The Lost Ones

Proposal

This installation explores the Lost Ones’ endless searching as an echo of our own endless routines. The scene is reiterated through 3 interpretations of The Lost Ones. Each interpretation expands outward from the center of the installation, eventually including the visitor as yet another Lost One within the cylinder.

The installation will consist of 3 concentric interpretations of The Lost Ones: cyberspace on a monitor, surrounded by a model in realspace, surrounded by the suggestive or implied space that visitors walk into. Recorded voices will whisper phrases from Beckett’s text, including, "For the passion to search is such that no place may be left unsearched", which will be recorded in several languages.The inner most world will be an animated VRML world (3d cyberspace) displayed on a monitor. The monitor will be facing up, in the center of a model of Beckett’s cylinder with 200 Lost Ones (sculpted figures) within it. This cylinder model will be centered within a cylindrical, walk-in space with VRML scenes projected on the installation walls.

Cross section of the installation:
> walk-in cylinder (outer cylinder).
> model of Beckett's cylinder (inner cylinder without the figures).
> monitor beneath the raised floor of the inner cylinder.

The walk-in cylinder will be constructed of light weight materials, 10 feet in diameter and 8 feet high. It should be suspended from the gallery ceiling and attached to it’s own base, which sits on the gallery flood. Scenes from the VRML world, like the ones on the monitor in the center of the installation, will be projected on the walls from 2 or 3 projectors.

The cylinder model will be 30 inches in diameter and 3 feet tall. The 200 figures will be adhered to a raised floor in the model. The monitor screen will be lower than or flush with the floor of the model. The figures will be positioned to represent the Lost Ones always searching, continuously revolving around the center of the cylinder. The model echoes the VRML world on the monitor screen in the center.

Bird's eye view of the installation showing the walk-in space and
the Beckett model with figures circling the monitor screen.

Lost Ones figures revolving around monitor (25 kb jpg)

The VRML world will consist of the cylinder and the space inside the cylinder as described by Beckett. Inside the cylinder there are 200 people ‘searching endlessly’ in three concentric sections. There are also 15 ladders of varying lengths, with half the rungs missing, "without regard to harmony". Chambers of various sizes are arranged randomly in the top half of the cylinder wall. Various scenes of inside the cylinder will be displayed continuously on the monitor.

Beckett model with figures circling the monitor screen.
(monitor shows only ladders here)

Special thanks to Dan Douglas for 3D Studio Max assistance

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