Internet Art & Culture

The Telematic Lunch was a valiant effort and I can see the hard work and of course the frustration that accompanies an ambitious project like this while challenging new technologies that you haven't encountered before. The piece has the makings and potential of being quite interesting. First, the way in which the interface was established, arranged and composited was very well done. The positioning of the four of you, and of course Winzaw's funny addition to the social gathering added a much needed element. The lesson learned here is twofold: first, when you encounter the kind of technical problems that you did, you find a way to incorporate them into the work, instead of doing battle with bad reception, sound, disconnections, etc. Secondly, you simplify. I think that trying to composite all four of you the whole time just compounded the bandwidth issues. You could have taken turns being on camera, rotating the images, perhaps in twos or even in ones. In other words, we don't need to see all four of you on screen for the whole time. I think also that the color keying could have been more pronounced. And if taken to another level of transparency, would have offset some of the other problems you were having. Consistent with bandwidth and connection problems, there could have been more of a disappearing act so to speak. I think Winzaw was moving in the right direction with his key, but I also think there could have been more variety in his contribution and overall with the whole group. Why not reveal some of the food in these keyed out areas for example? Also, the piece should have been shorter, more along the 15 minutes I had suggested, so you could have more control over the flow of the narrative. As it is, it's difficult to watch for so long given the various technical issues. I would have liked to have better understood the rounds of “never have I ever." If it is difficult to synchronize the dialogue, let alone hear the flow of the conversations, how about texts or signs that might have brought out the narrative of the conversation.  That said, I want to reiterate my acknowledgement of the effort that went into this project. I thought the collaborative process was commendable and that the four of you were able to synthesize your ideas to create what was a compelling project idea and scenario, even if the execution of the work didn't quite live up to its promise. Anam, excellent references to the readings/artworks. Very well documented and I think they add an important critical component to the work. I also want to commend you for the hard work that went into the construction of the "set" you created to make the Telematic Lunch come together. You know, in looking over the documentation of the four of you in the sets, without the keying, I have to admit I find there is something incredibly amusing about revealing the process. It makes me wonder whether or not a "fake" fake lunch could be interesting, The places where you accidentally revealed the set were really interesting. This is something to think about because trying to force the illusion is not always the most compelling solution, but rather working with the relationship between the real and the virtual, the social aspects of a lunch shared in a physical space, with the awkwardness of doing it in the third space, can be quite interesting. You may remember from The Big Kiss, that the work begins by seeing the two of them in their adjacent spaces, in order to force us immediately out of the illusion, so that when we see the composite we don't even try and make it real in our minds. That might have been an interesting approach and something to think about in future projects that involve illusionary techniques.

The Telematic Lunch was a valiant effort and I can see the hard work and of course the frustration that accompanies an ambitious project like this while challenging new technologies that you haven't encountered before. The piece has the makings and potential of being quite interesting. First, the way in which the interface was established, arranged and composited was very well done. The positioning of the four of you, and of course Winzaw's funny addition to the social gathering added a much needed element. The lesson learned here is twofold: first, when you encounter the kind of technical problems that you did, you find a way to incorporate them into the work, instead of doing battle with bad reception, sound, disconnections, etc. Secondly, you simplify. I think that trying to composite all four of you the whole time just compounded the bandwidth issues. You could have taken turns being on camera, rotating the images, perhaps in twos or even in ones. In other words, we don't need to see all four of you on screen for the whole time. I think also that the color keying could have been more pronounced. And if taken to another level of transparency, would have offset some of the other problems you were having. Consistent with bandwidth and connection problems, there could have been more of a disappearing act so to speak. I think Winzaw was moving in the right direction with his key, but I also think there could have been more variety in his contribution and overall with the whole group. Why not reveal some of the food in these keyed out areas for example? Also, the piece should have been shorter, more along the 15 minutes I had suggested, so you could have more control over the flow of the narrative. As it is, it's difficult to watch for so long given the various technical issues. I would have liked to have better understood the <span style="font-family: 'Noto Serif', serif;font-size: 19px">rounds of “never have I ever." If it is difficult to synchronize the dialogue, let alone hear the flow of the conversations, how about texts or signs that might have brought out the narrative of the conversation. </span> That said, I want to reiterate my acknowledgement of the effort that went into this project. I thought the collaborative process was commendable and that the four of you were able to synthesize your ideas to create what was a compelling project idea and scenario, even if the execution of the work didn't quite live up to its promise.

Winzaw, you bring up an interesting aspect of performing with green screens, which effects every actor who must perform this way. In films, actors have to play with the illusion, they have to imagine the result, and since you were essentially trying to do the same thing, you had to contend with that as well. So there was nothing unusual about this problem, and will help you understand this dynamic should you encounter it again. 

You were the only one in the group to call the piece a Mukbang, rather than The Telematic Lunch. I am curious why this is so? Do you prefer the Mukbang connection? This is perfectly fine but it is different from your collaborators. As I mentioned above, I thought your key was a highlight of the piece, but I would like to have seen more with it, and wasn’t quite sure how the stars related. Perhaps you could have had images of food? Something that integrated conceptually with lunch? Just a thought, but most importantly, if the images could have changed periodically as the lunch progressed, that might have been interesting. 

 

I really like your approach, humor, and curiosity. Keep it going, I think you are doing good work, particularly when you embrace the project and give it so much effort as you did. I highly commend you for that. 

You have created an incredibly rich and nuanced narrative, with many elements of intrigue, complexity, interaction, and outcome incorporated into the game structure. Also, I am very impressed with the characters you have created, each with their own motivation, that together as an ensemble have potential for interesting encounters with one another in the context of the game. But the issue here, is that the medium has conspired to render this interesting narrative structure difficult to follow. With all the stopping of action, the characters moving in and out of their screen areas, and the audio malfunctions, etc., make it hard to grasp the narrative. That together with the choice of Chinese as the language, makes it very culturally specific, so that those (like myself) who do not speak or understand Chinese, have an even more difficult time understanding the narrative. Did you consider using some form of subtitles since the piece is not in English? I think that would have helped. So my main comment is that the nature of the medium did not support so well the complexity of your narrative. Even though as you point out, there are many interesting moments due to the bandwidth problems, when characters freeze, and the sound glitches, and these elements might add a certain amount of dramatic tension or complexity. However, since you had no control over this, it made it difficult to incorporate these bandwidth issues into the narrative with any degree of design or precision. In my view, it might have made more sense to simplify the narrative, and in fact, I wonder if the very nature of the interface actually got in the way. In fact, I really liked the interface and thought it was quite effective, but had you gone full screen with some of the action, in other words, removing the interface, it might have captured the action better, as well as improved the reception. For example, when I saw your group making the piece in the hallway, it was very interesting to see what you were doing, hiding the money, talking to me, etc. If it had been possible to incorporate some of this "live action" into the piece, outside of the interface, or with the interface momentarily removed, I think the tension and drama that you were looking for would have been more apparent. But by confining all the visuals to the surveillance monitor, it seemed as though you were having a difficult time controlling and clarifying what was going on within each window. That said, I really like the concept, I liked the interface, I thought some of the action was interesting, and putting it all into the game structure was quite compelling. As a narrative/script, it was an excellent work. What I am saying though is that the execution of this particular narrative into the medium of social broadcasting through Facebook Live is where you ran into problems. It is important to consider the medium in relation to the nature and complexity of the narrative when creating a piece. You have an interesting and experimental medium to work with, and you have an compelling narrative, but do they match up? That is the question. Are you making the best use of the medium with the narrative you have created. Our work in this class is all about process, and I wanted you to use it as a laboratory for testing ideas. So in that sense, you can learn much from the work you have done. In future projects, you will perhaps have new insight into creating work that is a good conceptual fit with the medium, technology, and overall presentation mode. Ultimately you want your work to communicate and to be understood. That is always the main goal. Joan, I thought you did a great job explaining the work and the documentation you provided was very helpful. I do think that your references could be thought through a little more, such as Hole in Space. That piece was about allowing the viewers to communicate together, in your case, it is the artists who are communicating. Even though this may seem similar, there is a big difference narratively speaking even though you are telematically connected. Overall, I thought your contribution to the narrative was excellent, and that again, the idea of the project was quite good, it just was the way it was executed with the live medium. Take note of some the ideas I have offered, to consider alternative ways that a story can be told so that it reads to the audience, engages them, and perhaps even involves the audience as participants, which is why I brought up the encounter that I had with the group.

You have created an incredibly rich and nuanced narrative, with many elements of intrigue, complexity, interaction, and outcome incorporated into the game structure. Also, I am very impressed with the characters you have created, each with their own motivation, that together as an ensemble have potential for interesting encounters with one another in the context of the game. But the issue here, is that the medium has conspired to render this interesting narrative structure difficult to follow. With all the stopping of action, the characters moving in and out of their screen areas, and the audio malfunctions, etc., make it hard to grasp the narrative. That together with the choice of Chinese as the language, makes it very culturally specific, so that those (like myself) who do not speak or understand Chinese, have an even more difficult time understanding the narrative. Did you consider using some form of subtitles since the piece is not in English? I think that would have helped. So my main comment is that the nature of the medium did not support so well the complexity of your narrative. Even though as you point out, there are many interesting moments due to the bandwidth problems, when characters freeze, and the sound glitches, and these elements might add a certain amount of dramatic tension or complexity. However, since you had no control over this, it made it difficult to incorporate these bandwidth issues into the narrative with any degree of design or precision. In my view, it might have made more sense to simplify the narrative, and in fact, I wonder if the very nature of the interface actually got in the way. In fact, I really liked the interface and thought it was quite effective, but had you gone full screen with some of the action, in other words, removing the interface, it might have captured the action better, as well as improved the reception. For example, when I saw your group making the piece in the hallway, it was very interesting to see what you were doing, hiding the money, talking to me, etc. If it had been possible to incorporate some of this “live action” into the piece, outside of the interface, or with the interface momentarily removed, I think the tension and drama that you were looking for would have been more apparent. But by confining all the visuals to the surveillance monitor, it seemed as though you were having a difficult time controlling and clarifying what was going on within each window. That said, I really like the concept, I liked the interface, I thought some of the action was interesting, and putting it all into the game structure was quite compelling. As a narrative/script, it was an excellent work. What I am saying though is that the execution of this particular narrative into the medium of social broadcasting through Facebook Live is where you ran into problems. It is important to consider the medium in relation to the nature and complexity of the narrative when creating a piece. You have an interesting and experimental medium to work with, and you have an compelling narrative, but do they match up? That is the question. Are you making the best use of the medium with the narrative you have created. Our work in this class is all about process, and I wanted you to use it as a laboratory for testing ideas. So in that sense, you can learn much from the work you have done. In future projects, you will perhaps have new insight into creating work that is a good conceptual fit with the medium, technology, and overall presentation mode. Ultimately you want your work to communicate and to be understood. That is always the main goal. You have created an incredibly rich and nuanced narrative, with many elements of intrigue, complexity, interaction, and outcome incorporated into the game structure. Also, I am very impressed with the characters you have created, each with their own motivation, that together as an ensemble have potential for interesting encounters with one another in the context of the game. Chersee, well of course you use the Videofreex as your reference! But if there was interaction with the viewers it was not apparent in the piece, at least for me. Were you interacting with the viewers though chat? If this were the case, I would have liked to have seen more about that, perhaps some documentation. I would encourage you though to look beyond the Videofreex in search of other elements in the course you have found of interest. That said, I think you made an excellent contribution to the piece by inserting the rules. That was one of the most clarifying elements that provide some structure and coherence to the narrative. But as I mentioned above, I think the narrative and overall game structure could have been clearer so we could follow the dramatic structure you had designed. Again, as I said, the game design/narrative was very well done, just hard to comprehend given the medium. That should definitely be the takeaway from your experience.

Excellent final project overview and documentation. I am very impressed with all the planning, coordination, rehearsal and effort that went into your project.

Fundamentally, I think the work is visually stunning, the way in which you treated the material visually, allowed for the disconnection, lags, and interference to be revealed, and actually incorporate those interferences and so-called “problems” into your work. That in a sense is the power of your collaborative work and investigation of the network as a medium for artistic creation. The piece is kind of a celebration of errors!

My main critique would be that with the complexity of the narrative, that perhaps more of it could have shown through, or been revealed. I think the main problem was the audio. It seemed as though because of the extreme lag and pauses, that you lost some of the continuity of noise, conversation, and other elements that would clarified the narrative and heightened the tension of the work. Perhaps the use of additional sound or even texts might have helped to bring out the many aspects of the narrative, character development, and storytelling that you were trying to communication.

That said, it is a beautiful work, and the collaborative effort between each of the members of your group was stellar, and it shows. What you might consider doing is taking a series of screenshots to include in your portfolio, because again, I think the visual aspects of the work are the strongest, and the way you treated the signal disruptions was truly masterful.

And so too, the interface was very effective, and particularly the way in which you alternated screens between four and two and one. That also kept the narrative moving forward effectively. If only there had been more audio or textual support to keep the continuum smoother and more continuous.

Joan, as a final thought, after reading your OSS post, there was so much wonderful narrative and process and commentary that made me want more of that in the piece itself. Reading your post, I feel the tension, I understand the interactions, the collision of data, the abrupt interferences, and the clash of characters. I want so much for this to all come through in the work itself. Try comparing your OSS description with the work and think about how you might be able to flesh out the story in a way that the viewer at least has a stronger hint of the intention.

You have truly embraced the importance of process and deserve to be highly commended for that. I hope your experience working on the project and all of the various steps involved will help you in future work. You are very detail oriented and that will be a great asset.

You have created an incredibly rich and nuanced narrative, with many elements of intrigue, complexity, interaction, and outcome incorporated into the game structure. Also, I am very impressed with the characters you have created, each with their own motivation, that together as an ensemble have potential for interesting encounters with one another in the context of the game. But the issue here, is that the medium has conspired to render this interesting narrative structure difficult to follow. With all the stopping of action, the characters moving in and out of their screen areas, and the audio malfunctions, etc., make it hard to grasp the narrative. That together with the choice of Chinese as the language, makes it very culturally specific, so that those (like myself) who do not speak or understand Chinese, have an even more difficult time understanding the narrative. Did you consider using some form of subtitles since the piece is not in English? I think that would have helped. So my main comment is that the nature of the medium did not support so well the complexity of your narrative. Even though as you point out, there are many interesting moments due to the bandwidth problems, when characters freeze, and the sound glitches, and these elements might add a certain amount of dramatic tension or complexity. However, since you had no control over this, it made it difficult to incorporate these bandwidth issues into the narrative with any degree of design or precision. In my view, it might have made more sense to simplify the narrative, and in fact, I wonder if the very nature of the interface actually got in the way. In fact, I really liked the interface and thought it was quite effective, but had you gone full screen with some of the action, in other words, removing the interface, it might have captured the action better, as well as improved the reception. For example, when I saw your group making the piece in the hallway, it was very interesting to see what you were doing, hiding the money, talking to me, etc. If it had been possible to incorporate some of this “live action” into the piece, outside of the interface, or with the interface momentarily removed, I think the tension and drama that you were looking for would have been more apparent. But by confining all the visuals to the surveillance monitor, it seemed as though you were having a difficult time controlling and clarifying what was going on within each window. That said, I really like the concept, I liked the interface, I thought some of the action was interesting, and putting it all into the game structure was quite compelling. As a narrative/script, it was an excellent work. What I am saying though is that the execution of this particular narrative into the medium of social broadcasting through Facebook Live is where you ran into problems. It is important to consider the medium in relation to the nature and complexity of the narrative when creating a piece. You have an interesting and experimental medium to work with, and you have an compelling narrative, but do they match up? That is the question. Are you making the best use of the medium with the narrative you have created. Our work in this class is all about process, and I wanted you to use it as a laboratory for testing ideas. So in that sense, you can learn much from the work you have done. In future projects, you will perhaps have new insight into creating work that is a good conceptual fit with the medium, technology, and overall presentation mode. Ultimately you want your work to communicate and to be understood. That is always the main goal. You have created an incredibly rich and nuanced narrative, with many elements of intrigue, complexity, interaction, and outcome incorporated into the game structure. Also, I am very impressed with the characters you have created, each with their own motivation, that together as an ensemble have potential for interesting encounters with one another in the context of the game. Xin Feng, your references to Second Life were very revealing, and the perfect example that might have influenced this piece. You too were role-playing, moving in and out of the real and the virtual, or at least blurring the edges between the two. I was very impressed with your thoughts on how your Facebook Live performance related to virtual performance in Second Life. I am also impressed with all the work you put into your character. If only the narrative had been more clear, I think I would have better appreciated your performance. But reading your discussion of the preparation that went into your character helps me to gauge the quality of your performance. Finally, I am very impressed with your determination and focus on the collaborative process. I can see that your group worked very well together and that you played an important part of that process.

Dina, I wrote my commentary on the other post, sorry I didn't notice the difference between the two. But it was really great, and now I am seeing what you have added here in this post as well.

You have created an incredibly rich and nuanced narrative, with many elements of intrigue, complexity, interaction, and outcome incorporated into the game structure. Also, I am very impressed with the characters you have created, each with their own motivation, that together as an ensemble have potential for interesting encounters with one another in the context of the game. But the issue here, is that the medium has conspired to render this interesting narrative structure difficult to follow. With all the stopping of action, the characters moving in and out of their screen areas, and the audio malfunctions, etc., make it hard to grasp the narrative. That together with the choice of Chinese as the language, makes it very culturally specific, so that those (like myself) who do not speak or understand Chinese, have an even more difficult time understanding the narrative. Did you consider using some form of subtitles since the piece is not in English? I think that would have helped. So my main comment is that the nature of the medium did not support so well the complexity of your narrative. Even though as you point out, there are many interesting moments due to the bandwidth problems, when characters freeze, and the sound glitches, and these elements might add a certain amount of dramatic tension or complexity. However, since you had no control over this, it made it difficult to incorporate these bandwidth issues into the narrative with any degree of design or precision. In my view, it might have made more sense to simplify the narrative, and in fact, I wonder if the very nature of the interface actually got in the way. In fact, I really liked the interface and thought it was quite effective, but had you gone full screen with some of the action, in other words, removing the interface, it might have captured the action better, as well as improved the reception. For example, when I saw your group making the piece in the hallway, it was very interesting to see what you were doing, hiding the money, talking to me, etc. If it had been possible to incorporate some of this “live action” into the piece, outside of the interface, or with the interface momentarily removed, I think the tension and drama that you were looking for would have been more apparent. But by confining all the visuals to the surveillance monitor, it seemed as though you were having a difficult time controlling and clarifying what was going on within each window. That said, I really like the concept, I liked the interface, I thought some of the action was interesting, and putting it all into the game structure was quite compelling. As a narrative/script, it was an excellent work. What I am saying though is that the execution of this particular narrative into the medium of social broadcasting through Facebook Live is where you ran into problems. It is important to consider the medium in relation to the nature and complexity of the narrative when creating a piece. You have an interesting and experimental medium to work with, and you have an compelling narrative, but do they match up? That is the question. Are you making the best use of the medium with the narrative you have created. Our work in this class is all about process, and I wanted you to use it as a laboratory for testing ideas. So in that sense, you can learn much from the work you have done. In future projects, you will perhaps have new insight into creating work that is a good conceptual fit with the medium, technology, and overall presentation mode. Ultimately you want your work to communicate and to be understood. That is always the main goal. You have created an incredibly rich and nuanced narrative, with many elements of intrigue, complexity, interaction, and outcome incorporated into the game structure. Also, I am very impressed with the characters you have created, each with their own motivation, that together as an ensemble have potential for interesting encounters with one another in the context of the game. Hannah, in terms of your references to the artworks, I don’t think the comparison to Hole in Space is as relevant as Second Life’s work. This is because while Hole in Space really involves the participants interacting with one another in the third space, that is the viewers who became performers in a sense, in Second Life, they are the performers, the artists, the creators of the work and they are role playing in the third space. This shift between the real and the virtual, as you point out, is very important to the work you created. You were interacting with people in the first space, those who happened to be there, but you were also interacting with your fellow performers in the third space, creating a kind of dialogue between the two. As I mentioned before, I am very impressed by the quality of detail you put into the narrative, I can see the hard work and attention to nuance, character, and interaction. I can also appreciate how this role-playing took place within the game environment. Hopefully, you can take ideas from this project and apply them to other works regardless of whatever medium you choose, so long as the medium is best supporting your narrative ideas.

The Telematic Lunch was a valiant effort and I can see the hard work and of course the frustration that accompanies an ambitious project like this while challenging new technologies that you haven’t encountered before.

M

The piece has the makings and potential of being quite interesting. First, the way in which the interface was established, arranged and composited was very well done. The positioning of the four of you, and of course Winzaw’s funny addition to the social gathering added a much needed element.

The lesson learned here is twofold: first, when you encounter the kind of technical problems that you did, you find a way to incorporate them into the work, instead of doing battle with bad reception, sound, disconnections, etc.

Secondly, you simplify. I think that trying to composite all four of you the whole time just compounded the bandwidth issues. You could have taken turns being on camera, rotating the images, perhaps in twos or even in ones. In other words, we don’t need to see all four of you on screen for the whole time.

I think also that the color keying could have been more pronounced. And if taken to another level of transparency, would have offset some of the other problems you were having. Consistent with bandwidth and connection problems, there could have been more of a disappearing act so to speak. I think Winzaw was moving in the right direction with his key, but I also think there could have been more variety in his contribution and overall with the whole group. Why not reveal some of the food in these keyed out areas for example?

Also, the piece should have been shorter, more along the 15 minutes I had suggested, so you could have more control over the flow of the narrative. As it is, it’s difficult to watch for so long given the various technical issues. I would have liked to have better understood the rounds of “never have I ever.” If it is difficult to synchronize the dialogue, let alone hear the flow of the conversations, how about texts or signs that might have brought out the narrative of the conversation. 

That said, I want to reiterate my acknowledgement of the effort that went into this project. I thought the collaborative process was commendable and that the four of you were able to synthesize your ideas to create what was a compelling project idea and scenario, even if the execution of the work didn’t quite live up to its promise.

Mirei, your post adds a much needed overview of the project, and I think you are the only member of the group to explain the outcome of the game. So who in fact won? Or did you even keep track? I ask in jest because I think it’s a very funny narrative scenario for the Telematic Lunch. Your references to artworks were excellent and help support your project idea. I think the takeaway is the need to have a technical rehearsal before actually creating the work. It sounds like you had to alter your conceptual ideas in order to accommodate the issues of latency, bandwidth and the difficulty of communication. Is that exactly what life is like these days on the information superhighway! I hope the experience, with its pitfalls and deadends, taught you something about the network and the way it impacts our everyday lives. I know that you were interested in the theoretical aspects of the course, but I think that having to put your ideas into practice actually illuminates the theoretical and even the behavioral characteristics of our networked lives. Perhaps lunch will never be the same again, especially pizza! 

It’s been great having you in the class and good luck with your work. 

Excellent documentation and I can see that you were trying to coordinate the synchronization to capture the angles of your route, etc. I really like the mapping that you did, that is very interesting in conjunction with the Facebook video.