Month: March 2016

Hello guys!! It’s been a while, probably a week since I updated OSS. I have a huge problem with documentation, they are quite a pain but I will set aside some time to do it this week. Hopefully. Anyway, I was thinking of how to advance from the analog installation that I had done.

This is my first “installation” and also a liberation from what I do normally in photography. In photography or rather in our school’s photography course, we create works base off our expressions, what do we want to say? How do we evoke a certain emotion? How do we tell a story?

Borrowing some concepts from what I learnt, I made some amendments to how I thought. Instead of a direct, dictation of my expression/ story/ emotion in my work, it took some time for me to convert that into a platform or a playground almost for people to interact with. This shared experience of interesting engagement is something I think I’ve learnt from this installation and may then apply back to my own photographic works. A frame work, a platform is indeed more than necessary for anyone to view your works in.

What was interesting that I did not see it coming was that the vibration from one cup transmit back down and up to another cup on level 2. In which, the cup at level 1 becomes a main telecomm like a communication tower almost and it sends it’s vibration back to everyone else on the bridge on level 2. That was just splendid.

So I left the installation out for about two days before I was requested to take it down. But that allowed time for people to interact with the installation and from there I have gathered feedback. Generally, everybody had fun speaking into the telephone cups, some interaction last as little as 3 minutes to as long as 30 minutes. I asked “what made you stay put for longer than 30seconds?” Most people said friends, or basically other people involved in the interaction. The engaging part was the attempt to listen to your friends or talk to your friends through this network. I am well aware that this a strength and a limitation as well – so what if you were alone when you encounter this installation or what if you are generally a solo kid. How do the installation reach out to you then? If communication is a technology for all?

But before I jumped into the next concept I have to “improve” or maybe “change the analog installation slightly” for my digital installation. I would talk bout the little design principles or elements that I have thought of or that my Interactive Spaces classmates have put forth to me.

1. light. Light is a beautiful phenomenal, in which we can’t see without it. While trying out the cups during recess week. I attempted to shine my phone torch into one of the cup. and it lit up beautifully but it does not translate to the threads. So Issac suggested that maybe I should consider fibre optics or something that allow the entire thread to be lit up. I particularly liked his suggestion because (if it’s possible) the vibrations of the sound can send a signal to the sensors for the light. And that you can see when a conversation is happening. ideally.
2. voice modulators. So Suhui say that it would be interesting if one person’s voice get modulated into different type of voices across the many different cups I currently have. This allows people to move around each cup just to listen how different one sounds.
3. political symbolism. Kamarul & LPD said. haha yes when I set it up, I have half a mind that it can be something about that. But no, I do not want to engage anything bigger than what it is lest it becomes fluff.
4. listening. Vivian brought up an interesting point, what she liked the most was the fact that she could hear others and that she could just listen, the ‘static’ or the drop in signal/vibration that sometimes happen enhances the fact of fragility in the presence of the voice. I particularly like this observation because maybe it comes close to what I was trying to bring home with the dream boxes. The presence and absence of someone.

Feedbacks are great, it re-confirm things you already know, gives you another insight you might have missed and more importantly allow the mind-space to expand to include new angles and takes on it. This should be emphasised. I realised. especially in a creative school like ours.

So gathering from everybody’s feedback and remembering my original inspiration for this work, I realised that maybe if I can to create an answering machine in ADM. with the same cups just maybe an additoinal recorder, a trigger to show that there’s a message and to play back and re-record again. I don’t know if it is possible. I welcome feedbacks.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK AHEAD 🙂

So I am still figuring out how this is gonna work, so one method is that I tried hanging these boxes I am so hung over about.

As much as I like the way they were hanging, when I attempted to walk into the given space, it was awkward. I didn’t know what to do. Maybe it is because precisely they are just hanging boxes. But given in a hypothetical situation whereby the boxes do whisper, is it far more interesting? Maybe. But this vertical arrangement of engagement is far too inaccessible for the participants to reach out and listen to it. They’d have to climb a chair or a ladder. Is it intriguing enough for them to do so?
More practically speaking, how would I put multiple speakers producing multiple different audios into multiple boxes? What can replace speakers? What does the audio stand for? Many voices depicting the narratives of dream? Why is it important that they tell their dreams? Because those are untold important stories, visuals that you can’t control but is in your head anyway. Moments, ideas that you can’t translate or communicate in reality for some reason, practicality/illogical/ for the fear that people might deem you mad?

How does my installation allow this liberation? Does playing out dream narratives in boxes allow this liberation? In a way it allows people to hear, but then the people who tell their stories are fixed, that’s limiting. If I would to do that, a documentary or a photo series might do a far better job. Hm. So is there a way to allow people to communicate or express freely in my installation – be it dreams, secrets, hopes.

I’ve been thinking about how to begin planning this concept and I was attempting to read up about what makes a space, an engaging experience? So there was a few readings in the folder tht Prof. Louis shared and I managed to read up on the chapter Setting the Stage in the book, “Goods and services are no longer enough”. It talks about the four types of experience: Educational, Entertainment, Escapism and Esthetic.

This is a table of how the four realms of experience happen. I find it interesting that this reading was from a business service oriented book and that it can be applied to installations as well.

The concluding statements:

In theory, this seems easy and simple, but to apply it physically is tough.

So I was thinking of lying down on beds, spread out in a fan-shaped, with the installation illuminated by a lamp, or a night light. Individually, each bed has a unique recording played through a small speaker; recordings of people talking – dreams, aspirations, past, hopes. And people can go around to each different beds experiencing different recordings.

Of course, I have in mind a cozy, warmly lit intimate bedroom setting.

My concern is that, maybe it does not engage enough with the idea of space. I understand the four realms of experience, but am I applying the notion and concepts of space?