Category: My Work

Micro Project 6: Private vs Public: Strolling At Sembawang

Micro Project 6: Private vs Public

Do you see a demarcation between private and public? If yes, what are their differences? Here are some options you can consider:

For this project,  I filmed as first-person live broadcaster behind the camera. This means you would not be able to see how I look like, except from my way of looking at things. In this clip, it was not planned that we were going to go to a location to do this on its own.

We had plans to go cycling and watch a movie afterwards, but decided to take our usual stroll at the park. Widad used to live near me and we would have walks together at a nearby park. Now that she has relocated to Sembawang, , she took me to her park closest to her home and took me around to introduce me her new neighborhood park.

Since this took place on Friday evening, the timing was not at the most appropriate for people to go online, and i did not inform anyone online about an upcoming broadcasting live. My friend Widad was concerned about being on a live broadcast, because of its public nature, but she was comfortable around it, eventually. I think we usually go for walks together as a way to spend time together, and in this place, Sembawang Beach – she was simply giving me/ us a tour. But I think the difference was the extra third party ( my phone recording us live) took some time for us to get used to. Eventually I thought it turned out okay.

During this recording, I also mentioned viewing this from first-person perspective – but there were limitations to this. During the walk by the sands I saw a couple seated together and kids playing by the waters, but this did not appear in the broadcasting because I wouldn’t want to be questioned. I kept it discreet.

In hindsight, I think residents there didn’t appear to concerned about my camera out. But I did not disrupt their personal – they were a couple seated by the sands watching their kids playing by the water. Just like my friend and I, we were having our own “private moment” so I didn’t feel like I should intrude on the couple’s private moment too.

The abstract moment would be the part where the lights of the lamppost is shown together with the moon during our walk back to Widad’s home. I thought the size and color of those two objects were matching – and it really did when I gave a close up shot. I thought that was beautiful!

In summary, a lot of what I have filmed were not planned out, apart from letting Widad know about this ( and then mentioning this during the live broadcast) because the context here was visiting Widad’s new place and going for our usual walk at her park nearby.

Disclaimer: During the instagram live broadcast, there was no time duration stated to show how long it has been live. It was only until I stopped recording that it recorded below the 20min mark requirement. Therefore, the video is shorter than it is suppose to be, unfortunately.

However, the second video below is a “back-up” video to make up for the extra time needed to hit the minimum duration of 20 minutes. It also featured Widad and I, just in a different environment this time – a place more private ( in a car).

In summary, the biggest learning point for me was that there will always be a clear benchmark between public and private. The part where it was mentioned where the “third-party” comes in shifted the dynamic between my friend and I while we go for our routine walk at a park. Something that was meant to be private, was out in public – which may be discomforting to some. At the same time, it could be pleasant to others. I think those who find it pleasant to watch this – would also appear to behave the same way when watching something as personal like a vlog, or a Jennicam video or any videos of that sort.

Also, even though there weren’t a lot of people watching, I would assume that as first person narrator, behind the camera, I am in control of what users can or cannot see – there fore that gives me a  lot of allowance to let them see and make assumptions about the person behind the live broadcaster.

Research on Music Instruments

Principles

a.) The fusion of interactive instruments played by multiple people allows social harmony – by having multiple people play different piece, it brings sounds together and form harmony  in music

b)  The combination of analog and digital works fused together helps to engage wider set of participants (case study below)

c) The traditional instruments will lose significance, but sound produce remains significant. This is because what has changed is the level of ease at playing it where technology can minimize effort to play them.

Case studies

This interactive musical instruents is a university project based around four

 

 

Reactable has arang of prodcts that allows users to play around with music and use their creativity to make their own music with sounds beats available. The ones above are Reactable devices – Reactable installation and Reactable Mobile Music App.

This installation invites people to play around with objects that produce sounds and control the way it is being play. With these kids playing around objects, it allows them to learn through experience how to be musically attuned without taking formal lesson in understanding music. This interactivity is instant and requires on the spot learning, where you listen to beat and put different sounds together to ake it coherent. Reactable allows user to have a lot of creativity and control over the sounds produced.

 

The Wheel Quintet by Voices of Umei, composed by by Composer/ Senior Artistic Lecturer Anders Lind, Department of Creative Studies, Umeå University, Sweden.

Analysis / Critiques or the case Studies

First case study: Reactable by Reactable Systems

 

Critic/Analysisl study on The Wheel Quintet by Voices of UMEI

“It has clearly
illustrated the potential of mapping digital sound to everyday
objects to stimulate participatory art and both the composition
and performance of music.”

Max/MSP for visual programming

Understand the creation and use of novel interfaces for music composition and performance enabled by digitalization

A key objective in creating the instrument was to
simplify the interactions with the instrument while maintaining high
artistic ambition

“Firstly, their use as musical instruments could provide a means for
enabling people, regardless of their musical backgrounds, to
master the instruments when they first encountered them, and
hence participate.

Secondly, from an artistic perspective, the
absence of performance tradition rooted in everyday objects (as
opposed to, for example, a guitar or a piano) was deemed likely
to inspire and contribute to the development of new musical
expressions.”

wheels and skateboards – signify motion and speed – motion and tempo

”
most importantly, while highly trained and skilled musicians
are typically required for the performance of musical pieces
with such textures, our observations show that by mapping
digital sound to everyday objects these knowledge barriers can
be overcome”

Altered Ways of doing/Looking at things

  • Museums or other cultural institutions looking to invite more visitors can introducing everyday objects that is digitized – Wheel Quintet projects is an example to show items that we are often familiar with such as skateboard or a bicycle wheel can bridge the gap between certain groups of people that aren’t as oriented towards artistic or musical field – allows more segments of society to be more fluid in appreciation participatory
  • Digital immateriality refers to the
    purely digital aspects of an artifact, such as a file or software that are
    intangible (cannot be touched).

The Next Step / New Trends / Blue Sky Future

Musical instruments traditionally learnt by ear and physical practice will be less popular, replaced by newer technologies that is able to produce a more user friendly interactive piece,

However, the sound output made from musical instruments will be incorporated in music ensemble because its familiarity allows people of non-artistic backgrounds to better appreciate new forms of interactive music. For example, the use of piano where many keys are pressed will be replaced, but the sounds made remain. In addition, the way music instrument is being played, for example with pressing of different keys can inspire other forms of interactive musical piece. Ideally, the sound output can an alternative to piano sounds – as part of new innovation.

A new generation of an art called Participatory Art will be more common in modern-developed places where technology enhances learning and appreciation for music.

MAX/MSP and Arduino was incorporated, which shows how this cost-efficient products can do wonders in adding a new element to Participative Art. This is especially so in large scale cultural places such as museums and concert halls – where sounds produced at a large scale. With added tech element to it, it even enhances the human senses of motions, touch and hearing, which makes the newer forms of art mre captivating!

Museums or other cultural institutions would incorporate interactive musical elements to allow enhanced appreciate that engages people – For eg The Wheel Quintlet  – where mix of voices and sounds fused together

Traditional music will replace technological music -created by people

Participatory art invites a new demographic of people – non tradition artists to be more appreciate of the works of art, as music has been a way that brings people together – as in case studies, the participate nature in appreciating an art piece do not discriminate, encourages a more controlled nature that people can have towards a certain musical sound that is widely produced

Device of the week: IoT in Telemedicine

Internet of Things (IoT) is the idea of physical objects being able to  communicate online and interact with other objects.

.. defined the Internet of Things as “a world where physical objects are seamlessly integrated into the information network, and where the physical objects can become active participants in business processes.”

From my understanding of Telemedicine, it serves as a very efficient way of providing immediate care to people who may need medical assistance but have difficulty travelling to hospital . It allows certain groups of people, for examplem the elderly the fastest care and provide practical help that they need in case of emergency. It acts  like  “virtual hospital”. At the same time, with the use of smartphones or tablets, doctors can deliver medical assistance on-the-go by keeping a tab of the patient’s condition online.

One of the most simplest forms of Telemedicine allows a patient to consult doctor online without being physically present – this can be done through use of Webcam or Skype.

A more advanced version is the use wearable technology that tracks the blood pressure or heart rate of an elderly person that is attached to him/her at all time. This allows information to be transferred to medical professions in hospitals in real time. With the datas of rate of blood pressure or heart allows viewers to keep close eye on someone without being physically present with each other.

IMAGES & VIDEOS: 

PROS:

Close monitoring of patients even when doctor is away from patient, this is because of the apps ability to keep tracck record of each patient’s condition. This includes,measurement of data vital to patient’s . As such, this allows doctors to keep close eye of any signs that requires immediate medical attention. Allows doctors to make more accurate analysis of patients’ without even needing to visit patients with machines attached to them.

Time and cost efficient – travel costs significantly reduced because both patient can consult doctor through by appearing through communication outlet such as SKYPE with use of WIFI

CONS:

Requires strong WIFI signal to get ease of communication – without this, difficult to secure consultation, aid needed – this would be difficult for isolated areas where wifi signals are weak or non existent or unaffordable

Telemedicine does not affect travelling required to get medicine/ medical assistance/nurse needed to improve patient’s health; remains inconvenient for those difficulty travelling

Breakdown in internet may result in data loss – that is vital for record keeping for patient’s health and doctor’s analysis

SUGGESTIONS FOR ALTERNATE USE

I think this device can be further improved when another one is made, that gives an alarm to neighbouring family members residing in  same household but different space. This would not only alert doctor with said data with calling emergency unit, but it also alerts close caretakers. It could be like an immediate alarm bell or a vibration on his/her phone to signal that he/she assist in giving physical aid to patient.

Micro Project 5

 

The original photo is taken during an overseas trip in KL where my team and I had breakfast at this hostel called “Mingle Hostel”. Taken last year. After jumping from one picture to another, the way we see our own faces comes blurred in a sea of glitches. The blurries of our faces takes away the focus that I have of my own face. In the bigger picture, I am able to spot a lot of shapes resembling mine – simplified into a lot of ovals with blacks surrounding them.

Device Of The Week 1: Health

 

Triangular Bandage or a sling is versatile for arm,neck, shoulder, wrist injuries

  • Lightweight
  • Easy to use
  • Affordable
  • Multiple ways of tying to support
  • Can be used to cover non-arm injuries such as head or open wounds
  • Available in first aid kits

Cons 

  • Movable arm due to light fabric eg run, it will be tricky to remain immovable, and hands are full because other arm supports it
  • Bleeding wounds may seem through sling due to thin fabric
  • Ties may be sustainable for short period, not long

Arm sling is an object that helps to carry a broken arm. Some are made of fabric make sure it is will remain immovable.

Pros:

  • customized designed to prevent shoulder and elbow joints from moving, reduces pain
  • durable – able to withstand,wear, pressure ( not able to tear fabric)
  • immovable – comforting for arm/elbow injury
  • soft fabric  – polycotton material, breathable
  • easy to wash with mild soap and water
  • Shoulder pad has a padding so that it is comfortable to wear it for long period
  • Able to change elevation of upper strap (neck) – higher or lower

Improvements

  • fabric over neck supported with cushion so that after long period of wear, it would not strain the neck muscles
  • In context of being in military, it needs an outer layer that blends in well with uniform – blend in with surroundings / attack for injured
  • when lying down, use folded pillow under elbow
  • To take strain off neck, use a pillow(s) below elbow so strap over next is loosened

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 3: Atmospheres by Peter Zumthor

“perfectly tempered feel to his built spaces is immediately communicated to viewers,residents, visitors and the immediate neighbourhood.”

“atmosphere is an aesthetic category. ”

Reading a place, becoming involved with it, working out the purpose, meaning and goal of a brief, drafting, planning and designing a piece of architecture is therefore a convoluted process that does not follow a straightforward and linear path

Zumworth’s line of thinking when it comes to architecture seems to be non-linear in fashion, where his thought processing is finding out more about the purpose of the building, the type of people who reside in it and what type of mood that it would bring to those who enter the building. Usually architecture would appear very mathematical, logical, with proper planning in place, but I guess that is also something that is just as important as the thought processes, like how Zumworth has mentioned.

Quality architecture  is when a building manages to move a person

 

“I enter a building, see a room, and in the fraction of a second – have this feeling about it.

“emotional sensibilities – a form of perception that works incredibly quickly, and which we humans evidently need to help us survive.”

  • That view of seeing is already innate in us, heightened awareness of this would make us more appreciative of how first impressions work when we come across people and buildings
  • Besides appreciating, we also tend to reject things in a flash, as author described.

Compared to previous readings, the author has a very romantic perception towards buildings – by describing it as similar to how we form first impressions of people. He seems to associate it with good and bad feelings and he is very expressive in how each particular buildings makes him feel. It does point towards

The task of creating architectural atmosphere also comes down to craft and graft

The Island of The Dead Arnold Bocklin, 1880, Wendlinghausen

Swiss Sound Box, Expo 2000

Edward Hopper’s Early Sunday Morning

Edward Hopper’s Early Sunday Morning
Swiss Sound Box, Expo, 2000
The Island of The Dead Arnold Bocklin, 1880, Wendlinghausen

graft –  the acquisition of money, gain or advantage by dishonest, unfair or illegal means especially through the abuse of one’ position or influence in politics and business.

 

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.

 

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

 

View this post on Instagram

 

#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.