The Humorous and the Horrible aka ‘Bippy’ (2023)

For my final year project while studying at Toi Whakaari, I became very interested in horror comedy and how I could create a compelling live, immersive space that would be equal parts funny and creepy. This is when I created the Bippy character to serve as the anchor of my project. My first performance test consisted of an autopsy on a ‘dead’ Bippy and it seemed to successfully tie together my two ideas thanks to the shock horror of the grotesque insides that lay beneath my cute puppet. From there I continued to develop this project, performing more autopsies, making more puppets and gradually adding more and more details.

The last test I did for this project during this time was the ‘Bippy learning lab’, an immersive lab space with soundscape, photos and diagrams on the walls and faux specimens littering the room. I included some elements of interactivity including a white board with a marker and letter magnets which people interacted with happily, leaving little messages and jokes which added even more to what I already had. This project really sparked an interest in me to continue creating art with interactive elements and spaces that allow people to be creative and imaginative and have a good laugh.

Beaker National Park (2023-Onwards)

One of my ongoing worldbuilding exercises, Beaker National Park, stems from a short story I wrote in highschool. Overall, writing is not my strong suit, however I quickly became fond of the world I was creating and continued to build on it. Eventually this culminated in a short film for an assignment at Toi Whakaari (linked above).
My favourite part of creating the film was making a cohesive graphic design package, so after finishing the film I continued making more including maps, logos and tech. I condensed many of these elements into another more recent short story, serving as an introduction to the world. I’m not done with this world yet and although I have no future plans for what to do with it, I continue to enjoy working on it in my spare time.