Author: Najiha

Always looking for something more.

Micro-Project 4: Pirate Broadcasting

This place was filmed at the bus stop right outside of the ADM Building at around 9pm last night. I decided to film the bus stop right across the road because the way the lampost lights its up was quite interesting. It also reminded me of my past work where I filmed bus stops – but the camera was directly in front of the bus stop – not at the side. The lightings at night are bring a certain mood to the whole setting of the bus stop. That is why it was filmed outside.

However, It would look better if it was filmed landscape, but that would be inconvenient for viewers to see, so had to put it in portrait.

I tried to film it still with my arms upright, but that wasn’t possible without movement. I wanted to film it still because it would take stillness of this place and this would mean moving objects – such as vehicles and people are quietly observed too…

Some passing comments from passerby walking past with their friends were school-related, some were vulgar expressions from no where so the person couldn’t be identified in the clip, and some looked curiously behind my camera when they by passed me.

The sounds of crickets could be heard,they were louder than murmers or mumblings of the people talking. The sounds of engines from motorbikes and the passing vehicles were loud but they gradually got softer after a while. The most stagnant sounds throughtout were the cricket sounds and little murmurs of people talking .

Some ideas to follow up for Final Project ( Live 1 Hr Video )

  • Different stations of bus stops every 15 minutes, within the campus
  • Timing of filming would be during peak periods 4pm-6pm to record unscripted dialogues among passers by and people waiting by bus stop
  • Alternatively, morning + night
  • Filming within campus instead of outside of campus – increase probability of me bumping into people I know (predictable dialogues – “What are you doing here? Why are you filming?” Is this for a project? ” – Have more control over the outcome of this Live Video Feed, as the person behind it, observe the dialogues in my surroundings

Week 5 Reading “Critical Vehicles” by Krzysztof Wodiczko

Vehicles served as a means for enacting a psycho social machine

The subjects of that oppression were themselves often unaware of the extent to which they were an active component – a cog or a gear  – in that machine.

The use of a vehicle is used to represent a government system that is run by important elements that make up democracy – which are its people. The artist take on this appeared pessimistic in nature – where oftentimes citizens are unaware of their power to make a change to the system they are a part of – otherwise, as the main driver of social change they would have been the driving force.

the hypocritical life we lead when we take refuge in the machine of a political or cultural system while closing one eye to… our own passivity, or frankly speaking complicity.

The author is trying to show how as we active consumers of the culture and political system that we reside in, where we could choose to believe what they say they will do for us in exchange for our loyalty. And it also seems to dislike the idea of us being blindly accepting this type of norm, because it is easier than to throw an uprising against the government, which is much more difficult.

ideaosis – the commonsense life of well-calculated choice for navigating through the system by claiming a critical or independant perspective on it

 

If democracy is to be a machine of hope, it must retain one strange characteristic – its wheels and cogs will need to be lubricated not with oil but with sand. This will disrupt its symmetry and legitimacy and keep the machine in a kind of ethical turbulence.

The author seems to use the symbol of machine parts to represent a certain belief to how politics should work. The wheel and cogs are used to represent how followers of the government should learn to be vocal, and play the role as devil’s advocate in the way they perceive how the politics is currently being run. By “ethical turbulence” seems like the author is suggesting that it is the morally righteous thing to adopt this approach when ruled under democracy.

Democracy is ill, silently suffering, and we must heal it, make it whole, of the wounds from hundreds of years of forced muteness and invisibility impoased on so many of its subjects.

The author’s stand is that he seems to observe the shortcomings of democratic principles in general, where people who accept the majority seems to overlook the importance of valuing minorities or those of the marginalized.  Also, there is some criticism with regards to him and he aims to “shake” off this sheep mentality by making sure the voices of the “silence,alienated and marginalized” are heard.  He also appears like some savior or hero in this article, where he’s trying to win support of the good guys ( the marginalizeD) and to go against the “oppressor” namely the Uncle Tom of the country.

 

Week 4 Reading of Rafael Lozeno Hemmer’s “Illuminating Embodiment”

“Under scan” is an interactive piece which uses a tracking system to produce an audio/visual on a person’s shadow, as lone strangers walk in an open, lighted space.

By doing so, it projects a clip of a stranger, who is making some type of movements with his body and face – as if to entertain the the person who sees it. I particularly liked the way projection screen is customized to the stranger’s whereabouts, with the help of tracking system that predicts where the person will move next. It makes it highly interactive and gives an extra personal touch to it. I think the use of lights to create formation of shadows on sidewalk is a smart move Lozano has made, in order to detect movement of person and produce that interaction.

The use of the small projections, unlike that of the fully large scaled ones that draws a lot of blinding LED lights, this interaction seems to give off a different type of response. It seems more mellow, personal, more deliberate way of drawing someone’s attention without being intrusive. It seems like the content of the interaction is meant to invoke a certain type of humor in the stranger, with due respect to his/ her personal space – as seen in the way the clip fades off after stranger walks away. In the bigger picture, Lozano’s interaction “Under scan” is meant to be highly interactive, with proper accustomization to a person’s whereabouts – with due respect to his/her level of interest in it.

As mentioned previously, the use of small projection instead of large scaled ones could be possible form of work. But I guess in relation to what was mentioned in the article, it is practical as well to project interactions in small sizes to reduce costs especially if it is a artist working on this project, and not a big corporation with a lot of budget.

virtuality as a digitally facilitated, purely cerebral state independant of the vicissitudes of the body.

And in his book “Mind Children” American roboticist Hans Moravec speculates that in
the future people will no longer need bodies as human consciousness will be fully transferred to digital realms.

The quotes above seem to suggest how the use of the virtual reality, such as the internet plays around our perceptions, our psychology, our way of thinking and manipulation of the individual’s minds. It seems like a very futuristic way of describing virtuality, but I guess it really holds true. We do not use any part of our body when it comes to using virtual reality, or the Internet for examples, and it is highly “independant” because we are detached from our body parts. The digital spaces is simply functional because there is a collective number of brains working alone / together to produce whatever information that we may need/want/desire from the anything digitally produced.

In my opinion, the way it says “human consciousness will be fully transferred to digital realms” seems to point   towards our transition from the physical world to virtual reality. And even if it is becoming a worldwide phenomenon in mayn developed high speed Internet places like here (Singapore), it does mean that living in the physical space “in the moment” woud require someone who is conscious enough to go back to the non-virtual reality. And that, I would assume would need to be deliberate.

In conclusion, I hope that this theory holds true, because in some ways it does end off with the idea that we could still connect on a virtual level regardless of any preconceived notions, stereotypes about a person. Instead, internet communities thrive on a similar human-like approach where we thrive to reach towards a common goal through a different , alternative reality.

Interactive Spaces: Project Ideas

 

#1 Folds of a bed are very telling that a person was there- assuming he/she did not make the bed

  • sinking bed in middle part
  • depth of pillow, not in its original shape
  • Movement of bed sheet moving, making of folds
  • Movement of pillows forming dents on its own
  • concept: make assumptions about how person slept based on what is observed
  • encourage person to draw an outline of how he/she had slept
  • Size of makeshift bed (?)
  • Location(?)
  • Task for participant (?)

______________________

Unpacking Body Movies by Rafeal Lozano Hemmer 

  • Shadows interacting with each other through projection screens 
  • Light beam also works with distance and size of people, where closer you are to light source, the smaller you appear 
  • The further away, the larger 
  • Spontaneous storytelling and form of entertainment

Unpacking underscan by Rafael Lozano Hemmer

-tracking system where predicts where people will move next, in device – helps in locating the suitable space to show a projection, where a person sees it 

– recorded clip of a person filmed individually – to entertain, grab attention of person (or not)

HIghlights /Interests of artwork 

  • The way projection screen is placed directly in front of viewer
  • If viewer walks away (Assumed disinterest), the projection fades off too 
  • Tracks people and their predicted movement 
  • Projection screen from above 

_________________

Project Development Idea ( Interaction)

  1. Video projection on drawing
  2. Continuous build up of previous project where projections video Bus stop, bus interchange, interior of bus
  3. Incorporate some elements Rafael Lozano Hemmer’s Body Movies, Janet Cardiff & George Miller’s Muriel Lake incident
  4. Binaural audio (narration of another person talking over audio of clip being played)
  5. Playing with shadows (interaction with subjects )
  6. Actual projection screen shows many subjects, but the actual voices from clip is from one of them and as viewer they can guess
  7. Identified by participant hover hand over projection, show lone subject matter drawn on canvas
  8. When we cover projection screen with hands/objects, drawings of previous “traces” of people are seen in drawing
  9. Drawings of place repeated, but differences are people who are featured in previous video are drawn in the next drawing

6.* Additional Interactive element eg sensor devices where a person who steps closer to work after a certain distance, it stops – another video is played instead – intention? Maintain a specific distance away from people there? 

#2 Project Development Idea (Analogue)

 

  • Show how these 3 stations show stopping points in how relationships start and end – bus stop is anticipatory stage, shared experiences with someone through bus journey (interior of bus) and bus interchange (alight,  marks end of bus journey – end of relations as we go separate ways) 
  • In Singaporean context, relations seem linear like it begins and ends, and then it repeats with different person that you mean.
  • Bus transportation as common feature, normalized way of moving around to places, especially for locals
  • However, relationships may not always be linear – non -linear, chaotic, beautiful mess
  • bus stop, interchange, interior of a bus as representative of start, journey, end
  • installed side by side
  • materials (?)  – wood to show construction in 3D form, 3D Printed
  • to show materials can be deconstructed, to show relations are not linear, they can be a mix of anticipatory feelings, ends, rebuilds again, and they  are shows in installations
  • * light source – formation of shadows to show sunlight affects types of shadows, morning-afternoon-night

Location: walkway outside of ADM Museum because when visitors walk past it they would read the work in linear format

Scale: (?) Nothing too large

Installation: Platform to support medium sized installations

 

Write up for Micro Project 3. Together Split

Together-We-Split is a formation of a clips each of us are in – combined together. It was suppose to be “seamless” but there camera functions in the video group call did not feature same type of people across all our phones ( each individual took up a different space in each phone). We tried to join two bodies together, as if they are one; we had to bring a lot of the “pieces” together, with some difficulty. But, the improvisations were quick, because every one had to contribute something different, yet at the same time, it adds up to one piece.

This was performed in the room we had our lectures in.

Personally, I think we could have invested more time thinking through what kind of choreography we should do before executing it on video. The problem we had was the function of video call work, but the interface was different for each of our phone. So, I had to refer to Jake’s phone to see how I should adapt body parts proporly, which that in itself is tricky to work to. Had we worked in a different location, that would be even more interesting – because we would need to be more verbal about what we need to do to make our work appear seamless.

Which project did you feel you had the most creative control? Why? 

The project that I felt had the most creative control was the Micro Project 2 – which was crowdsourcing art.

I was able to get quick, honest responses about the community I live in and I really liked to see how people’s views of their own community differ from their own peers (who fall under same age group) . This wouldn’t be quick and efficient without the Internet, which lends itself a powerful tool in learning about cultures we know about. At the same time, there are limitations to this because although efficient, the responses could be superficial and short. Alternatively, we could draw surveys by having dialogue sessions or focus groups, which would be more interesting but we had time constraints.

Which project did you feel you had the most unpredictable outcome? Why?

Micro-Project 3 had the most unpredictable outcome, because you have to quickly adapt yourself to a new idea or improvisation. And that requires you to think on your feet.

Which project best illustrates the concepts of Open-Source? Why? 

The Crowd-sourcing best illustrates concepts of Open source because you can draw out as many responses as many times as you can,  and you have a lot of control over the types of questions you can ask to different types of people. With regards to understanding people’s perceptions of their own cultures and other cultures, this does help me to learn how despite living in same communities, their perceptions vary.

The anonymity that comes from Open source has its limitations too. Despite how responses are personalized , people’s motives may be different and can result in some kind of dishonesty, which can affect the out come of my survey. While looking through responses as main “controller”, I was surprised that Pollev tracked down the names and the content of what was being said at that point of time.

 

Powering Addressable LED through Sensor

Devices used

  • Arduino Uno
  • Arduino IDE Software
  • USB Cable to connect Arduino to power source
  • Jumper wires
  • Addressable 5V LED Strip
  • Ultra Sonic Sensor
  • Breadboard

The idea for my device of the work is Ambi-Light – where you stick strips of LED at the back of a computer/TV for some light decoration, especially in a dim-lit setting. I spent  many hours of my weekend getting the code right, partly due to me being particularly unfamiliar and uncertain with Arduino. Eventually, after spending many hours tweaking codes, the outcome is closer to what I have expected.

In the context of a trade show, this ambi-light would be put in a backdrop of a black curtain behind laptops -which are for sale. With the sensor devices attached to it, it can detect distance of an object. This determines how the LED strip will function – where the further the visitors are from device, the more ‘flashy’ the out LED strips appear to be. This would result in an attention drawn to the product as visitors pass by the trade booths.

On the other hand, the closer the visitors are, the more it becomes “less flashy” where there is a gradual change in colours that is less distracting to visitors. This would allow visitors to feel more at ease as they look closely into the products because there is something to illuminate the product without being too distracting with colour changes.

Problems and how they were resolved

  • the problem with coding in arduino ide was understanding how the functions work, and how the order of each function was quite important too, eventually after much tweaking I got the result that I wanted
  • measuring a list of thresholds as a way to determine how the led lights would play out was important – because the rate + type of light patterns determine the outcome of my project which is to sell devices at a trade show
  • The distances measured are as follows

Final Work

In hindsight, the work  I put in was a spent on searching for the right code and tweaking it in terms of distances covered by the sensor. Soldiering was also something that I learnt along the way too, and I had many intense moments working on this project, despite it being “micro project”. That in itself also means the learning curve was quite steep for me, but it has also familiarizing myself with some things that I will use in the next upcoming projects. Soon to come.

Siah Armajani Exhibition At NTU CCA

 

Siah Armajani’s exhibition was quite interesting for me – there were many elements which carried some significant meaning to them as I learnt about him and his past experiences dealing with reactions to the political climate and the people involved in them back in his home country – Iran. They included the way he used similar-looking chairs throughout every installation in there, the use of small holes on some chairs to contain the pencils and the spaces which are meant to be inviting and communal.

Ana, the tour guide explained to us how the use of chairs were significant in Siah’s work – in remembrance of two political activists who were executed in electric chairs and died after being (falsely) accused of wrongdoing that they did not commit. In my opinion, the repetitive use of chairs and how it was being placed created a certain type of mood that does differ simply from the way the chair was being placed. In this particular photo, the chairs that face out the little shelter was actually reminiscent of the way prison guards sat when they are on guard duty. You feel like you are watchful of your environment especially of anybody walking past you into the shelter. Similarly, the way the lone chair are placed indoors seem to suggest a sense of isolation, and when I was in there I kept looking around, sideways and up where I can see light outside. It was quiet dark in there, but it wasn’t uncomfortable either.

The way each pencil is held up by a wooden stand in equal rows and columns seems to be quite an odd sight to see. I thought that was quite strange. It was quite functional in a way because I could use them to write down a feedback form towards the end of the visit. I tried to find some relationship between the way the pencils work with the chairs and the shelter. They could be there to remind you of the sharp pricks on a chair that is meant to show some kind of discomfort when you look at it from afar. There was one reclining chair where it was completely covered with the pencil holders. So, it was quite funny to see how it looks like you could sit on it but you actually can’t. One of my classmates and I were standing around it discussing about whether we could sit on it or no – and he decided to sit on it. Some of the pencils broke and that’s when he realize it’s not an actual place to sit. I thought that was the funny – but the curator walked up to us quickly and told us it is okay she will replace the pencils herself. I was laughing inside, but I couldn’t figure out how he could possibly think this was something you could sit on.

Moving on, the communal feel to the whole installation can actually be felt. There were no restrictions in navigating through the spaces – we could sit on the chair, we could pick up a pencil and write on them, we could pick out books in the booktrays, we could lay out a book on the book holder as we read them quietly, and we found it easy to talk in between the spaces because they were open. I guess the communal way of interacting with each other is evident here and it does feel like the artist is providing us an avenue that allows us to exchange ideas and formulate plans for a better the people we are a part of. . Overall, I felt that this installation was made really reminded me of the kampong feel to it, and it really does give an idea of what a community would look like. At the same time, based on the artist’s commemoration of two political activities who were executed in electric chairs, these chairs were quite nostalgic  in remembering how painful and betrayed it must have been for what these two people have gone through.

 

Micro-Project 2 – Crowd-Sourced Art

In practice, I thought of asking social media circles about what are their own impressions about the community they identify themselves with, ethnic or nationality – wise.
3) Crowd sourced community – Malay Singaporean community/ Malaysian community
4) Concept would be to revive understanding of one’s own identity based on cultural upbringing especially in a period where many are identifying themselves as more global than they are ethnical, applies in both the real and virtual world
– important to know how we we move from one identity – ethnic – to national – global and it makes us all aware that our way of normal is different to other
5) Open ended responses, with personalized touch – user can give own personal responses with anonomity.
6) The crowd can change their intentions by saying something that is more nationalistic/ cultural
7) Avoid yes/nos answers, may feature verbal/written format, otherwise freedom, can be serious/neutral/comical
8) No yes/no answers, spoken medium is English, less than 10 seconds

Documentation

Amanda  and I made the poll – which is basically to gather responses from a group of people regarding what comes to mind when they think of a certain culture. We worked on both Singaporean and Swedish culture, but my initial idea was to focus on to one of Singaporean’s subculture, which is Malay Singaporean culture – but I thought since we are both come from different parts of  it would be good compromise to work on two nationalities at the same time. The responses initially had to come from non-locals – so we could learn what are first impressions of a culture from an outsider’s point of view.

Eventually, since our immediate social media circles were own respective locals, we decided to make the responses coming from both Singaporeans and Swedish.

This works takes place in Facebook and Instagram for me -links were sent to them through private messaging. The work did not ask for much social interaction apart for accessibility to the poll ( there was a limits, only 25 allowed)

For my part, I asked Singaporeans on their impressions on Swedish culture, and for Amanda’s part, she asked Swedish people on their impressions on Singaporean culture.

Personal responses/Feedback From Sent Links

I had to do the significantly the same surveys twice because it took me some time to learn how to use it from a presenter’s point of view. The responders could choose to remain anonymous throughout the survey. Their names and what they types could be tracked, actually.

The survey above was done by 25 respondants, who were Singaporean. Their names and what they said could be viewed by me. The reason to do this strictly for Singaporeans was to see if there is a common perception locals view of themselves.It would be different from non-locals’ perceptions point of view.

The most common ones were “kiasu”, “hawker centres” and “food”.

Overall, I think the responses were quite interesting. If I were to do it again, I think it would be more specific towards Singaporean subcultures – chinese,malay and indians or eurasians. It would also be intersting to see the common perceptions made of other groups of people or what they view of their own communities that locals identify themselves with . The only limitation is that number of responses which is at 25. However, we could do multiple rounds to make more room for more responses.

Micro Project 0. Displacement on The Networked Space

 

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#ossadm #myhiddenspot

A post shared by najihapu3 (@najihapu3) on Aug 15, 2019 at 6:19am PDT

 

If the images cannot be seen in the link above, here they are.

This  is a series of photos that is a first-hand experience of the way I move to this hidden spot in this ADM building. The hidden spot is often a place not a lot of people dare to visit, because there’s no point taking the emergency staircase when there’s a lift outside and open staircases where you are in view of everybody in the building.

This place is a prayer area for Muslim students to pray. It is actually a make-shift one, that means past students who came here probably came up with the idea of laying out a plastic mat, bought some prayer rugs and all other essentials to make this space specially catered to anyone who would wish to perform their daily prayers during their time in school. And eventually, due to word of mouth, more and more students manage to find a good space to perform their daily rituals with essentials.

I used multiple pictures to show from first person’s point of view, how to naviagte through this hidden space – where you open two doors, climb up staircases and find this space. It is probably not known to many, except a small minority of us in the ADM community – and this ironically, is a hidden space that only is not so much of a secret anymore to some of us.