beverley.tv

Beverley

beverley.tv is a broadcast project that makes use of a few techniques to document my art process. The aim is to share the process with others, by covering the thought process from various perspectives — working on the digital and physical spaces and video blogging that records the train of thought. Through this project, the finer details of the working process can be shared with others, and draws attention to idea that the process is as important as the outcome of a work.

My project was first inspired by episodes from mainstream television shows that weaved the Internet, the technology, and glitch aesthetics into part of the narrative. I was interested in creating webisodes for my art process. These techniques form the basis for my project, as I’m interested in exploring how the medium of a work can accentuate its concept. With this in mind, I also looked more closely at how I share myself on social media, compared to my friends or people I follow. I tend to use social media to share my works or photos related to my process, and with broadcasting tools, the project allows me to share this process up close.

Throughout the semester, I recorded myself making the work using Quicktime screen recording and Periscope. Moving images encourage interaction and provide insight, which is what I found out when I made use of these two recording techniques. Later on, I refined these methods and made some adjustments when I left Singapore. This was a crucial point in my project, as I feel that the experience really highlighted a more personal side of my process and it had helped to make my concept much more clearer.

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Jennicam (1997) – Jennifer Ringley

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Tracking Transcience (2003), Hasan Elahi

My broadcasting project centers around the concept of private vs public self. I am inspired by the works of Jennifer Ringley and Hasan Elahi. The nature of their works makes me think about privacy in general, and how their methods of self-documentation are still relevant today. It makes me think about how identities are construed online and how little it can tell somebody, even though it seems like a lot of being revealed. My online identity tends to center around the work that I create and the passion for what I do. I am also conscious of the fact that this is how I portray myself on the Internet as well, hence my private and public self might be hard to differentiate. With this broadcasting project, I am able to highlight some of the vulnerable moments that I’ve never thought of putting up on the Internet. As my project develops, I chose to include a video blogging segment in my live broadcast. This vlog offers my genuine thoughts about my art experience, triggered by a sudden change in my environment, which helps to make my concept much clearer.

I’ve learned that live streaming involves a good deal of preparation, and integrating prerecorded segments makes the live streaming quite exciting. Merging different narrative forms add layers of meaning to the work. For moving images, this is particularly important as it gives the work a kind of texture. That is what I would like to achieve in my own broadcasting project as well. As I’ve experimented with various techniques throughout the semester, the most challenging one is possibly live video blogging. The performative nature of that segment requires me to think on my feet, even though I have a list of topics. It is a new challenge for me as well to record myself talking, although while practising, I find this method quite new and therapeutic.

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In Internet Art & Culture, we covered two concepts which I feel are particularly central to my work: The Third Space and Private Vs Public. Broadcasting my content via Periscope also gave me some insights to the nature of the third space, particularly for this application. At first, I was encouraged by the number of viewers who are tuning into my broadcast: there were international viewers who are watching my video. Later on, when I review the videos, I find that most of the comments are made by men and were rather inappropriate and sexual in nature, generally irrelevant to my work. It makes me think about what we covered during the week, when we discussed the third space. I am not sure if that’s how it works for some people, but the comments made me think about how people might feel that they are able to achieve some sort of intimacy through such virtual interactions.

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On the whole, my project is also a response to how I feel people around me are using social media to document their lives. I don’t always enjoy having to sieve through personal, trivial updates from those on my feed. I feel that social media is a conducive place to explore new things and to meet others who share like-minded interests. Through my project, I hope to share some meaningful and personal episodes from my art process. As a generally quiet and introverted person, doing a video blog is definitely something new for me, although I never imagined myself to feel comfortable doing it. The unedited/raw nature of recording myself talking is a contrast to my usual methods of self-documentation, where I am able to type comfortably behind my screen.

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Finally, as an avid user of WordPress, OSS provides me a suitable space to share my reflections in detail, and this will remain crucial to my own practice. Throughout the course, I have also learned how to integrate other forms of working and communication into my own work, which is refreshing for me.