He thinks that my initial proposal, constructing a table with a smooth facade out of wood, looked too much like a glorified kitty litter box, and that there was a problem with it being too tall so kids can’t really play with it.

We talked about the benefits of using a child’s turtle sandbox, which might make it feel more fun and tie more into childhood and lead to a more reminiscent experience, and that painting it hot pink might make it feel more like an allusion to pop art than a kiddy toy in the gallery. If I went with this construction, I would consider putting mirrors on the underside of the turtle to make it look like it was floating from far away, adding a bit of whimsy to the installation.

As far as height of the sandbox goes, I don’t know that it should be made low for children, mostly because I don’t think I’ve ever seen children at the Redline other than Rian’s kid, so to me it makes more sense to accommodate adults, and maybe have a standing bench on one side in case of children. Benefits of this would be having the Kinect/Projector setup higher than eye-level and less in the way. People would also be less likely to bump into it, meaning the calibration would be harder to mess up.

With the box I’m thinking about changing the construction a little to make it feel more obelisk-like, using wood putty to cover the seams in the wood and sanding it smooth, but I’m concerned that might not look as good as I’m envisioning. I hope that this construction would make it feel like the box itself just sort of disappears from notice, featuring the sand rather than the craftsmanship and simply being there to exemplify the technology of the piece.

Benefits of the turtle would be that it would be considerably cheaper to construct, and easier for me to make, allowing for more time to work on the projections themselves. Also, it’s optimally constructed to contain sand. It would be fairly eye-catching, and I imagine that it would draw curious stares around the gallery.