This interactive piece presents the symbolic opportunity for us to send messages to the parents we should have had. The perfect parents that we as children deserved. The sculpture itself is metal bars and wires wrapped with lights and shaped as wings, surrounding the abstracted silhouettes of parents showing care.
The wings represent possibility. The figures represent the idealized parents we deserve, the dreams we had, of the attention and love we deserved.
The sculpture also presents the opportunity to send that message. This interactivity will be supplied by recording functionality. Interactive participants will be able to record a message of up to 30 seconds in length. The message can then be played back by any person who touches the button. The recording itself can either be deleted by interacting with it, or left for the mass deletion to occur at every dawn.
The sculpture itself is currently planned to be roughly 8 feet tall, 10 feet wide and 4 feet deep, with a total diameter of about 10 feet of space. The space around the idealized parents may also be enlarged with wing-like shading structure, to provide seating and contemplation.
The overall structure is metal rods for the wings, and CNC carved plastic or painted and sealed wood for the parental figures. LED strips will be added to the wings, and connecting to the audio recording apparatus. They will be run by a Raspberry Pi controller. These lights will be active at night time, and will also react specifically when a) a message is being recorded on one of buttons, and b) when a message is being sent to the aether i.e. erased.
There will also be a wooden carved box on the site with a slot for people to insert paper messages they might prefer to send to the parents they should have had. This box and its messages will be taken in its entirety and brought to the Temple before the Temple burns.
The disconnect between ideal and reality can be so painful, and so easily papered over in our adult lives. This is an experience intended to give people a space to dig into this part of all our beings, and complete a communication that is really with themselves. To voice a wish so that it can be acknowledged, with the purpose of moving forward healing in any form that can take.
This is a work in progress. Aiming for rough completion by May 1. Will ultimately be displayed at Burning Man in 2024.