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The work by Aaron Koblin that I chose for my essay is Unnumbered Sparks.

[http://www.unnumberedsparks.com/]

As quoted from Aaron Koblin’s website, Unnumbered Sparks is a “monumental interactive sculpture in the sky”. For this installation, he worked together with Janet Echelman, an American sculptor and fiber artist. It was displayed between buildings in downtown Vancouver, Canada in March 2014 for TED’s 30th anniversary.

The interactivity of this installation comes from the fact that it could be “choreographed” in real-life time by anyone through their mobile devices.

How does this installation work? Basically, the artists created a massive net sculpture and spread them from buildings to buildings across the sky. Visuals shaped from beams of light would then be projected onto the nets using five bright projectors. The beams of light were controlled by the audience. They could sign into the WiFi in their mobile phones or tablets, which would prompt them to a website that would allow them to choreograph the beams of light in real time (and additionally, vary the colors). Your mobile devices became sort of a “remote control” for the visuals. Also, there is spatial audio. Ambience sound that set up the atmosphere would be played through the audience’s mobile devices.

Not only is that really engaging and interesting, I think it’s very much reflective of the new media. It has a high entropy – the possibilities of the visuals created are endless, since humans’ behaviors are unpredictable. In addition, the net itself is constantly changing due to the string tension and the weather condition such as the wind, allowing the visuals to be projected to different dimensions. Different number of audience would produce different results as well – there are so many aspects that contribute to the variability.

The machines (in this sense, the light beam projectors) give immediate feedback to the inputs, which are the movements or the spots pointed by the audience through the mobile site. Numerous code were created for this, and also numerous calculations. Numbers were important to calculate the dimensions of the net and the tensions required when hanging the net, as the creators needed to make it such that people are able to see the visuals at any angle, at any time. The codes have to be created in a more modular way, such as that the activity of one projector does not affect another, and that one command does not interfere with another. The organization of orders and data are crucial.

There is a sense of “retaining memory” too in this installation as the light projected will need to remain for some time before disappearing. However, the memory itself does not affect future projections – in a sense, there is no actual feedback coming from the machine, but maybe more from the participants. There is a high human-machine interaction in this installation.

I think the purpose of this installation is to show people more about “collaboration”. More beautiful visuals can only be produced when there are multiple light beams with multiple colors; so to speak, the concept is that when people work together, the world can be richer and more beautiful. Also, in this installation, the audience becomes the artist as well. They are not merely watching something changing, but also contributing to that change.

However, I do think this installation is not “automated” as without people’s participation, there will be no visuals or audio. The net will just be a net. While it may be the message they’re trying to get across, I do think that without proper publication, people will not know what to do. The interaction part is not something that is intuitive, but rather prearranged. Another weakness is that people without mobile devices will not be able to contribute, which may adverse their idea of collaboration entirely.

 

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Here are the five artists/designers that I would like to feature in the Singapore Design Week.

Joo Choon Lin

Joo Choon Lin is a Singapore-based artist with a philosophical interest in the nature of reality. She has interest in technological developments, and constantly experiments with a range of materials and media to examine the relationship between visual and tactile experiences. She graduated from Glasgow School of Art, and she has exhibited her works both locally and internationally; some of them being “Your Eyes Are Stupid” at 2013 Singapore Biennale and “Roving Eye” at Sorlandets Kunstmuseum, Norway (2011).

http://www.joochoonlin.com/

 

Your Eyes Are Stupid by Joo Choon Lin

Fyerool Darma

Fyerool Darma was born in 1987 in Singapore. He works in the traditions of painting and embraces its unorthodox and plausible vocabularies. History and myth form the undercurrents of his work and are starting points that echo his encounters in the constellation of words, images, symbols and complexities that he embraces to celebrate. He graduated from LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore in 2012, and has presented a solo exhibition, Moyang (2015) and recently Monsoon Song (2017).

https://www.fyerooldarma.com/

 

“At dusk we return to perch together” from Fyerool Darma’s Moyang exhibition

Jonathan Lim (@whereartjon)

Jonathan Lim is a Singaporean artist whose works depict Singapore stories, mainly through paintings and illustrations. His paintings are tinged with sentimentality and a sense of urban loneliness, showing us the moments of Singapore that we are familiar with, yet often overlook. He mostly showcases his works through his Instagram account, @whereartjon. He also works in graphic novel form, and has collaborated with local musician Inch Chua. Music and film are heavy influences in his works.

https://www.instagram.com/whereartjon/?hl=en

 

Natasha Law

Natasha Law is a London-based painter and graphic designer, who is best known for her graceful silhouettes which lie on the boundaries between high art and high fashion. Her paintings and drawings alike capture the allure of the subject through color, tone, and contrast. Her figures are suspended in a moment whether posed and purposeful or casual and spontaneous. After graduating from Camberwell College of Art, she embarked on a career that encompassed graphic illustration, photography and styling. She has since worked with many reputable clients, some of them being Vogue, Tiffany & Co, and Mulberry.

https://elevenfineart.com/pages/natasha-law

Yellow Socks on Pink by Natasha Law

Noma Bar

Noma Bar was born in 1973 in Israel. As a graphic designer, illustrator and artist, his work has appeared in many media publications, including BBC and The Economist. He has illustrated over one hundred magazine covers, published over 550 illustrations and released three books of his work. He has won many industry awards; one of them being a Yellow Pencil award at the D&AD Professional Awards. His London Design Festival exhibition “Cut It Out” was also selected as one of the highlights of the festival.

https://www.dutchuncle.co.uk/noma-bar/

From Noma Bar’s Cut It Out project

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The artist that I chose for my hyperessay is Aaron Koblin.

Aaron Koblin is best known for his innovative use of data visualization and work in crowdsourcing, virtual reality, and interactive film. In his TED talk (see below), he mentioned that he believes “data can actually make us more human”, as it can show us how we have been living our lives and tell our story. He is highly interested in collaborative projects, where people can come together to create something, since more people will mean more data and more data will result in a greater story produced.

I think his works are worth discussing because a lot of his works are highly interactive and immersive. Most of his works that I have explored require direct audience participation in order to be able to work (for example, the Johnny Cash Project and This Exquisite Forest), making it highly interactive. There’s also one project that I think is highly immersive, called The Wilderness Downtown, where the experience is tailored specially for each individual (it’s pretty interesting, I actually tried it out). There’s also a very high variability in his work because of the unpredictability of what the participants will do.

In addition, I like that he’s making use on the rise of technology (more specifically, the internet and social media) to create interactive media. Some of his works require contributions from the audience through websites or mobile apps, for example, and I think that encourages people to participate even more.

 

 

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Based on Lev Manovich, there are five principles of New Media: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding. Now I will talk about how they can be applied to my group’s project, the Door.

 

Numerical Representation

Basically, a principle of new media that distinguish it from old media is that new media is programmable. New media objects are essentially composed from digital code, and hence can be manipulated via algorithms. In my group’s project, the numerical representation comes from the codes that are embedded into photoresistors. We set a certain numerical value based on the level of brightness that is required to “trigger” the photoresistors, which will result in recordings being played.

 

Modularity

Modularity reflects the presence of separate elements or parts, which can be modified or used independently, that create a whole new media object. In my group’s project, I think it can be seen from the separate recordings that we are going to play; we can edit the contents of the recordings without affecting the main code, for example. Moreover, in the code that we made, there are also separate elements—for example, we can edit the timing delays or the brightness trigger for one photoresistor without affecting the other photoresistors.

 

Automation

Automation involves the computer programme to produce a response using template or algorithms by itself, without direct human interference. An example is web-based search engine. For my group’s project, I think there’s not much automated response as an audience has to come and trigger the photoresistors; in a sense, interaction from audience is constantly required for something to happen.

 

Variability

Another principle that differentiates new from old media is variability, which means something that is not fixed or possibilities that can be explored. In a sense, I think my group’s project doesn’t possess a great variability; the final outcome is fixed, no matter how many times an audience interacts with it, or who interacts with it. We do give the audience the flexibility of interpreting the story itself before revealing the actual story, but the storyline is more or less fixed which doesn’t allow broad interpretations; it’s more of a selection rather than variability, since the possibilities are finite.

 

Transcoding

Technically, transcoding refers to the translation of an object from one format to another, or from one platform to another. I think it could be related to my project in a sense that the movement of the audience will be “translated” into the recordings that will be played due to the trigger from the audience, but I’m not really sure because it’s not exactly a translation like a change from text to image.

 

In conclusion, I do think my group’s project possesses some of the principles of new media, but some of them are not very strongly reflected as there are limitations to how much they can be applied to our project.

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Naoto Fukasawa designed aluminum stools to be displayed at 2005’s Milan Furniture Fair—however, instead of being displayed on plinths like other new products, the Japanese designer’s stools were “plonked” on the floor, where people were allowed to sit on them. Fukasawa was worried that no one would notice the stools. However, a British designer named Jasper Morrison praised them, and their mutual friend gave a term to describe the stool: “super normal”.

That was the beginning of Super Normal movement.

Both Fukasawa and Morrison defined the Super Normal design as something that is “used on a daily basis to the point that they become invisible” (Fukasawa, 2006), something which use is “instinctive or even subconscious… and we take them completely for granted” (Morrison, 2015). In addition, they also mentioned that Super Normal objects are valued by how you feel about them. Their value did not come from an extremely intricate or well-thought design, but rather from the memories and sense of familiarity that develop over time. Hence, it could be said that naturally, some objects will have more spirit than others, as it highly depends on how and how long people have been using them or interacting with them.

Although functionality is a significant factor, feeling and meaning are more important in Super Normal objects—but the feeling does not come from tiresome expressions. Morrison felt that the design world “has drifted away from normality” and that designers have forgotten the basics of design. They wanted people to realize that simple, basic designs are design too, and that the idea of something new is not always better than something good that has been continued over time.

The characteristics special to this movement are its simplicity, familiarity, and anonymity. Anonymity not only in the sense that the creator is unknown, but also the nuance that the creator was not trying to “design” or “express himself”—similar to yugen (a Japanese design philosophy, where the beauty is subtle) and mingei (another Japanese design, which roughly means “folk art”, where the creators are average people as opposed to known designers, hence making the creators anonymous). Mingei especially resembles Super Normal due to the fact that mingei objects are very simple and normal, as they are made by average people, yet they are still used for centuries—which is the same as the concept of Super Normal, that the value of the object comes from the experience and normality. Super Normal objects are also context-sensitive, as something that is familiar in a setting does not necessarily mean it is familiar in other settings.

The movements that are similar to and/or influence Super Normal movement are Minimalism (1960s – 1970s) and Neo-Conceptualism (1970s – 1980s).

It is especially easy to mistake Super Normal and Minimalism due to the similar concept of simplicity. However, Minimalism is a design movement where the concept is reducing everything to the simplest form, but still with the visual aesthetic in mind. The focus of Minimalism is creating something that is simple, yet still pleasing to the eye. On the contrary, Super Normal does not focus on becoming simple. The focus of Super Normal lies in the concept of familiarity, where an object is “super normal” because we have grown so accustomed to it, that we often do not realize that it is also an object that also possesses design values.

Meanwhile, between Super Normal and Neo-Conceptualism, the similarity lies in the idea that both of them focus on the concept or the meaning behind the creations. However, Super Normal objects still place functionality of high importance, because the value of those objects can be found through constant use and experience over time. Meanwhile, Neo-Conceptualism does not care about functions—it’s all about the concepts the designers want to convey, which are usually something unconventional and unique, as opposed to Super Normal objects which are usually something ordinary and less obvious.

We can see also that Super Normal bears similarity to Droog concept (1980s – now). Just like Super Normal, Droog pointed out the idea of over-production and consumption in the society by emphasizing the value of objects in the memory and associations attached to them—which also shows how powerful inanimate objects can be in evoking emotions and thoughts, transcending the time. Both movements boil down to Dadaism, which basically defies logic, reason, and aestheticism of the capitalistic society. It also shows that objects can have spirit that evokes feelings and gives meaning—which contrasts the Bauhaus movement (1920s – 1930s), where objects are more valued through their industrial-like practicality—almost scientific even.

An example of a Super Normal object, taken from the Super Normal exhibition by Fukasawa and Morrison: a uni-tray.

 

Uni-tray (Riki Watanabe & Sato Shoji, 1976)

 

At one glance, one can easily tell that it is a tray—its shape and simple design are familiar to you. It gives off the super normal radiance—something that you see in your house, or other people’s, every day. However, do you know what tray it is? Is it an accessories tray, or a pen tray, or a coin tray? It is strange that you feel familiar seeing the object while it is your first time seeing it, and you are even unable to accurately pinpoint its use. However, just like “love at first sight”, you can immediately tell that “it is the one” without actually having to experience interacting with it before. The familiarity does not come from sight, but from phenomena. Moreover, the idea that it is a “universal” tray (because you don’t know what specific type of tray it is) allows people to “misuse” it intentionally as the tray is familiar to different uses, depending on who is using it.

In hindsight, I would like to say that super normal is not necessarily a design movement—it’s more of a concept, an idea that Fukasawa and Morrison are trying to convey to public—that we often overlook things around us and take them for granted. In this globalized world, we start to forget where the actual value of things lies—is it in its price, its function, its creator, or simply in how it makes us feel?

You may not think much about it, but one day you might come back into your house and realize that your favorite mug is not there—and although it’s just a cheap Daiso mug, you would feel a sense of loss that you yourself could not explain why.

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So we went to the National Design Centre. I’ve seen the exhibition a few times, but I’ve never actually paid attention closely to them.

Some types of design practices I saw:

Product design

 

Graphic design

 

Fashion design

 

Architecture

 

Over the years, I could see that in the beginning (starting from the 1965-1975), Singapore was still very focused on building the country. Design was made with a clear purpose to serve the needs of the people, instead of actually building the identity of the nation. However as time passed, design in Singapore began to take shape. A lot of design was made to promote Singapore’s national identity, especially when Singapore started to be noticed globally. As new technologies were introduced, Singapore slowly got modernized, but even until now the design in Singapore never really left the roots. Now the design in Singapore, I feel, is modernized, yet still really showing the national identity. Design is also not just “art”; it’s always used to improve other sectors such as economy and education.

I think even in the future, the goal for design in Singapore is to continue to develop fresh ideas that not only are aesthetically pleasing, but also contribute to Singapore’s growth and promote national identity at the same time. While that is not easy, I feel that Singapore designers are moving in the right direction. I can see some designs nowadays that combine some of the ideas – like, combining modernization and national identity.

Design continues to be of importance, and I feel like people’s awareness of that will only grow from now. Some things that used to just be functional, now can possess aesthetic values – a simple example is HDB buildings which walls are painted in pleasing colors or certain colors to create rainbow / gradient. And as more people see the significance of design, more people will be encouraged to think critically about it, and design in Singapore will hopefully grow to be better.

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Here are the two posters that I find interesting.

 

Poster for Frankfurt exhibition by Kazumasa Nagai (from http://theanimalarium.blogspot.com/2011/01/life-is-change.html)

 

I found this on Pinterest and can’t find who made it. (from https://www.designspiration.net/save/1446483313272/)

 

I will be talking about the second poster, the yellow one.

This poster is promoting a festival of industrial design in Sydney, and the slogan is “Ignored Everyday”. At first I’m really interested because of the minimalist appearance, with only yellow and black colors. My eyes were immediately drawn to the title due to the black highlights that contrasted the yellow background. After that, I shifted to the yellow paperclip, which didn’t blend with the background due to the outline and the shadow. It created a visual interest that makes people question, “Why a paperclip?” And that prompts the audience to read the information provided.

The information is written using sans serif fonts, which makes the whole look consistent and simple. All of them used black color, which contrasted the bright yellow background very well. I feel that the font size of the festival information could be a little bit bigger because the font is very narrow and thin, which compromises the readibility – but overall, I think it’s eye-catching, simple, and effective.

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The theme for this project is hope. I started out by searching for keywords that symbolize hope; stars, candle, fire, dove, flower, butterfly, sun, rainbow, fish…

In the end, there are a lot of keywords that can be used to describe hope. Hope is different for everyone, after all.

I started by looking for some themes. I came up with two major ideas.

 

Yin and Yang

I want to represent that life is always balanced; in goodness, there is always something bad – but conversely, in badness, there is always something good as well.

My plan is to make koi fish and arrange them differently; one school of fish will be “swimming” upwards, but one fish in that school of fish would be going against the flow (going downwards). Another school of fish will be doing the reverse, “swimming” downwards with one fish going upwards. Their colors can work inversely, or maybe complementary colors. But with that idea, I actually hadn’t really though about the positive-negative form (which is the whole idea of the project), so I thought I should scrap the idea off.

(Unfortunately, I lost my sketch for this one.)

 

Early Spring

This idea came from when I was looking at snowflakes cut-out tutorials from Pinterest.

I was thinking that the shapes of snowflakes are really interesting and unique, since they are all different from one another. At first I was thinking of making the snowflakes flower-shaped, but then after the first presentation I realized that I could make use of the negative space instead of just leaving them meaningless.

In the end I chose to work with the “early spring” idea. At first I wasn’t sure if I should go with the idea since my others smaller ideas, which I haven’t really thought through, were said to have some potentials as well. Like the birds and propeller idea, or the tortoise idea, which could be developed following the story of the hare and the tortoise.

I was debating between the tortoise and the snowflake in the end, but I couldn’t really think of an original, exciting story for the hare and the tortoise, as well as the positive-negative space.

I didn’t think that it would be so difficult to play and make use of a form. Whenever someone makes use of positive-negative space – for example, when I see posters or advertisements that use those, I would notice them, but never think much about it. In the end, when I tried making it myself, I spent myself stressing about it. How do I make a form that is subtle, but noticeable, yet interesting and can convey my idea as well?

I finally chose the snowflake idea – “early spring”, simply because its form is the one that I can picture the clearest (and also because it’s the one I like the most). See my final post for the end result of my idea!

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Sometimes, I feel like people living in Singapore lead a very structured, scheduled life. Compared to the people of Indonesia (I was born and raised in Indonesia), everything in Singapore feels very organized, to the point of rigidity. When I first came to Singapore, I was surprised by the stark difference between Singapore and Indonesia.

At first, I thought Singapore would be a “follow-the-rules” country, which hinders creativity. However as I spent more time in Singapore, I realize while there may be a lot of rules, as long as you can justify yourself, creativity is not being frowned upon.

I represent that discovery of mine with this Bauhaus piece; the blue circles are all in the box, seemingly following a set pattern; but actually inside every single blue circle there is a little yellow triangle that can go out of the box and explore more possibilities (represented by different shapes and sizes of the triangles).

 

Bauhaus piece

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I’ve never gone to Night Light Festivals previously, so this is a new experience for me. It was fun – my friend and I walked from place to place, exploring the installations. They are very spread out, which may be good since people have more places to explore, but it makes it difficult for people who want to go through everything in one go. I visited several of the installations, and I think they look magnificent.

 

Hyperbands by KopI/O

Pulse by Galina Mihaleva, Hedren Sum, Pat Pataranutaporn, Kathrin Albers, Audrey Ng

Graffiti Alive by Arup

Ember Rain by Starlight Alchemy

That being said, I have chosen two installations for me to talk about.

Orbit

By LiteWerkz X 3M

This is the first installation that I went to. From afar, I could see a group of spheres – some of them lighting up, some of them don’t.

As I walked closer, I could see the see-through spheres, with quirky geometric shapes inside. The spheres were lined with lights so that we could see the insides of the spheres even in the darkness. Circular shapes were adorning the surface of the spheres. In the middle of the spheres, there is one sphere that is different from the others – it has circular objects that light up instead of geometric shapes inside the see-through sphere. A nearby sign informed us to try taking picture of the spheres with a flash.

At first, I took pictures without flash first.

After that, I tried taking picture with flash. The picture was so different from what I expected:

Upon closer inspection, I found out that the circular-shaped stickers were actually made out of 3M retroreflective materials. When given light (i.e. the camera flash), the stickers reflected light and gave the effect as if they were sources of lights (!). That’s the interactive part of the installation. Moreover, I think there’s motion sensors inside the spheres that triggered the lights inside the sphere, so the lights will only light up when you spin the sphere. (I wanted to post a video, but it’s so hard to post a video in OSS, i.e. I can’t.)

It reminds me of a galaxy (and apparently that was the intention of the installation, based on the description put in the National Heritage Board website), not in the appearance only, but also because it gave me a sense of wonder when I tried to find out how the thing works.

I think the installation is interesting for that reason, and also that the design of the geometric shapes are all unique; there’s also a center piece which is a bigger sphere that attracts attention although it actually works the same way as the others. However the fact that everything works in the same way may dull people’s interest quickly, and people may not take their time to see the spheres one by one; they may just check one or two and leave (that’s what I did). In addition, it might not look very good when no one is interacting with it.

 

The Leap of Faith

By Teng Kai Wei

Even from a distance, I could see the lights from the installation. At once, it captured my attention. My first thought is that it looks beautiful, and it reminded me a bit of hopscotch. From the explanation board, I found out that the intention of the installation is to encourage people to take a “leap of faith”, to trust in yourself while going on a journey to reach your destination.

The anatomy looks simple; it seems that the plates are equipped with pressure sensors, so when someone steps on it, the color will change. Moreover, the original color of the plates will change constantly; hence if you step on it after some time, the color change will be different. I found that interesting, and may compel people to re-do the experience. In addition, the color change is unique as well; when you step on it, the color effect will resemble a ripple.

There’s also some kind of sculpture in the middle with geometric-shaped lights. I am not sure what the intention is, but it probably acts as a center, which could also be used to represent the “destination”.

Anyway, it’s really interesting to see different people interacting with it; I could see how different people can be. Little kids jumped from plate to plate excitedly, exploring every single plate although the resulting light would be the same; adults stepped on each plate carefully, looking around, deciding where to step next. Some people travelled back and forth; some people just walked across nonchalantly, even stepping down on the ground when they needed to make a jump across the plates.

I enjoyed playing around with that installation. I do think it would be better placed over water to actually force people to step on the plates, but I realize that may be dangerous and more difficult to set up. The lights were also constantly changing, which made the installation looked beautiful without anyone interacting with it, and noticeable even from a distance.

 

All in all, I found the installations really intriguing. I could see how even with instructions, people interact differently with the installations. I could also see how important it is to compel people to interact with the installations, and that depending on how they could interact, people could easily get bored by the installations or may not even be interested to interact at all. I realize I’m not familiar with the anatomy of the installations, which left me guessing a lot of times. However, I really enjoyed looking at those; definitely would go there again.