Staff: QUICK, THE CUSTOMER IS STARVING! WE NEED TO MAKE A DISH ASAP!

Chef: OKAY, BUT FIRST THING’S FIRST… ANyone knows the recipe?

Staff: …

Chefs: …

*everyone turns to face audience*

Everyone: HALP US

 

And with that, we being the journey with our clueless chefs and their kitchen staff as they rush against time to create a NEW Dish for their valued (and hungry as hell) customer. However, not knowing the recipe, they seek the help of the audience, asking them to suggest ingredients, both edible and inedible. After that, the audience get to lend a helping hand in the kitchen.

 

Wait, let me rephrase that. The audience lends their help by controlling the chefs’ hands.

 

Through the use of Facebook live, we were able to create a third-space where the audience could meet the chefs and give instructions live and directly to them through their comments. Aside from creating a (kitchen) space online, we were also participating in a do-it-with-others (DIWO) via live interaction, with both the audience and artists (or chefs) working together to create a NEW Dish.

 

 

As a member of this DIWO project, I took on the role of one of the chefs, and it was quite a hands-on experiencePlaying a chef, I had to either listen out for Celine when she read out the instructions or read directly from the comments myself. The latter proved to be tougher as we progressed with our little cooking session, mainly because we were busy focusing on the tasks at hand. I was also initially worried that there would be a lack of interaction from the audience, but the comment section was flooded with plenty of creative instructions. Too much so, and we ended up missing quite a few of them. This was also partially due to the lag that comes with streaming the video live.

I also tried to stay in character; I wasn’t a student, but a chef, and I made sure to engage with the audience as such. I would rush them to give instructions, since our dear customer was waiting, and at the same time comment on things from a chef’s point of view. I also encouraged the audience by complimenting on their ingenuity. For instance, filling a condom with wasabi and chili-flake covered apples, and then pipping it onto the pear salad as garnish. Pure culinary genius.

 

 

Nonetheless, us chefs were able to execute the instructions well; after getting out hands dirty and conducting many regretful smell tests along the way, we were able to create a NEW dish that looked Good Enough to Eat.

 

Bone apple feet, everyone!

 

 

 

Group members: Celine, Azizah, Hazel, Tanya, Karen

At first glance, Tiong Bahru has a neighborhood like any other in Singapore. At a glance.

Upon closer inspection of its facade, a whole new assortment of visuals and perspectives open up to you. I found my eyes drawn to every crack in the sidewalks, every vein on leaves, and every scratch on rusted metals.

Showcasing these textures is thus the main aim of my zine’s de-zine.

 

For the cover page, two images were used; a location shot and a close up on a rusted metal plate. To emphasise the theme of textures, I teared paper and photoshopped the texture to fit jagged outline.

 

 

As for pages in between, each spread was used to show textures of different materials; plants, metals, and concrete. Each segment also has a colour theme to give the zine a more vibrant look (green, yellow, and blue respectively). The texture images take up almost the entire page, leaving a thin border around the. A layer of a stained piece of black paper was added beneath them, which helped better frame the images. Asymmetry was applied to emphasise the hierarchy of images. For instance, for the plant textures segment, eyes will first land on the left image, then to the grassy part of the image on the right, and finally down to the text.

 

 

I also tried playing with diagonals while arranging the images. For example, the stem along the leaf cuts across the image from top left to bottom right, and through the gutter in between, links to the next image where the direction of the lines on the pavement reflect that diagonal. Though a reflection, it is also off center, giving that off-balance look.

As for the metals spread, I went for a complete diagonal split across the two pages. Instead of just having two images with a crisp line down the center dividing the two, I added an image of rusted chains in between to segment them.

 

 

For the concretes, I used a symmetrical layout. The image on the left page is of a tennis court corner, and to reflect it on the other page, I tore another piece of paper to create the shape. I then masked a cracked stone texture to fit within that frame, and for contrast, added a plain pavement texture underneath it, keeping to the segment’s theme.

 

 

Finally, for the back cover, I used the same layout as the cover, reflecting the metal texture and using a new image showing a different angle of the building. The map of the location is also added, using the same circle background as the title’s. And with the social media handles added at the bottom of the page, the zine is done!

 

 

 

Art; a piece created to perfection by an artist and displayed to the audience for its beauty.

That’s what I thought art was. Now, however, I have an new understanding of what art is. It not only refers to just beautiful artworks done solely by an artist, but also raw and imperfect pieces created by both the artist and the audience.

The Symposium emphasised just that, and showed us through several live art and telematic performances how the third space can be used in art to bring people from all over the world together. Maria X explained that “telematic performances transform the screen or projection surface from a non-place to a place of live encounter”, which showed in one of the examples shown in the keynotes, Telematic Dreaming by Paul Sermon (1992). In this performance,  the artist was videoed live lying down on a bed and a live stream projection was done on a in a different location. This allowed people to meet telematically in the third space, and by projecting on a bed instead of a flat screen, it created a more intimate space for both participants and the artist.

In this day and age, telematic interactions have become part of our daily lives, such as the use of Skype, where we are able to see, hear, and speak to someone in a remote place in real time. In Annie Abraham’s performance during the Symposium, she collaborated with a few other participants, using Adobe Connect as a third space as a performance platform. Throughout the performance, the participants would echo and/or mimic one another’s words and actions based on the topic they are on.

For instance, they started off with no visuals, but just the sound of their voices, saying random phrases and numbers, echoing words such as “excellent”. What I found interesting was that given no instruction or obligation to take part, those watching the performance were actively commenting via text in the chat. At first, many commented on the strangeness of it all, but gradually, we all started taking part, echoing just as the participants were and even retyping the numbers, words, and phrases they said.

They later went on to uncover their webcams, trying to cooperate and show visuals of similar objects, like a white wall and items of similar colour and size. By the end of the performance, everyone had revealed their faces to the audience, going silent the moment they were exposed. They all closed their eyes and only disconnected when they heard Annie’s alarm go off.

This performance embraces and showcases glitches, be it the time lags due to poor connection, resulting in poor synchronicity, or technical issues causing participants to miss out important ques. For example, judging by the fact that Helen, one of the participants, did not open her eyes for a long while after everyone else had done so, it’s possible to say that she might have an issue with her audios.

Aside form glitches, destruction was also embraced, as can be seen in the performances done on the last day of the Symposium. Titled ‘igaies’ (intimate glitching across internet errors), the last performance directed by Jon Cates, who performed with several other artist. The performances were independent on one another, but occurred simultaneously, being recorded and streamed live to the audience. There was chaos and destruction going on, such as the leeches being added to Roberto Sifuentes’ face coupled with Arcángel Constantini’s drawings with noise soundscaped played over the entire performance.

This performance filled with disorder, destruction and glitches shows a few of the little mistakes that happen, yet instead of editing them out or restarting the act to hide them, they were the center of the entire performance. Watching performances like these, I am reminded that imperfection and mistakes are all part of art and should be embraced too.

Overall, I have learnt that art does not necessarily only refer to all things beautiful and perfect, nor is it something created by a single artist. Art celebrates the imperfection in things, connecting people on an intimate level, no matter the distance in between them.