Project Hyperessay #1: Concept


The title of my project is beverley.tv.

Through this project, I’ll like to rethink the concept of webcam in our everyday lives. All of us now have access to an inbuilt webcam on our laptops, but few of us use the webcam to broadcast or record the nitty gritty details of our lives. Instead, we use our mobile phones to capture these details. We turn to social media to share every part of our lives, through text updates and pictures, and more often than not, we gain validation through comments and likes. We willingly give ourselves up to surveillance and allow the portraits of ourselves to be painted by other people when they view our carefully curated profile. Most of us use social media enough to notice the patterns and behaviours we take on when we go online: we share a lot, but we also conceal a lot, all to build and curate an online persona or what we hope others perceive us as.

For my project, I would like to open up my process of making art public to the audience in an unrepressed and informal manner, while making use of social media platforms and its functions to aid my project.

My broadcast will combine two kinds of filming and recording to document my artistic process: using the mobile application Periscope and Quicktime player’s screen recording function. The two filming methods is a contrast against each other, inspired by the concept of private vs public. Periscope works by using your mobile camera to film live footage of your surrounding and sharing it with an international audience, whoever happens to be online and tuning into your channel. It also includes a live commentary function, where you can see viewers responding to your broadcast and giving “hearts” in appreciation. Quicktime’s screen recording is an in-built function that records your actions on the screen. The screen recording records all the actions that take place on the screen. I use it as a form of broadcast as it offers a private and genuine way of documenting the art process, as it records all the subtle actions I do on-screen as part of the work: whether it’s a pause during typing, backspacing, deleting — these are all little details that offer a glimpse of the thought process, and how everything comes together to form a final piece of work.

As an artist, I find that documenting the process is just as important as making the work. I am a firm believer in the saying that it’s the journey that’s important, and not the destination. Documenting my process at each step of the way is akin to making sketches in a notebook: it allows me to go back and see what I have done, what works and what didn’t.

The concept of private vs public is rarely explored in the realm of art, particular the relationship between the artist and the viewer. Little interest in shown towards getting to know the artist and the process, and often the attention is on the work itself. Through my work, I also want to highlight that making mistakes is part of the process. A lot of times, most creatives tend to keep this part of the art-making process hidden and not shown to the public. There are also other habits that creatives keep hidden because they feel embarrassed about it. Through my work, I offer an uninhibited view into the process of making a piece of work.

The project is also influenced by the reading ‘Webcams: The subversion of Surveillance’ by Steve Dixon. The article explores the use of webcam as an electronic eye to our personal lives, and potential exploitation of privacy and intimacy. The reading also uses an example of a group of artists who use the webcam to document their processes, turning their studio into a Web installation. The webcam is also described as a camera which produces “low-resolution, grainy” footage and it’s static effect also lends it a stern, surveillance quality.

jen02 jen01

Jennicam (1997)

Jennifer Ringley’s work Jennicam is an inspiration for my project. She lives her life out in front of the camera, and it records her activities from the mundane to the intimate. My takeaway from the work is that her documentation of her life is definitely realistic. Her setup of her cameras also provide insights to her life through various perspectives, by setting up cameras in every room and from all angles.

 

 

Final Project Update 2: Methods/Setup

Previously I was working on collecting screen recordings and thinking about how I can make use of the inbuilt screen recording function on Quicktime to capture my working process. I was quite comfortable with the approach, until I started using Periscope more after the micro-project we did on it a few weeks ago. I enjoy using Periscope quite a lot, because the function of Periscope addresses the “live broadcast” aspect of the project.

As discussed with Randall, I will be incorporating both Periscope and the screen recordings as part of my project. My work process is active both online and offline, so I think it will be necessary to include both aspects of it, rather than limiting myself to one channel. The next phase of my project will look at how I can incorporate both Periscope and screen recordings. So I might use a split screen function for this or something that allows me to screen two types of broadcast. Periscope videos can be viewed online, so there won’t be an issue for me to screen my live broadcast together with my on-screen process.

I would call my project a work in progress of a work in progress. The process of making my work is important and I enjoy opening up my process to others. I don’t think the nature of my work is very obscure, that the concept would be difficult for others to grasp, but I sometimes struggle with explaining my work because I think of my work as a big mind map: there are separate ideas that are linked with each other. For example: writing > illustrating > collecting > remixing. By broadcasting my process, I am highlighting each little concept as I work on it by actually showing (instead of explaining) my work.

As mentioned in my last project update, I find it useful to incorporate the use of Periscope because of the interactive elements of the app. I like the ongoing, immediate response from my audience although I haven’t figure out how to reply to comments live. It’s a bit tricky anyway since I’m drawing. I told Randall about this and he suggested that I can communicate with them via paper: I’ll just write my response down on paper so they can see it. I think I might do that as part of the work.

Final project update: Periscoping

periscope01 periscope02

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.

Micro-Project: Pirate Broadcast II

Photo 14-9-15 9 48 16 pm Photo 14-9-15 9 48 35 pm Photo 14-9-15 9 49 06 pm Photo 14-9-15 9 49 56 pm Photo 14-9-15 9 49 58 pm Photo 14-9-15 9 50 07 pm    Photo 14-9-15 9 51 44 pm Photo 14-9-15 10 15 32 pm Photo 14-9-15 10 15 38 pm

 

Here are some screengrabs from my latest broadcast on Periscope. I haven’t been shooting much outdoors because I’m afraid I’ll bust my bandwidth. Today I took a few random snippets of my activities, but this one had been my most viewed so far. I was quite surprised, honestly. This morning after I came back from the supermarket, I proceeded to make a Vietnamese-inspired chicken dish and I did a broadcast of that. I thought it was quite interesting, you know, since food is involved… but nobody was watching it. ha ha. While drawing just now, I made a broadcast. It was a little tricky to hold the phone on one hand and concentrate on my lines. I was focused on making sure I wasn’t drawing out of line and not really looking at the screen, and then suddenly all these little coloured bubbles started popping up with these hearts! People are actually watching it and commenting, live. It’s quite cool. The reaction is definitely instantaneous.

Anyway in my excitement, I forgot to save the broadcast to my phone. But you can view it on my periscope account (username: bever_gif).

This reminds me a little of Snapchat which my siblings encouraged me to join. They tell me that Snapchat is for broadcasting mundane details around us. I thought it was needless, and I couldn’t keep up with broadcasting every little thing around me. But I seriously admire my siblings’ effort to Snapchat everything.

Here’s a photo of them Snapchatting a carwash scene:

Photo 12-9-15 10 45 28 pm

 

 

I find that I have to make a conscious effort to pick up my phone to broadcast things. I think this is something I’m beginning to learn since taking up this class. My kind of documenting usually only involves writing about stuff in my book and collecting ephemera from a certain event. I am also definitely learning from my siblings, who seem to have gotten this down pat.

Going to experiment some more with Periscope and consider the possibility for its usage in my final project for Internet Art & Culture.