WEEK 7

Independent work

In Week 7, our discussions shifted toward defining the overall tone of the project and the kind of experience we wanted the audience to enter. Building on the previous week’s conversations about the dog’s form, we began to address a broader question: what should this wedding feel like for the participant?

Through reflection on our earlier ideas, we realised that overly abstract or heavily symbolic approaches risked pushing the experience toward a darker or more unsettling direction than we intended. This led us to clarify that, on the surface, we wanted the wedding to feel relatively light and even subtly comedic. Rather than creating tension through fear or discomfort, we aimed for a sense of gentle absurdity—an atmosphere that feels strange but not threatening.

Choosing a lighter tone was not about diminishing the emotional weight of the story. Instead, it was a way of making the experience more accessible. Weddings are already highly ritualised events, often filled with exaggerated gestures, formal procedures, and social performance. We began to see these qualities as opportunities for humour and irony, allowing emotional tension to emerge naturally through imbalance and repetition rather than overt conflict.

Within this context, we revisited our narrative elements to assess whether they supported this tonal direction. The representation of the dog, the intensity of the mother’s behaviour, and the participant’s position within the ceremony all needed to avoid pushing the experience into something overly oppressive or psychologically heavy. We became more cautious about design choices that might feel conceptually rich but risk alienating the audience or disrupting the intended mood.

This week also helped us recognise that humour and lightness do not equate to superficiality. Within a wedding that appears playful or slightly absurd, themes of growing up, letting go, and independence can be communicated in more subtle and resonant ways. Rather than explicitly signalling emotional seriousness, the experience allows participants to gradually sense changes in relationships through participation and observation.