Open Dump

by LEE Veronica Wing Tung

Agree not agree

In my university Creative Media Centre, there are 4 lifts at the lobby. Each lift will let the people with different status to go inside, eg. Students, staffs and visitors, etc. Each lift will post a big touch panel. The touch panel is white in colour will have different comments on the University that are collected from some students. People can go into the lift and look about the comments of CMC. If they have another opinion but the opinion didn’t mentioned on the wall, they could use their fingers to write their opinion on the “paper”. If they agree the statement on the paper, they can imprint their hand with red “pigment” by selecting the colour on the statements. If they disagree that statement, just imprint the hand with black “pigment” on it to show their position. The comments and hand imprint will increase gradually on the “paper”. There will be a lot of appeal. At the end, we can see two colors on the statements. It can show the peoples’ opinion. It’s because everyone can see the opinion and requests of the students and staff.

In Hong Kong, freedom and democracy are gradually loss. People may don’t have a way to share their ideas. So, this artwork is like a democracy wall for students. The difference between them is the after the people post their opinion on the democracy wall, other people will not declare their position, even they support the opinion on the wall, no one knows about the peoples’ position.

The aim of this project is to know more about the students and staffs’ opinions about my university: City University of Hong Kong, for example, the Creative Media Centre, the building that Creative Media Students and staffs always went to. The democracy wall in the main building, Academic Building One, is too open and some of the people may be afraid to express their ideas on the wall. Thus, there is a “democracy wall” in the lift, to provide a more “private” area to let the people express their ideas. There will be a “private” area when the lift is closed, and an “open” area when the lift is opened. They can make use the time of taking the lift.

Different age group of people has different positions and opinions. Thus, each lift will let different people of to go inside and express their feeling. You can see the differences of the people’s standpoint between those lifts after the artwork finished.

Everyone have the chance to participate in this artwork. This can increase the interactivity of this work. Each hand imprint represents one people. Thus, each hand imprint is a symbol of support or not support of the statement.