Nina Shi
-Unity
-School project
-Personal project
About
Disappearing Neighborhood
Virtual Reality
Unity
Arduino
Installation
On one hand, we retreat into our bedrooms, shut the door feel free. On the other hand, with a single glance at our phones, we’re transported thousands of miles away, suddenly invested in interactions or family matters far removed from our immediate surroundings.
The space between the 'bedroom' and the 'world' has seemingly vanished. The neighborhood becomes a blur, and our interactions with the people and things nearby grow unfamiliar.
Unlike distant places, which are mysterious, isolated, and invite exploration, the neighborhood feels trivial and ordinary—a presence so familiar that it escapes reflection.
The public sphere is collapsing. While the internet gives the illusion of an ever-expanding global public space, it has, in truth, shrunk to the size of a private home—an illusory projection, like a small image stretched across a vast screen.
This “disappearance” is not a physical vanishing but a psychological neglect. People grow indifferent to the nearby, overlooking the richness of what they can easily engage with, while pouring passion into distant places beyond their reach. This misplaced enthusiasm becomes an outlet for fleeting satisfaction, leaving indifference as the prevailing state of lonely individuals.
Disappearing neighborhoods are the backdrop to my recent research, and I've used a lot of them in a short period of time to try to interpret the theme. The following three small projects are all centered around the context of [Vanishing Nearby], with very short time constraints to quickly try out various software, methods, and techniques. The first one is using unity to create a VR experience.
Light up the city is a one-week project that is one of the most direct and simple expressions of the [disappearing neighborhood] theme. Made in unity, the player just has to engage with the environment to get a very direct charge of that area to encourage the player to establish a connection with the neighborhood.
Light Up The City Installation：
[Arduino+ LED Light+ Light sensor]
Using sand as the key, the player uses sand to light up the houses by connecting them together on the map. The sand can represent us or the community. Expressing it through the installation allows users to participate more directly, without the need for complicated code scanning and logging in, and allows for more feedback to be collected.
Flip over installation：
[Arduino+ Touch sensor+ servo+ conductive ink+ TouchBoard]
This installation is one that allows multiple people to participate in the experience and only when six people touch the installation at the same time, six words are displayed. The six words are some key words for building a better community. When flipped over, people can touch the words and some interesting interpretations will be conveyed through the audio connected to the conductive ink, which also adds some 'magic' to the installation and some fun. I have placed the installation in a public area of the school in the hope that people in the community will remember how we can sustain and help the community grow.
Because there was no way for the servo to hold the weight of the stand and the text panel, this version broke after only one run. After that I downloaded the bracket online that allowed the servo to run vertically, 3D printed it and assembled a second version. It's the same concept, except that only four touch sensors are available at a time.