Tag Archives: 4d

[EI] Telematic Dreaming and the Third Space

Randall Packer asserts that “The laws of the known world have been all but abandoned in the third space: it is a space of invention and possibility.” Indeed, Telematic Dreaming brings two people, thousands of kilometers apart, together. While it should not be possible that they would both be able to interact with each other simultaneously in a shared space, Paul Sermon makes this possible through the usage of the ISDN network and the Third Space.

What is most striking about watching a video of the installation is how aware the audience is that they are on a bed whilst interacting with the artist. The connotations that being ‘in bed’ bring do not go unmissed. As a space in which we sleep and be with our partners and loved ones, the gestures between the bedmates are tender and intimate: we witness this from the 2 min 50 second mark in the video below.

With the work having been exhibited in the 21st century since its conception (most recently in 2011), it is not a far reaching statement to assume that the audience would be well acquainted with the third space. As Randall Packer writes, the “digital natives”, a group that the audience is part of, “are the standard bearers (of the third space)”. With all the (possibly unknowing) familiarity with the third space, it is interesting to see how the audience member reacts to this third space.

The user physically inches away when the artist makes sweeping motions across the bed, like they are almost scared to intrude on that space, even though they most definitely, physically can.

The artist then moves to the right side of the bed, and the audience member takes the opportunity to scramble to the left side (lest the artist start making sweeping gestures again, I believe). Even the psychedelic background of the projection does not take away from how real it is. In fact, coupled with the trance-like music playing in the background, and the fact that the participants cannot audibly communicate with one with another, the whole situation becomes almost too real: the experience of laying in bed with a projected person, next to you becoming heightened.

Moreover, we take note that this action of laying in bed need not be physical – as the artist himself writes, “the user exchanges their tactile senses and touch by replacing their hands with their eyes”. This begs the question: Can we feel through our eyes? With the above analysis, I would say that we can, to an extent, at least. We cannot physically do so, but we can materialize what we see as the feeling of being touched. This translates into our everyday lives – we feel a rush of happiness when we see our loved ones, and feel frustrated when we see what we planned for not working out. Subscribing to Cartesian Dualism, I would say that immaterial reality manifests in the virtual body that the artist projects in ‘Telematic Dreaming’.

Sources referenced:

  1. Packer R. “The Third Space,” (2014) in Reportage from the Aesthetic Edge
  2. http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/staff/sermon/telematic-dreaming
  3. http://v2.nl/archive/works/telematic-dreaming
  4. https://www.digitalartarchive.at/database/general/work/telematic-dreaming.html
  5. https://www.leonardo.info/gallery/gallery332/sermon.html 

 

[EI] Tele-Stroll: A Tale of Two Cities

Felicia and I thought of a couple other ideas before settling on our final idea: we thought about playing hide and seek on camera (with penalties), dancing to Bruno Mars songs, or interviewing people in religious places in an attempt to understand different religions better – in the end, we settled on a Tinder-in-real-life concept.

Felicia and I would find guys for each other within the span of 15 minutes, conduct a short street-style interview, and pose a final question: “Would you swipe right on my friend on Tinder?” If yes (and they did turn out to be all yes-es, Felicia is gorgeous), the guy and the person we pick them for would form a heart shape in the middle of the split-screen.

We were inspired by this video, but modified it such that we would interact with the guy that the other chooses for us in the third space. We started with a brief overview of our “types” – we would try and find a guy that could possibly fit those qualities. Felicia liked tall, funny and friendly guys, so I tried looking for guys that (were tall) and looked friendly.

 

Funnily enough, it was evocative of Tinder’s Discovery settings, where you can set your maximum distance to swipe on. I guess our real-life distance radius was about 1 km.

 

 

 

 

Why the Charles Dickens-ish title, then?

Felicia and I filmed in two “Cities” – I was inside City Square mall, while Felicia was at City Hall, alongside the Singapore River. The contrast between the two settings was interesting – the inside of the mall had louder background noise, whilst the open air area alongside the river made for a scenic background.

It was daunting task going up to strangers, but we thought it added an element of uncertainty that would create anticipation for the viewer, as well. Finally, a big thank you to Felicia for being so great throughout the whole process!

P.S. So sorry about the late post, I realized that this was saved as a draft.

Posted by Balachander Prashanthi on Sunday, 21 January 2018

[EI] An experiment in Social Broadcasting

Posted by Balachander Prashanthi on Thursday, 18 January 2018

Social broadcasting was really fun! It was nice getting out of class and videoing everything, which is what I do pretty much everyday with Snapchat, but for shorter durations of 2-5 seconds. I was very conscious of what I was saying and how I was behaving. I got to experience indeterminacy first hand, with me running into Daniel, my debate partner, towards the end of the broadcast – he’s not from ADM and it was a pleasant surprise seeing him.

It was a bit thrilling knowing that I was being broadcast, because it was possible that Facebook friends, most of whom I’ve not spoken to in years, could see what I was doing and how I looked like. This was in stark contrast to everyday life where I pretty much only interact with a handful of people on a daily basis. This tied in to the concept of global communication that Prof Packer was discussing earlier on; indeed, with the internet as a platform for social broadcasting, I’m not confined to a physical room.

Here’s a link to the video wall!: https://thirdspacenetwork.com/public-video-wall/ 🙂

[4D] Interactive Narrative

Link to our proposal: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/nura0069/interactive-storytelling-proposal/

We got feedback from Ruyi on our proposal that there were too many things going on – the strict parents, the lesbian relationship, Sarah going missing (and eventually dying), and Denise having to find out.

We also did not really portray the romantic aspect of the relationship, with Ruyi commenting that it looked more like a friendship, which we definitely agreed with. We tried to make it more romantic in our final video with an implied kiss scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aKxPyMCPgs

We also got feedback that the two characters could be different in terms of personalities, Ruyi suggesting “Blue Is The Warmest Colour” as a reference. Hence, we redeveloped the story, paying more attention to the two characters’ distinct personalities.

Blue is The Warmest Colour explores the relationship between Adele and Emma – Emma is the more free-spirited, “Artist” type. Apart from using it for the cinematic reference, we also referenced the “I Knew You Were Trouble” music video for its portrayal of Taylor’s love interest as one who is crazy and wild, whilst Taylor is the ‘good girl’ who later becomes more wild as her relationship with her love interest progresses. As we had run into problems giving Sarah and Denise more character, I referenced this video to give both of the characters more distinct personalities.

Link for revised storyline: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p4tYlgWwel4eKrRgUK1LGwqIhEXutZfBoXm8eNuxb0A/edit?usp=sharing

I did a lot of the writing, including the quotes for the jar, blog and the development of Sarah’s and Denise’s personalities. I also did up the scenes for the storyboard. I took a lot of inspiration from poetry, specifically Lang Leav’s works. The storyboarding was also pretty fun because I rewatched some Korean dramas for some ideas.

Blog link: sarahslittlesecrett.tumblr.com Password: 123

I ran into some difficulties while making the blog. I had to find a theme which did not show the post date because I was posting all of these posts on the same day, which did not make sense for the story. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be, especially because I needed the blog to look like a teenage girl’s blog. Here are some other blog themes I tried out:

1) https://valdemartheme.tumblr.com/

2) https://yeolithm-34.tumblr.com/

3) http://shinrikizuki.tumblr.com/th/14a

4) http://iceteo.tumblr.com/sehun

I tried to have a mix of word posts, poetry and picture posts to simulate a tumblr blog, as well. I also tried to have a relatively large number of posts – 28, to be exact – to make the blog seem believable, as if she had been writing in it for a long time.

Reflection:

Acting as Denise was actually pretty hard for me because I could not stop laughing. While I had acted for theater plays previously, I found it super awkward being filmed, especially for the “intimate scenes”. Ying Hui made it a lot easier on me though, because we both found kindred spirits in each other’s awkwardness.

I also learnt a lot about character development, as I came to develop the characters more after the feedback on the proposal. The character profile really helped with that, especially with research into Character Archetypes.

In hindsight, we could’ve paid more attention to details – one common feedback was that it was confusing why my name was Denise when I’m so obviously Indian. Honestly, we had initially named our characters D and SO based off what we learnt in 3D class about Dominant (D), Subdominant (SD) and Subordinate (SO), and Denise was D because she’s the more dominant one and Sarah was SO because she’s the “subordinate”.

Azizah’s post on setting up and props: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/nura0069/interactive-storytelling-l1-201/

Ying Hui’s posts:

 

 

 

 

[4D] Assignment 2: Sequencing Images Part 2

Inspiration – Editing of Photographs

Pan’s Labyrinth, for the high contrast

 

 

 

Alice in Wonderland, for the high contrast

 

 

 

I increased the contrast by a lot, in part so that I could add a spotlight with masking as well.

 

 

 

 

Alice in Wonderland, again for the blue & green tones

 

 

 

The tones here are more of a purple, but I felt that that was more suited for evening time.

Lord of the Rings 3

I really like the greenish tones here. Even though the picture is warm overall, the murky green tones lend it a feel of uneasiness that I aimed to convey with the editing for the frame below.

Thought process

I layered a lot of the sounds from Ms Ruyi’s archive of sounds over one another, and made the scissors sound and book dropping sound myself.

a) Other ambient noises I considered for the first scene on stage:

Crowd noise 1

Crowd noise 2

b) Heavy breathing vs build up to crescendo

I thought about having the sound of heavy breathing for the above frame, that I recorded myself.

c) Fairy wand sound?

I also thought about having a fairy wand sound for the frame that Qis opens, the book, but decided against it because I thought it was too cliche.

d) Crying sound vs thunderstorm music

I thought about having an actual crying sound for the scene where Qis is crying, but again, I thought it was too cliche. I felt that having thunderstorm music would be more cinematic and appropriate for the fantasy theme, too.

e) Low, buzzing sound

The low, buzzing sound when Karen is sick is also inspired from the sound 3:05, which gives me a very unsettling, nauseous feeling.

 

Rejected photos

Felt that low angle is more dramatic, also gives feeling of the book going to fall.

 

 

 

Thought of maybe using this for the frame where she gets startled and hits the bookcase, but it’s too static.

 

 

 

Lower angle to make it more dramatic and static, but decided to use two hands for the bigger action created.

 

 

 

I also thought of using this shot, but I figured that we already established that Qis was reading the book. I thought the more central shot emphasized the importance and large presence the book is going to have later on.

 

 

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsPuXCUDcqY

Reflection

A huge part of this project for me is learning how to use Premiere Pro CC. I was initially just going to use iMovie, but realized I was very limited in terms of what I could do with sound.

Premiere Pro was very initimidating at first because I always saw it as a software that professionals use, and I’ve only ever made 1 video in my life, and that with iMovie. However, with the help of YouTube tutorials, I learnt how to use it! The basics, at least. It was very challenging at first, then I’m really proud of myself that I got over my fear of using Premiere Pro – I’m a lot more confident with video editing now.

[4D] Assignment 2: Sequencing Images Part 1

Ideation

My initial idea was about a really smart friend in primary school who was also super tall and pretty, and everyone would say that she should become a model. I then came up with the story that she did in fact become a famous model, and then became disillusioned with the lifestyle and decided to hit the books again.

Qis’s idea was about a friend of hers who was on a downhill spiral but became reformed in NS, while Hui En’s idea was about her friends from boarding school. We sat down and thought of doing something along the lines of plastic surgery as we liked the idea of beauty being important, spun off my model idea, and eventually decided on a story about how being conventionally unattractive affects our main character, an “ugly” girl. We decided we’d want to do something in the fantasy genre, and decided to involve elements of a spell book and face swapping (later changed to complete erasure of a face), as well as magic potions.

Our story is about a girl (Qistina) who loves acting, and wants to be an actress. However, she’s overshadowed by a conventional beauty (Karen). One day, when she’s crying alone, a magical beetle scuttles across the carpet, triggering Qis to knock over a magical book with spells inside on how to absorb the beauty of another. When our conventional beauty, Karen, falls sick, Qis uses the opportunity to “take” her face and become beautiful, and fulfill her dream of playing the lead role.

This is followed by a narrative where the spell wears off, and Qis becomes ugly again. We took the pictures for this, but I personally decided to omit this part as I felt that the story tied up well with Qis finally getting to live her dream, albeit at the expense of another. I also liked the suspense this created with the question of what happened to the now faceless Karen.  Furthermore, I felt that it suited the entire storyline more when I didn’t add in a frivolous detail about the technicalities of the spell, which felt too Cinderella-ish for me, personally, when I was editing and decided to omit this last bit.

Storyboard: https://docs.google.com/document/d/103CYNrfswoT7oI9VMAh6ZuhILPAk2S1_-TE_VqGWPNk/edit

We based the idea of the face swapping off Kasane, a manga with a similar theme of beauty, where a magical lipstick would enable the main character to take on the face of the person she kisses. We liked this idea of face-swapping, but later modified it to face-erasure as we didn’t have enough people such that faces could be swapped without Karen reappearing later as an audience member and it being potentially confusing.

Behind the scenes

 

Challenges faced

1. Location

We couldn’t find a good place to shoot the theater scene – I tried emailing my junior college and secondary school asking if they’d let me use the school stage for the scene but they denied my request due to safety reasons. Hence, we settled on a outdoor stage instead – one beneath my HDB block, more specifically.

2. Costuming, clothes

Realized the bright pink of Hui En’s shirt wasn’t very stagehand-like, so we ran back up and she borrowed my school shirt to wear.

 

[4D] Week 2 notes + Class Exercise

4D Visual Characters

  • Sound: Music, sound effects
  • Story: Plot, character dialogue
  • Visuals: Line, shape, tone, color, proportion, focus

Film clips watched

  • Jaws – Sound: builds tension, mood
  • Gravity – Sound layering creates chaos, can replace actual sound of objects (we can’t hear metal debris)
  • Pan’s labyrinth – Sound: creates sense of foreboding as well as escalation
  • Schindler’s list – Question asked in class: why did it go from color to B&W?

Visual Elements

  • Perspective
  • Depth

  • Tone: creates impact, draws attention e.g. Manhattan // can be controlled by props e.g. The Godfather (deep tonal value) // e.g. Equals, Moonlight; can’t use tone in Equals for Moonlight // e.g. chiaroscuro vs flat lighting e.g. The Maltese Falcon, Regression // lighting reveals emotions e.g. Ilo Ilo
  • Spatiality: Depth – foreground, middle ground, background // To reverse depth cues, put everything in the same plane // Warm colors flatten, cool colors retreat // Tonal separation, color separation, textual diffusion, size difference

Class Exercise Week 2

One-point perspective Two-point perspective Three-point perspective

What are the different effects moving from 1 to 3 point perspective?

  • 1 point perspective is direct, straightforward; high level of attention to point of focus e.g. Yarui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru. It also heightens the effect of the unknown.
  • From  two-point perspective to three-point perspective, the image gets deeper. Two-point perspective focuses the attention to the subject in the front or back, while three-point perspective creates dramatic effect and could be suitable for a large exterior scene.
  • More than 3 point: audience gets disoriented e.g. Within You in Labyrinth (1986)

 

[4D] Week 1 Notes + Class Exercise

Class exercise: To put an object that represents you into an envelope

I chose a polaroid photo of my friends and me, because:

  • I’m always taking photos
  • I’m very sentimental (keep a lot of things, like receipts)
  • My friends are very important to me
  • I like hard copies (like letters over texts, polaroids over digital photos)

Reflection
Although most of my classmates managed to guess which object was another person’s purely by chance or by elimination, some managed to guess as some objects were very characteristic of their owners/had the “attitude” of their owners.

1) Looking at an image

  • Visual Literacy – knowing how to make your images meaningful

Red background: Communicate danger/get our attention

 

Sally Mann: Photographer

 

  • Style is very distinctive
  • Subject: Family in suburban landscape
  • Medium: Large-format photography
  • Process: Platinum printing process

 

2) On making images

  • What makes an image successful?
  • Components of an image: Subject // Story // Visuals // Sound // Medium (e.g. film, interactive media)
  • We should make our images stand out on its own; semiotics w/o relying on captions and titles
Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1893-1910)  Seth Boyden’s Hoof It (2014)  Yoko Ono’s Voice Piece for Soprano at MoMA (1961)  Screaming Girls – Jo-Anne Balcaen (2005)
– During war: anxiety
– Scream: not a literal scream, but a scream of existential angst at a time of war
– Very explicit scream of fear in comparison to Munch’s – Performance piece
– Scream is very differently presented
– Protest: for women & women artists as a whole
– How pop culture can cause hysteria of teenage girls
– Lack of sound: focus on something else, not that she neglected the sound

Class discussion

My research: Bill Viola – Silent mountain (2001)

  • Video artist
  • Based of the 15th century painting The Anunciation (Virgin turning away from Archangel)
  • At first they look provoked & anxious, then feelings become more obvious
  • Like watching a painting move

 

My groupmates mentioned artists like Bring Me The Horizon and Francis Bacon.

3) Study of Semiotics

Rene Magritte’s The Treachery of Images // This is not a pipe, but it is an image of a pipe

 

Icon Index Symbol

Why is it important for us to learn semiotics?

Cultural context:

In Roman times, if audience voted this, it means gladiator should die  In Russia, this sign means to offer a drink  Used for the press = middle finger = disaster!

Semiotics: Cultural Codes

  • Rich: How? Posture, Chihuahua
  • Blonde: Dumb? She’s very smart actually, the movie plays on stereotypes
  • Know your audience

 

 

Visual Semiotics in Films

Grease (1978) Eyes Wide Shut (1999) American Beauty (2002)
We understand images through stereotypes (which we get from their appearance and costumes) Couple is detached; something is wrong with their relationship (Husband asks for babysitter’s name, Roz, even though the wife mentioned it already) Wife is the alpha (Sign: Family portrait) // teenage girl is detached from her parents (angry teenager vs typical only child who is well-loved and cheerful) // Façade of warm intimate family (rose in the middle of table signals absence of love in the family)

 

Ferninand de Sassure – Signifier and The Signified

  • Johnie Walker Black Label Scotch: The road to success is paved with rocks (ice). Let us smooth them for you (with scotch).
  • Twice the power, won’t let you down –  Innuendo. We know what is is, but it is implicit.
  • Keira Knightly and Chanel perfume ad: Signifier: linking notion // Qualities: beauty, elegance
  • Betty Crocker: Housewife to corporate looking modern woman // Age: aligned with target audience // Style: becomes more trendy // Race: White to more mixed, brown

 

 

[4D] Process & Final: Task 2 – My World

I set out to shoot people and things candidly. I didn’t want to interact with the people there, but rather to capture the motion and activity that was going on incognito, like a fly on the wall.

I knew I wanted to shoot photos organically and without setting props up. I had a clear concept in mind, compared to a plan on what to set up in order to finalize on a narrative (like I did in Task 1). I wanted to take authentic, true-to-life photographs, to show the viewer how vibrant Little India could be through my eyes.

I realized later on that I probably should have had some sort of game plan before going in to shoot for the whole afternoon, because I ended up with around 500 photos. Below are some of the photos I narrowed down in on and edited before picking the final five.

Close ups:

Long shots

Mid range shots

Not involving people

Including people

Criteria for final selection

  • Not to look too messy and overwhelming – I want to create a sense of vibrancy, not chaos like the vibes some of these photos are giving me
  • A central focus? So that again, the viewer doesn’t feel overwhelmed
  • Variety of angles and framing techniques – wanted to mirror the diversity of objects and things you can find in Little India
  • Variety of activities and objects that can be found – food, jewelry, flowers

Final photos decided upon

Description

Although I’m Singaporean, my extended family lives in India. I visit India every year for 1 to 2 weeks. I love these two weeks because I’m constantly surrounded by flowers, fruits, and color – street carts are plentiful in India.

Every time I visit Little India, I’m reminded of those two weeks in June when I usually visit, with all the hustle and bustle that goes on. The colors, the sights, the sounds – all of them are extremely vibrant. The streets hum with energy – of people shopping for vegetables and fruits, of people buying flowers. I hope to express this vibrancy through my photographs.

I post processed the images with Color Balance in Photoshop, adding more reds and yellows. I also used Curves to increase the contrasts of the images to make the colors pop a bit more such as to reflect the vibrancy of Little India.

[4D] Ideation: Task 2 – My World

Again, I made a little table to compare some initial ideas I had about my choice of space.

Location Pros Considerations
Home Convenient Just got renovated fully so not really the home I’m familiar with
Little India Variety of things to shoot
Raffles Institution ? Not really the same without my friends – they were a huge part of why the school is so special to me

I chose Little India in the end. I felt that my home and Raffles Institution could not be captured without my old furniture and friends, respectively. Also, I hadn’t visited Little India for almost a month, so I was pretty eager to go back to shoot and refamiliarize myself with the area.