Final project update: Periscoping

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Been using Periscope to take videos of things that I’m doing. Again, I must stress that I don’t do very interesting things everyday. Most of these videos are just footage of me trying to keep up with my to-do list. I don’t overthink when I shoot the videos, and I’m not particularly concerned about where the camera is pointing or if everything I see can be seen through my Periscope eye. I’m just capturing things the same way that I’ve been using the Quicktime screen recording function to record my actions on the computer.

For example, I made a 5 minute broadcast of my FYP meet on Friday. I just left the phone there while class was going on. After class ended, I reviewed my footage and I realised that there’s been quite a bit of interaction going on while I wasn’t looking. From the comments I can gather three things: 1) people are viewing it from various places in the world. 2) dudes make up a large % of my viewership. 3) dudes are creepy. Apart from the comments made by these weird dudes, I find that there are people who aren’t just aimless viewers. There was this guy who could tell I’m in NTU. Someone asked about the haze situation here. I quite enjoy this live/anonymous interactive part of Periscope.

I think I can try to incorporate my Periscope videos with my screen recordings. I’m encouraged to pick up my phone and document my surroundings more actively with Periscope, compared with other social media apps. I asked my friends and family if they are familiar with Periscope, and some have not heard of it. I like it at the moment as it is not used widely in my social circle, which can give me some space to make these broadcasts kind of ‘anonymously’, and having this live audience that’s constantly changing might be helpful for my work as well, rather than making broadcasts targeted towards people who already know me.

Research Critique: The World’s Largest Collaborative Sentence

“The Sentence has no end. Sometimes I think it had no beginning. Now I salute its authors, which means all of us. You have made a wild, precious, awful, delicious, lovable, tragic, vulgar, fearsome, divine thing.”
—Douglas Davis, 2000

I really enjoy Douglas Davis’ The World’s Largest Collaborative Sentence. It really exemplifies what we can do on the Internet, as part of a collective whole, from our own computer, from each corner of the world.

These are some of my favourite parts of the work:

collabsentenc20 collabsentence03 collabsentence04“I’ve lost my stylesheet? Perhaps I never had style to begin with.” (That’s very funny, I will quote that in one of my works later on…)

The work is made by Douglas Davis in 1994, which makes it one of the very early forms of Internet art, and collaborative performance art via a network. Nearly twenty years on, the work is still ongoing and being improved. Imagine the amount of people who have contributed to the content of this massive virtual work.

That is what I enjoy about the work as well — the nature of the work and being able to keep it alive makes me think about what Deyan Sudjic has to say about the Internet:

“Our email and text trails will last as long as the server farms that have already conferred a kind of immortality”

An Internet artwork lives on a server, which allows it many possibilities for expansion, collaboration as well as preservation. This ‘immortality’ of the work gives it opportunity for it to carry on for many generations of people, so it will continue being the longest collaborative sentence. I think this is particularly interesting because the work could also give viewers a glimpse of Internet trends: bits from early Internet art at the time of the creation of the work, as well as things that are influenced by the Tumblr generation.

I enjoy this work a lot, and personally find that it will be useful as a reference work in my final year project too.

 

 

On being a Netartizen (Google)

Photo 14-8-15 8 11 29 amI think as part of a generation of active social media users, we are surely Net Citizens. But as creatives, how can we take a step further and use social media as a form of art? The Internet can be considered an artistic medium. Whether the outcome of the work is interactive or static, there are really endless things one can do with the Internet and to make artwork with it. I took this photo of a tshirt I saw a lady wearing on the bus a few days ago. It reminds me of how sometimes my friends and I joke that we don’t need boyfriends because Google knows everything. Looking at this tshirt design, I actually started thinking about how Google is a really powerful tool that has a lot of potential to be an artwork by itself.

netartizen

Here’s a screenshot I took when I key in the words “why am I” into the search bar. The predictions are very funny. It makes me think about how Google could be everybody’s confession box. These predictions are possible because of the popularity of these questions being asked, which if you think about it, is quite the result of a kind of networked practice by the whole world. (Clearly, everybody worries about being alone forever.)

Google’s products and services are becoming more interactive than before. They provide many opportunities for people to turn its uses into artistic mediums. Google Drive is a good example of collaborative practice. And there are already people out there who make artworks of of its services, like these postcards from Google Earth.

Millions of people use Google everyday, every hour, and unknowingly, they become an art collective of sorts as well as part of a post-modern commentary on our society and our way of life.

 

Instadiaries

 

 

 

 

My friend said this to me lately, “Beverley, when I look at your Instagram, you don’t seem to have photos of you and your friends. You make others think that you are better off living life by yourself, with your objects and whatever it is you are making.”

It was a timely thing to hear that from her, as I recently rediscover an old project that I made some time ago called Instadiaries. I made it when I started clearing my iPhone camera roll and found that there are many images I’ve captured which I had intended to share on my Instagram but I didn’t, because they didn’t fit in with the rest of the pictures I had already posted.

I would say this project makes me think about my participation on the virtual space and how that affects my way of documentation over recent years. When I write on my personal blog, I always feel that I am making conversation with a virtual abyss, and I never really feel that I had to censor myself or curate my words. If I were unhappy with myself, I could be very honest about what it is that made me unhappy and then I will read what I wrote again the following day and I could make a change about myself. I know there is not really anybody out there who is a constant reader of my blog. People are generally more interested in the pictures shared on Instagram or Facebook. But when I share a photo on my Instagram, I know that people do look at it and respond to it. And because I know it isn’t an entirely complete representation of who I am, sometimes I would rather not share at all.

Maybe some of us have experienced this phenomenon that seem to have taken over the users of Instagram at some point. We become quite particular about the way our pictures look on Instagram. Some users prefer to keep the original aspect ratios of their photos, square crops be damned. Some are really good at doing flat lays and enjoy arranging objects in a neat, stylish fashion to demonstrate their taste. The list goes on. There is nothing wrong with this, and some users have an attractive feed for their specific interests because of their careful curation. At one point, I was also very particular about how my pictures look together on Instagram, which made me wonder why I should. It is quite pretentious and honestly there were plenty of pictures that I would like to share online but I didn’t. I thought of how people enjoy the feed that I was sharing then, and something different might make them disinterested. More than that, I was ashamed to admit that I could allow social media to influence my decision in something so trivial such as sharing a photo I like a lot. So, as a result, I deleted my Instagram for a while, and made a project about it.

I collated some of my favourite photos taken in a month (the project unfortunately lasted for only about three months), and added some of the writing I made in the month as well.

Some pictures of the project:

 

 

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Each Instadiary is A4 size, printed on both sides on Ikea paper.Photo 16-8-15 11 34 38 am Photo 16-8-15 11 34 54 am

Some poor experimentation of layout.Photo 16-8-15 11 35 00 am Photo 16-8-15 11 35 16 am Photo 16-8-15 11 35 25 am Photo 16-8-15 11 35 30 amI think this could be something I can continue to look into. I’m not so much interested in the implications of social media or looking deep into how that affects our relationship with one another, but I am definitely keen on researching how that affects the way we look and present ourself. I also want to make comparisons between this manner of sharing with what I started wit: blogging and making friends on Internet forums.

 

 

Research Critique V: Webcam Mediated Communication

Before the YouTube personality existed, there was JenniCam. Jennifer is a true Internet personality, even before the term was used extensively. The project JenniCam offers viewers uninhibited views into Jennifer’s private world. In Steve Dixon’s essay on webcams as surveillance, he defines the webcam as a kind of “documentary realism” which is very relevant to what Jennifer is doing with her webcam. This realism involves uncensored views into her world, capturing footages that ranges from the mundane to the sexual. Raw footages like this are unedited and shared publicly with an unknown audience.

JenniCam is an important example that illustrates this idea of vulnerability and authenticity expressed in Annie Abraham’s essay:

“In a society where authenticity and privacy become endangered it is important to find ways to access our vulnerabilities and doubts, to make them public, to cherish our messy side. We need to make space for the beast in the beauty, to go back to reality, to claim the human. “We need to trap reality in order to make it available for thought.”

Indeed, the JenniCam archives must be quite an interesting collection of personal history for Jennifer. Her willingness to be so open in capturing herself in moments that are usually very awkward for most of us to face (like pleasuring herself sexually, or not having makeup on the face, looking extremely messy and plain sometimes) is a daring move in attempting to record her daily life down to these raw and vulnerable details. This authenticity also gives the JenniCam project a sort of endearing quality even, in the realm of Internet personalities and virtual fame. I would like to illustrate this point by referring to the idea of webcam falsities and fictions. JenniCam begin merely as a form of communication between Jennifer and her mother, so her mother could see what she was up to in her dorm at school. Jennifer’s deadpan honesty about the practical use of her webcam and her declaration of not being “an entertainer” gives the project a very real and human quality that sets her apart from many webcam/virtual personalities that soon follow after her.

 

w r now[here]: Cyberformance critique

Having a chance to participate in this cyberformance is definitely one of the highlights of Media and Performance class. By being the key performers of this segment in the symposium, we can better understand some of the concepts illustrated in class regarding performance art and the third space.

w r now[here] allows us to work with a real cyber performance artist, Helen Varley Jamieson. Rehearsals and preparations were connected through Adobe Connect, in true virtual fashion. For two weeks, we went through rehearsals using our mobile phones, testing webcams and our connection settings. Even though the performance takes place online, it is also crucial to take into account real-life circumstances. One of the most important points to take note during our performance was not to show our faces or to show each other. Taking that into consideration, my classmates and I had to make sure that our starting point, the “nowhere” are relatively far away from each other. There were a few of us situated at every level and corner of the school. Eventually, we have to meet in the lobby to slowly make our way to the theatre. This part of the performance was rather tricky as we were already gathered in a group. Yet, we took care to remain out of each other’s viewfinders. It is quite fun and required some improvisation: some of us pointed our cameras to the ceilings, some focused on other people in that area, and then some of us kept our cameras focused on one object. I think we succeeded in this area, after looking at our performance on Vimeo.

Another key point to note is definitely the technical difficulties faced. The university network was down just minutes before the performance was to go live, and we had a little collective moment of panic. Thankfully, the technical situation was fixed quickly. During our rehearsals and our mobile cam exercises that led up to the performance, we also encountered various technical failures such as unable to log in to Adobe Connect. Fortunately, all of us performers were located in the same space during the day of the performance and we made use of the same connection during the actual performance, so we didn’t have these issues.

One important takeaway from this performance was my understanding of some of the artworks discussed in class. For weeks, we discussed about cyborgs, the body as an instrument, the telematic embrace and the third space. One of the works I critiqued in this class was Robert Whitman’s American Moon. After the performance, I felt I could understand Whitman’s work better. Here’s a description of the work from the syllabus page:

“Whitman created a multi-dimensional theater environment that gave viewers differing perspectives on action taking place in a central theatrical area.”

I would liken the sectioning of the audience in Whitman’s work to our webcams during the performance, especially during the moment when we gathered together at last in the theater space, our cameras pointing at the audience.cyberformance1

 

The audience became part of the work, forming an interesting multidimensional collage. I felt that all the concepts covered during the first half of the semester culminated in this moment during the performance, and I thought it was an absolutely amazing to see how it all came together to form such an interesting piece of networked performance.

Research Critique 3 — Paul Sermon ‘Telematic Dreaming’

Paul Sermon’s ‘Telematic Dreaming’ is a seminal interactive installation made in 1992.

In my critique of the piece, I feel ‘Telematic Dreaming’ is conceptually like a video conference call, although it takes the concept of a video conference much further: by projecting the video-image on a specific surface/location,  the senses of the participants are heightened and engaged. Participants are not merely viewing each other through a monitor. The projection of the video-image on a bed allows participants to simulate a physical form of communication. The work is able to recreate the sense of touch and intimacy that is enhanced simply by the setting and the object- the bed. In the reading ‘Cyber Bodies’ by Steve Dixon, it is mentioned that the telematics offer a fourth dimension where the physical body can do things like mapping itself onto another or disappear. “Our bodies seemed to be infinitely mutable, while they never ceased to be our bodies.” Such a dimension and plane of reality allows for the idea of conversation and metaphors to expand further by reinterpreting meanings of certain actions in the virtual context. To illustrate this point, I’ll refer to the experiences of Susan Kozel, what does it mean when a visitor presents her with a rose she is unable to grasp physically? Or when men jumped on the bed where her head is projected? The disembodied electronic body is interpreted differently across all participants: the metaphorical presence is either real or not real to them. Perhaps the visitor felt that the virtual conversation was real enough for him to present a real rose as a response, but the men feel that they are able to act out a different role because they will not actually harm the artist.

Research Critique 2 — Eva and Franco Mattes ‘No Fun’

Upon viewing ‘No Fun’, I was left with a strange feeling. I think it is one of the most provoking piece of work I’ve seen so far. Maybe because it made me think of ChatRoulette in a way I’ve never thought of before. I’ve always perceived the online webcam website to be filled with inappropriate conversations and other weird things that strangers exchange with each other in the late of night.

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(Google results for “chat roulette”)

Yes, this proves my thoughts on chat roulette: a really sleazy website. So, I was really quite surprised upon viewing the Mattes’ work ‘No Fun’. I imagined that the users who log in for some light-hearted fun must have gotten quite a shock upon seeing Franco Matte hanging from a ceiling. The internet can be a really dark place sometimes, although these ‘dark’ places and ‘sleazy’ places may not necessarily share the same space.    On Franco Matte’s staged suicide, I must say that it is quite well-executed. Death, suicide can be quite graphical, and I appreciate that he did it in such a way that makes the users of chat roulette (and viewers of this work) wondering if this is real or not rather than presenting in a very graphical and scary manner. Yet it is seemingly real and does create a certain amount of discomfort.

This prank does make me think about what are the reasons why people log onto chat roulette, or why such a website exists. In my opinion, I think it does come down to very basic human needs and desires: that we are essentially lonely, that the Internet provides us with a free (or at least relatively inexpensive) avenue to fill up the feeling of emptiness. Here I would like to draw a link to some quotes from the reading “Cyborgs” by Steve Dixon. Dixon mentions that “cyborgism constitutes a technological response to existential and spiritual uncertainties and crises…” He also mentions the presence of human desire: how we desire “wholeness within an alchemical, technological matrix”.

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In my own definition of the term cyborg, I think of it as a robot that possesses seemingly ‘human’ qualities. People create machines primarily to make life more efficient, but I think people are also trying to humanize technology sometimes. Yes, machines will become more intelligent than humans, but what will separate mankind and machines is still the ability to feel, as we do possess the most complex spectrum of emotions, which machines may never replicate.

Some screen caps to illustrate my point:

lonely

lonely2

 

 

Think of chat roulette as a center to summon up cyborgs, a virtual body to communicate with. I chose this screen caps because I think it really exemplifies the reasons I spoke of, for why people log on to the website: because people are lonely. These men seemed genuinely ready for some form of interaction and it shows in their shocked faces upon seeing Matte.

I will end my critique with this line from the reading:

“Humanness is characterized by struggle, by a fragile and uncertain journey fueled by the hope of capturing love, peace, fulfillment, and so on.”

Research Critique 1 — Robert Whitman’s ‘American Moon’

Whitman’s ‘American Moon’ is a theatrical piece that takes into account the architecture of the space and transform it for the piece. The performance also interacts with the audience members, notably by “sectioning” them by partitions which are also part of his architectural transformation of the space. I think of these “sections” as some sort of channel, wherein different groups of the audience views the performance from their unique perspectives.

This audience-space relationship illustrates the idea of the “composite-image space” as mentioned in the reading “Electronic Cafe International” by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz. Both are interesting in creating the concept of a virtual space and networking before the advent of the Internet and technology as we are familiar with today. In the reading, the virtual space is understood as an area for collaboration and networking to take place, a place where social situations “exist without traditional etiquette”. Barriers and boundaries are broken down, people are freed of their physical identity and existed as an “avatar”. Why is this important? It helps to bring ideas and common research and ideas together, without being compromised by geographical issues.

In similar fashion, Whitman tries to emulate this shared space by transforming the theatre space into an environment that is quite multi-dimensional. By having the audience seated in these “tunnels” seem to replicate the idea of a network, of a common, unseen space: that each participant in the audience is holding on to a piece that is a part of a larger picture, which is what the virtual space is very much all about: the idea of a composite-image.

 

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Apart from the research critique, I also find the above quote from the reading very interesting indeed. People did used to think of the telephone as a really powerful invention, but yet how many of us do actually pick up the phone to talk to somebody today? We are both very active and reclusive participants in this age of social networking, we know everything about somebody but we also know nothing — but that’s a discussion for another time 🙂