The Collective Body: This micro-project involves the construction of a “collective body” made up of our body parts randomly reassembled and reconfigured into a single composite body. Once again using Photo Booth and your built-in Webcam, shoot six photographs of yourself close-up: (3) face – 2 profiles, one frontal, (2) each hand, (1) upper body. Upload the images to Flicker and load them into the ‘Open Source Studio NTU’ Flickr group (see instructions below). We will have already signed everyone up to the group during the first class and created several practice images to be sure you belong to the group and understand the process.
Over the course of the week the collective body will take shape, and each time the Flickr feed page is visited, the body will be randomly reconfigured, creating a near infinite number of possibilities. How does this project alter the way we think about the body as a malleable figure? How does the project allow us to rethink the human figure in the digital age? How might we think about the networked body as a “collective” entity, made up of a composite of selves. And finally, how does the composite body reflect on the “deeply intertwingled” nature of social media: the intertwining of identities and relationships via the Internet?
OSS NTU Flickr Group URL: https://www.flickr.com/groups/opensrcstudiontu/
Screenshot from the project done by OSS students during the second semester 2013-14:
Instructions:
- See the Using the Flickr Group instructions in the OSS User Manual / Media Integration for more information (scroll down the page). We will have already covered this in class.
- Important: Be sure you have uploaded a minimum 5 images to the OSS NTU Flickr group so your photos show up on the class site. This is a requirement of the Flickr plug-in we use in WordPress.
- Upload your 6 project images to the OSS NTU Flickr group.
- Check the Class Site to be sure they are showing up on the feed just below the header. It may take a few days after your initial photos are uploaded to the group.
- Click on the link to the OSS NTU Flickr group to see the full composite. Here, your images should appear immediately with no waiting time.