The entrance will be similar to a circus tent with two entrances. The façade will be made of discarded clothing sewn together in a large patchwork.
Visitors will have the opportunity to enter as participants or viewers. Participants enter through the right and pass through three evaluation stations. Viewers enter through the left and have the opportunity to watch the media created by the participants from a safe and passive voyeuristic perspective.
A set of three RFID embedded hangers (or small swatch of cloth) will be handed to participants as they enter. These props will maintain a user ID as they pass through the stations and be used to compile their profile and evaluation.
The first stop is a row of benches. Participants will be asked to indentify their shoes by brand, model, materials, country of manufacture and price. This data will be entered as text on keyboards with small LED flat panels. (The data we collect at these stations could also be used in our database for the Social Cost Tracker app) Participants then proceed to the RFID changing rooms.
Each room will have two industrial chrome clothes racks. The rack on the left will have clothes solicited by donation embedded with RFID tags. (jeans made in Bangladesh, American Apparel, GAP, leather coats, coats with fur collars) Participants will stand in front of a video projection or flat panel “mirror” as they hold up or try on clothing from the rack. The RFID chips will trigger images of the clothing superimposed on the participant that has information about labor practices involved in the manufacture of the clothing. Participants will choose a coat and a pair of pants or skirt based on their tastes and the social costs and place these items on the right clothing rack. The rack on the right records their selection and forwards this info to the interview stations.
The interview stations are smaller cubicles with iMacs. Participants will be interviewed by a MAX patch that asks them to provide more information about their product choices. (I would like to add video interviews about their selections at this point, but it may be more feasible to just have simple yes/ no questions and maybe some text to evaluate their purchase decisions)
The evaluation of the participants is completed and forwarded to the visualization room.
In this large open space participants and viewers meet under a large video screen visualization that presents snapshots of recent participants with our evaluation / social cost score of their decisions.
If the participants accept their score, they can leave through the center exit that takes them through a behind the scenes view of our technology and evaluative methods. Our methods of evaluation will be displayed on large flat panels. We could also use this space to address some the issues associated with RFID technology. Participants and viewers will see the technology we are using for our display. We should solicit temporary loans of energy efficient projectors and LED displays from vendors that would like to showcase their green technology in this environment. Essentially we are presenting the social cost of our technology.
If the participants are not satisfied with our evaluative score of their clothing selections, they enter the rant rooms. These cubicles should have a different feeling than the interview booths, maybe more like a confessional booth. Participants will be presented with a simple pushbutton interface that gives them the chance to record a time limited video response to our evaluation and explain their decisions. The booths will have small windows in the back for viewers to silently observe the rants in progress.
The rants will be forward to the next station where they are projected on a transparent scrim that may be viewed from both sides. Participants watch other rants while they wait for their rant to come up in the cue. Viewers who entered on the left will be on the opposite side of the transparent screen. In this space participants will have the opportunity to watch their rants with a public audience. This may alter their feelings about their rant before they proceed to the next station where their rants will be approved and uploaded to our public database.
The last stop in the circular path of the participants will be another set of benches where they can sit for a few minutes as they either accept or reject their final social cost portrait with their attached rant response for upload to our server and web distribution. Viewers will be observing this process behind a divider as they enter the exhibition through the viewer entrance.
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