have a deep reflection on their behavior.
