Inspiration from Hong Kong

Sources : Futherfield
F.wish is a new online project commissioned by Folly by Boredom Research based on the Lam Tsuen Wishing Trees. In Hong Kong near the Tin Hou Temple you can visit these trees, write your wish on a “bao die”, tie it to an orange and throw it up into the branches. If your wish is caught in the branches it is said to come true. The tree used to be a camphor tree where a tablet for worshipping Pak Kung was placed before it withered and became hollow. The myth goes that a worshiper prayed to the tree to fix his son who was slow in learning. The granted wish led to many more wishes being made of the tree.

F.wish has the same warm and friendly characteristics of all of Boredom Research’s work. Processing has not so much changed the style of their work but added to it allowing a greater amount of diversity than what is possible using Director, which although respected has been shied into being seen as a multimedia presentation platform that lacks the support of Java and Flash, especially on the internet. Some of the animated elements in f.wish move with a fluidity this author knows very well: the increasingly popular physics library for Processing. The “bao die” have been given a playful elastic nature and the text seems to drift in a blow away delightfully. I sent some questions to Boredom Research about their new piece and they were kind enough to give me some very exhaustive replies.

Read the interview.