Click here to check out my presentation on Olivier de Sagazan!
Artist Talk: Olivier de Sagazan
Tag: performance
Semester Project: Pentagram Ritual
Have an interest in pentagrams? Wanna do some fun rituals with friends? Longing to summon a creature from the beyond?
Well then, here’s a once-in-your-lifetime chance to bring forth your very own Summoning™!*
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Click here to learn more about the Pentagram Ritual!
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S̶̨̡̫͔̲̫̥̲̰̮͌̆̓̏̓̀̆ę̵̧̍͑̾̐̏̆͊̐̉̌̚͘e̴̢̧̝͔̘̣̩̥̭͚̪͗̆̂̓̾ ̸̧̹͉̟͉̲̏̌̚Ÿ̷̖͇́͑̓̉͛̓͋̈́͘͝ŏ̴̘͙̯͇̭̰u̷̡̨̘͎͇̥̘̱̤̺͊̓̓̓͗̊͊͑̋ ̶̤̼̬̣̟͔̍̄͒̚͘͝͝͝Ţ̷͉̫̣̱̝̠͎̰͍̪͕̇́̊͛͜ḧ̴̘̪͚̜̼́͝e̴͎̯̻̗̓͐͗͗̊͗̾͊͗͂r̸̨̹̪̤̣̞̼͉͎͂̓͑̂̏ĕ̵̞͎̫̯̏̽̇̿̕̕̕
*Souls of participants may or may not be eaten by the Summoning™. Terms and Conditions apply.
Instructional Performance: Common Sense
Giving someone directions can be a simple as telling them to go left or right, back or forward, to stop or continue.
But what if we reduced our words to abstract sounds? What specific movements would we associate to these sounds, and how many people would react the same way we do?
This is exactly what I want to find out in my instructional performance, Common Sense.
The instructions are pretty simple:
Listen to the audio being played, and let the sounds guide your movements.
You can do whatever movements you want in relation to the different sounds (e.g: jump, run, spin, freeze, etc.)
For this prototype performance, the main goal is to see if there are sounds that trigger common reactions in different people.
Below is a video of the prototype performance (ft. Fizal and Alina)!
It was quite interesting to see some of the similar reactions we had to the sounds. For example, fast paced beats got us to move around and add a bit more bounce in our steps, and when the audio stopped at points, our actions either froze as well or slowed down. It was also cool to see some moments where we ended up facing the same direction or stood in the same spot.
Overall, I think I can look more into different types of sounds and also see how elements within the space itself can affect the performance. A possible goal would be to create a sound track that manipulates participants into moving in a specific way; they think they are moving randomly, but may find out that many others reacted similarly too.
Key Work Selection – Messa di Voce
Human-machine interactivity has expanded considerably over the years, and enriching these experiences is one of Golan Levin’s goals when creating an interactive artwork. Quite a handful of his interactive pieces use projections and tracking as a form of control; a way to “get away from the mouse and use out full bodies as a way of exploring aesthetic experiences” as he puts it. And out of all these projection based interactive artworks, I feel that Messa di Voce best incorporated the various interactive elements.
“The mouse is probably the smallest straw you can try to suck all of human expression through” – Joy Mountford
In addition to focusing on the aesthetic experiences, Golan wishes to empower people through interactivity and “discover themselves as creative actors”, which, without a doubt, reflects in the performance shown below.
As they “speak” [enter performer’s flawless impression of raging Donald Duck here], little spheres are projected onto the scene, seemingly emerging from the performer’s mouth and floating upwards like bubbles. In a way, I guess they could be called speech bubbles. More than that, the bubbles also change in size depending on the vocalisation of each sound.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. The bubbles eventually fall to the ground and the performers are able to push and kick them around, an interaction that made it seem as though both the virtual and physical spaces were the same place.
The performance goes on to show the various ways sound can be used in the interactive artwork; from creating ripples,
to drawing with lines,
to what it would probably look like if your soul was being sucked out by a dementor,
and even creating this weird spiky aura thing.
Research Critique 2: Micro-Project 3
For this mini-project, done on Facebook live, my team experimented with the concept of a third space to show a day in a life of a normal girl.
To describe the third space, I would say it is a combination of both the physical and virtual platforms; like a bridge that connects these two platforms, allowing for people to interact with one another, regardless of the physical distance between them. It challenges “the limitation imposed by physical boundaries (between countries and bodies)”. Likewise for our mini-project, we were tasked to create a video on Facebook live, one of the requirements being that we have to film in different locations.
Despite not being able to talk face-to-face to one another, the boundaries of the third space collapsed through the fact that we were able to get a real-time reactions from one another. For example, one side of the scene in the video shows the girl crumpling a piece of paper and throwing it over her shoulder.
On one side of the screen, we see a hand crumpling the paper before it moves up towards the camera and out of frame.
Consecutively, on the other side, we see the girl throw a paper ball over her shoulder. This shows that despite the boundaries of not being physically side by side, we were still able to synchronize our actions on the third space.
Furthermore, intimacy can be created through the third space by making the viewers and even the participants think that this platform is real. As stated by Randall Packer in his article The Third Space, “The third space is a fluid matrix of potentiality and realizable connections to the most far-reaching remoteness.” In this case, the similarity and coordination of our movements on each side of the live video created the illusion that both videos were taken in the same place of the same person, just from two different perspectives. Having to react in real-time during the feed also forms a sense of connection between us as participants in the video, although there was a significant amount of distance between us.
Aside from the crushed up paper being thrown over the shoulder, there is another scene where the girl reaches over to close her laptop.
While watching this portion again, I felt as though I was really closing the laptop by myself, when in actuality, there was nothing in front of me to even touch, and that Joey was the one who had the laptop in front of her. This is an example of how the third space fuses the real and virtual worlds together to create a platform that allows is to connect to one another, whether we are physically far apart or not. The real-time aspect of it further strengthens this illusion of realness by allowing us to see and hear things live and interact with one another simultaneously.