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 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:

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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 🙂