UPDATES: long overdue

here is the proposal that we submitted for the midterm.

Project Proposal: A Home Inside a Hexahedron.

Project Description:


We intend to create an interior space that extrudes outside of its confined limits overflowing onto it’s exterior. Essentially we would like to create a house that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.


Jerry Thompson and Taylor Zorzi’s ‘a home inside a hexahedron’ is an interior space, housed within a cube, an outer membrane that contracts and expands dependant on audience proximity. The cube when closed lives in a practical physical universe, one which appears to the viewer as a realizable object. When open, a fantastic world, which has been contracted and entangled within the cube, exposes itself. “A home inside a hexahedron” translates the notion of an object realized in the mind despite its physical inconceivability’s.

This is the interior space of a house, a house where the inconceivable takes place, private moments that the inhabitant is acquainted with, and as a user you are intruding on a space that is foreign to you. Like the mind, at times, others are unaware of the multiplicity of things that occupy the interior space. A user does not have privileged access to these thoughts, and as they are seeing the space unsuspecting of what awaits them, they will experience the cube with a slight apprehensiveness and curiosity, and in return the box will timidly release it’s contents onto the viewer.


We will treat the production process as two segregated undertakings.

The production of the interior will involve the creation of multiple rooms, set dressed with miniature furniture. A labyrinth of inter-connecting rooms that pile on top of one another to create a mansion of multiple spaces which spill out on top of one another when the box opens. Walls that don’t reach to the ceiling, floors that only half segregate levels of space will aid in the unconventionality of the layout of the interior.

Our Cube will hang from the gallery ceiling, permitting the viewer to direct their attention from all angles. A track built and situated above the cube will direct and control the expansion and contraction of the cube’s walls. This will work with the aid of servos or stepper motors. The boxes behavior is timid, the information which in the audience divulges is private and therefore we are basing its vulnerability on proximity. The closer you are the more susceptible it becomes to intrusion. The track structure is connected to the box my many invisible wires, we hope to have as many as possible to assist in producing the most life like expansion that curls downward.

Project Significance:


‘A home inside a hexahedron’ aims to force the audience to question what they are beholding in the physical world. The audience should discern an environment beyond the bounds of possibility, evoking wonder and curiosity. In a world wherein we are fascinated and engrossed with exterior properties, the surface structure is what we always base our impressions upon. Judging a book by its cover in the simplest sense. We hope to intrigue the viewer with light, a means to initiate the relationship between the audience and the house. At first glace the viewer will believe they are embarking upon something minimalist, simple, a pure form. Once this relationship has been made, as the cube begins to demonstrate vulnerability and it shares what it holds inside. We have decided not to date the interior; our set dressing will be an ambiguous combination of furniture from scattered decades. These pieces could either be homage to the past or an anticipation of what is to come.

We continually struggled with how our piece would play and converse with our audience. When one divulges an overwhelming amount of information, two methods of expression
are possible. The first method is to timidly release information as one grows more
comfortable with their surroundings and the second method is to release all the
information at once as though it had been waiting to be released For the first method, the box would maintain a timid behavior and open slowly, unsure of what might happen
when it is exposed. In accordance with the second method, the box would quickly and
abruptly spill over, as if it was so contracted and entangled on the inside that it could not
wait to be exposed. We have essentially decided on a combination of the two. A timid creature at first, the box will slowly reveal more and more light, and then once the insides are visible the box will spill open revealing the contents.

Unconventional narrative and story telling devices helped to created inspiration for this
piece. Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel, House of Leaves acts as a historical reference. On
some of the paperback editions, the cover of the book is slightly smaller than the pages
themselves, causing the pages to peek out of the side and the back cover. The novel is
about a house, which contains a labyrinth structure that seems physically impossible to
occupy the described exterior. The typography in the book mimics the feelings of the
characters and situations in the novel. When characters are navigating in claustrophobic
labyrinth sections of the corner’s interior, the text is densely confusing, packing into
small corners of each page. We don’t only see a reflection of the character’s action being
represented simultaneously in the text but because of the structure of the text the reader
starts to read the text at the character’s pace.

Production Plan and Feasibility

The interactive experience will be central, accessible from a variety of positions. We hope to create interaction experiences from all angles, so that the viewer doesn’t have to position himself or herself prior to action commencing. The interactivity is based on proximity, we hope to have the box only open when a viewer in an intimate position, distances no more than four feet from the box itself. If the viewer moves in and out of this active zone, the box will not continue to open for them, stressing that this is for detailed inspection only, and a relationship built on closeness must initiated.

This piece solely lives in the physical world. There are no virtual elements. We are attempting to create a mystery, possibilities that would seem more plausible in a virtual world, in the physical material universe. The Methodology that we intend to use is one, which stresses detail over tactility, which will aid in the conception of a hyperrealist universe. We hope to pack the most detail into the smallest possible area. The more one spreads the detail over a larger area, the more simple and believable the piece will become. This project is a bit of experimenting with the skills that we have already developed over our four years studying the new media practice. We will be creating detailed miniatures. Making set models is not unfamiliar to us, but creating them on such a small scale will be. We also have a few other professionals aiding us with the creation of this piece. An engineer at Ryerson who has access to a precision cutting machine, for doing small precision cutting with wood, Plexiglas and other fine materials. We also have a makeup artist who will be assisting us in the creation of the skin for the outer layer of the cube.


Public Presentation

The piece doesn’t have a lot of physical constraints within the gallery space. It doesn’t require an overly large area of it’s own. It would be best in a section with other pieces that are complimented by low light. The audience needs to have space to interact from all angles. It would be better if the area corralled people vs. the piece being open to the whole space. We also need a ceiling that can be adapted to hold our track mechanism. Our piece should be quite easily adaptable.



and here is the mock up in cardboard: This was at about the 3/4 way mark, there is a full bedroom and more small things to fill up the space, I need to photograph that.













a lot has been changed since december but this gives a better idea i guess for now.

BIGGEST CHANGE: it's no longer hanging, it is mounted (seamlessly) on the top of a plinth so that in the gallery space it is essentially invisible until approached. Second biggest change, this baby utilizes two overhead projections for it's texture, pattern detail and light source.


-taylor