video for mock-up
poster for mid-terms
blender tutorial using grease pencil
Tag: interactive
interactive spaces: intrusive spaces // digital project [idea, process and final]
Idea
I think I have a lot of explaining to do, considering how different my project has become since the mid-term analogue version of it.
After many consults with the two professors, I changed my idea completely. I was told to look back at my concept: the idea of having a personal space intruded by someone else, some other thing. The being becoming uncomfortable because of this intrusion. Then I was told to go back and think about it.
I thought a lot about it. I came up with several observations, over the one week I was told to do so. Here were some of my observations, and ideations.
times when my/someone’s personal, private space has been invaded/compromised
- mother complained about having a gym-mate that could not stop asking about invasive questions
- “What’s your weight? What’s your husband doing?”
- having negative thought processes most times of the day
- voices/thoughts that prevent productivity/sleep
- sleep paralysis
- dark shadows, being unable to move but they get closer
- sitting on the bus and having someone jab their shoulder/butt into your space
- your friend who wants to look at your phone/laptop and asks what you’re doing
potential ideas:
- some voice that keeps asking very personal questions. maybe starts to question existence??
- was inspired by the one project with the two heads that talk to each other
- alternatively, a voice that talks about potential harm coming to participant’s way → still relatively intrusive and something I experience to a milder degree (e.g. people are out to hurt you, kill you, computers have minds of their own etc.)
- Initial idea of how it can be implemented:
- Have to cover ears so the voice “speaks to you clearly”
- OR have them always heard, kind of like angel and devil in most stereotypes
- Or have a “being” that asks about your day in the most intrusive ways
- Kind of like a pet but not really
- creating a dark space similar to a tent maybe, and projecting human-like shadows (to mimic sleep paralysis)
- participant “sleeps” in tent, and there are projections of things moving towards you during every flash of light??
- if they move it moves faster?? idk
- the annoying kid that keeps getting into your space:
- constantly poking shoulder, voice saying “hey, hey, hey”
As you can see, I was very lost. I had a lot to think about, and there was so many things I could have done. But I was very lost. I did not know what to do at all. But one thing that I felt most deeply for was having intrusive thoughts. I mean, I think about it all the time, because they are my thoughts. I cannot get rid of them. Intrusive thoughts ruin people and they’re the most uncomfortable thing to have on your very being, unless there’s some third-party forces/the supernatural we’re dealing with here. I thought it was a pretty good start.
So I decided to work on that. And at first I was like, oh darn, do I have to try to squeeze in months of learning processing and arduino into like three weeks? But I realise I could do things as long as they are digital. And Prof Kristy reminded me about Janet Cardiff’s audio walks.
So I wanted to do a project where I would create a video tour within ADM, with a voiceover that asked questions that were more and more uncomfortable.
Process
My to-do list:
- Schedule each week’s progress
- Route
- Actors
- Narration
- Storyboards
Things I considered:
Route: Create a route around ADM that the person will have to walk to. Do they walk into rooms? Do they walk up and down stairs?
consider that a lot of places might not be accessible to people (if they have to tap card), wait for things to happen etc. → so lifts and rooms are a bit harder
start → sunken plaza (near staircase to canteen 2) → basement → walk down the corridor → vending machines → walk up the stairs to the lounge → lounge → walk to the lobby and have a moment there → walk upstairs via stairs → stay at the bridge to the other classrooms → go down the corridor to the handicap toilet → have a seat → leave → back past the bridge to the 3rd level, and then to the fourth
[after 29/10 check] too long, it took 11minutes just to reach 3rd floor, and even then I was already rushing. Might be too long an experience/too rushed
Decided to stay within basement and level 1!!
START → sunken plaza (Maybe stay longer) → indoor basement, corridor → vending machines → walk up Stairs→ lounge → down stairs→ left past the doors to sunken plaza → END
Actors: Think about how actors will interact with the video? Are they going to be present during the actual day of interaction when participants move around?
Decided to not use actors because everyone is busy. ):
Narration: what kind of poetic narrative and thoughts should go into this? How much intrusion is there? theme: your inner voice who speaks to you, narrates a situation
Decided to use own voice.
NARRATIVE
thing to take note: make sure there are questions that get increasingly more uncomfortable in nature
Questions I can ask:
- Are you from this school? How old are you?
- Why are you here?
- Why did you decide to come here? (Before name question cuz its weird right)
- What’s your name? Where’s your name from?
- Let’s be closer friends. Do you have many friends?
- Did you choose to have friends?
- How are you feeling today?
- Are you an indoors or outdoors person?
- What are you? Are you single?
- What do you like about yourself/what do you not like about yourself?
- Isn’t there something better you could be doing?
- What’s the worst thing you have ever thought of doing to someone?
- Ever thought of how babies are so fragile, and that if you wanted to, you could break them?
- Have you ever wanted to leave your loved ones?
- If the world ended what would your last words be?
- Would you rather live your life as if there was no god and find out that there is, or live as if there is a god and it turns out there isn’t?
- When you think of yourself, do you imagine that you are your body, or that you’re in your body?
- In the light of eternity, how significant is this present moment?
- If life is so hard, what are you comparing it to?
- Are you happy?
- Would your life have been different if ___
FINAL SCRIPT
Hello.
-turn on screen-
You’re new to me.
We seem to exist in the same universe, but unlike you, I am a mere whisper.
Do you see what I see? Think of me as your thoughts. I am you and we share the same view. Look up like how I do.
A beautiful place, isn’t it. I sometimes forget that it is a school.
Are you from this school? How old are you?
I’m interested to know more about you. Why don’t we take this time to be closer? While I am connected to you, and you, to me.
Let’s take a walk, shall we? Follow where I go.
How are you feeling today?
Stop.
Look down.
The water is still. There are usually dead insects and birds in here. I have heard of it happening, seen of it happening right in front of my eyes. Have you? Seen the birds crash into the windows, and drop down to their deaths?
Lucky creatures. Captured by the beauty in glass and to experience death so easily after.
To fly in circles, momentarily lost in spiralling doom before they either live or die. Have you ever felt that?
Turn to your right. Let us go indoors.
[sunken plaza → basement indoors]
Are you an indoors or outdoors person?
Turn to your left and walk ahead to the lockers.
Now it looks like a school, doesn’t it? I think the lockers help.
A place of learning. A place to make friends.
Don’t mind the people. I am here.
I hope you are not in a rush to end this conversation. You have me.
Do you have many friends?
Fate has much to show us. I don’t think fate has ever been unkind. It has been giving, and giving, and sometimes we decide we have had enough of fate. We decide to take matters into our own hands.
Like a vending machine we have the choice to pick.
You see the elevators. Turn right and face the machines like I do.
Stop.
[corridor → vending machine]
…..
You get so many choices. Every action you take is a new chance at fate.
Drinks. Snacks. Sandwiches. A big variety.
Do you get to pick favourites? I like to stick to the same snack when I have to choose.
You pick a button, and it gives you what you asked for. The choice is yours.
It’s so easy, isn’t it?
But what if fate doesn’t give?
What if you don’t have the chance to encounter fate?
How pathetic.
Doesn’t that make your life meaningless?
That’s funny to think about, don’t you think?
Do you have a reason to be here?
What are you?
….
Let us walk past the elevator.
To your right. Walk forward.
Turn left.
Big benches. Bigger tables. They’re filled with people. None of them are your friends.
Weird looks. Life is awful. You want to die.
…
Turn left. There are stairs. Go up.
….
Effort to keep up with the times. Just like climbing the stairs.
Each step feels heavier than the other. Effort to maintain some semblance of a social life. Missing a step means risk of losing it all, tumbling down.
…
Ever thought about disappearing for a day?
Ever thought about having a kiss with death?
Or maybe…
Something more intimate?
….
“Kill me”
Such a common phrase here. You hear this phrase way too often, say this phrase way too often. It comes out like vomit, vile and useless, but it makes you feel at least 3 percent better.
Why not try saying it?
Kill me.
Does it take away the weight of climbing?
Well, whatever the result was, we’re at a new place.
A place for lounging. Where people sit and relax with their friends.
A place you would not have seen if you died.
Shuffle over to the left. Stop.
…
[lounge]
What do you not like about yourself? Tell me.
Do you ever feel like you have to change those parts of yourself? Get rid of the raw, unpolished parts so you could shine better?
Have you ever heard this phrase? Maybe like my voice.
You’re not good enough.
You’re not good enough.
You’re not good at all.
Humans are all social creatures. We can’t avoid that. Being human means wanting others to like you.
Do your friends like you?
How did you meet your closest friends?
Why are you here?
Are you my friend now?
Let us move. Go back down the stairs.
[go down the stairs]
Let’s go outside. To your left.
Are you an outdoors or indoors person?
Turn to your left.
It sounds like rain.
It feels like rain.
Is it raining now? (Jarring rain bg)
No matter. We still have to continue our journey, rain or shine.
We’re back outside. How do you feel now?
Are you happy?
…
I hope you’re not.
You must be wondering, is there an end to this cycle. There is, you can take off these headphones. But what if I’m stuck with you?
I don’t think I know you.
You’re new to me.
-black screen-
Hello.
[Loop]
Final Video
Here’s a video of Prof Kristy experiencing the whole thing.
Personal comments:
It was very cringe-worthy recording myself. I also had problems figuring out what kind of tone I wanted to put into my words. I wasn’t an actor by nature so that was already hard on its own, and to put thought to actual words was even harder, but I think it was a good journey to experience as the creator of this piece of work. There was also a lot more that I could put into it, quality-wise. The pacing was probably a little off, and Biju said my draft recordings were actually better in terms of emotional quality. And I felt that my video quality was probably not the best, even though I did take the video several times in an attempt to better time it, and also better audio but hey, we all start somewhere I guess.
It was nice watching the professors walk around with the phone it was a very different experience watching someone try to embody you. I think it was a very experimental piece for me. While I feel like there’s a lot that I could improve on, and that it was generally, very attached to me as a project, compared to what I did for mid-terms, I feel refreshed knowing that I, probably rather literally, stepped out of my comfort zone.
Now all that is left is for it to survive the end of semester showcase. To be honest, it makes me not want to show my face around school anymore, given how much I put myself into my work, but I hope some people won’t find it cringey.
2 ideas // interactive spaces
Toilet Sorter
When given the brief, I was mostly unsure about how I could show any sort of movement and at the same time, provide a sense of interaction between audience and art piece. I spent a lot of time moving around spaces while thinking about this, tracing my own steps and just by being in spaces. One of the spaces that I was actively thinking in most of the time was probably the toilet.
As someone with a terrible stomach, I spend a lot of time sitting in a cubicle, and it could be what is often known as the second home. You have a toilet at home, you have a toilet outside, same thing.
But it is not a thought often shared by everyone, and even I, as a person who frequents toilets, have preferences. I would call myself a toilet connoisseur if there were such a thing. Mostly because I enthuse about toilet paper textures, lighting, space, cleanliness, TP top up frequencies, you name it. I even have favourite cubicles within spaces I frequent and no, I’m not sharing it. One of the most important aspects to a Good Toilet is probably cleanliness, out of the many other factors. It is observed that a dirtier cubicle would not be used. I would say there is even a whole psychology to it that I’m not too fond of going through in detail. But here’s the gist of it:
You find three cubicles: one with a wet floor, one with no TP, and one with tissue not flushed, but the seat is obviously way cleaner than the other two. What do you do? What I’d normally witness is someone grabbing their own TP from any other place to use the one with no TP, followed by someone using the wet floor cubicle and then nobody enters the remaining one, not even to try to see if flushing works. It usually means someone has been there, but probably not many. See? You can tell!
So back to my 1st idea: creating a series of used toilet cubicles for people to choose. Think of it as a statistics thing, a psychological test if you might. It will basically work like a sorter, which is basically a popular online “game” where one decides on their favourite objects/characters (mostly of TV shows and games). For example:
Retrieved from https://fesorter.tumblr.com/. Also I am sorry for anime men.
The participant picks between two different objects in a “battle”, and the system sorts it all out until there is a final winner.
For my idea, I wish to create a screen, preferably big and extremely daunting, with two sides similar to what is seen above (just without a tie or undo choice). These two sides will showcase images of toilets with Threatening Auras, so for example, we’ll have 2 images of 2 different toilet cubicles, and participants have to decide what sort of space they will prefer to do their business in.
images are taken from twitter @scarytoilet (Toilets With Threatening Auras)
Assuming this is placed near a toilet, where most people only visit once, they walk towards the washroom, and then leave to go about their day. They will see this screen, decide on a toilet by stepping on a spot for longer than 5 seconds and leave.
The chosen toilet will remain, and a new toilet image will appear to be the next contestant. This continues throughout the day, with different participants choosing a preferred toilet. If many people decide to try out the sorter, results will show a winner toilet. That will be the toilet with the most people choosing, or “going to”. In addition, there will be runner-ups, since sorters act as a poll when they attain enough results. Alternatively, the poll does not achieve any sort of result, which shows that nobody stopped by.
This shows the movement of people in two different ways: which types of toilet which will be Most Visited, and whether this toilet sorter is even looked at to begin with. It’s something more provocative in nature, and probably disgusting, but I think it is something we all think about subconsciously. Either that or I think too much about toilet culture, more than the average person (please prove me otherwise).
Call Out Cult (COC)
We live in a generation where the internet is essential to our everyday living, and a lot of our social interaction and news comes from the internet. When I was a kid my parents would always nag about putting myself online, because eventually someone was either going to find out where you live, or dig out your dark secrets and have them thrown out to the rest of the world for them to see. And they were very right because “call out culture” became a huge thing in the 2010s. There is probably a different term for it for similar things that have happened in the past, but it is a common term used now, usually because of social media.
According to Wikipedia, call-out culture “is a form of public shaming that aims to hold individuals and groups accountable by calling attention to behaviour that is perceived to be problematic”, and this is usually on social media. There is also a variant of said term, called “cancel culture”, which is “a form of boycott in which someone who is deemed problematic is ‘cancelled’.” Often times it is the result of naive mistakes, or decade-old tweets. Here’s an example of how exaggerated it can be:
The people who instigate call-outs often “pull out receipts”, mostly consisting of screenshots of problematic content, or links to threads of said problematic content. Sometimes it goes as far as to doxxing (having private information published on the Internet), and often times these people who instigate call-outs believe they did nothing wrong.
So for my second idea, I thought about the idea of “airing dirty laundry”, and was very inspired by art that used clotheslines, such as this series of installations by Kaarina Kaikkonen.
Retrieved from https://mymodernmet.com/kaarina-kaikkonen-clothes-installations/
Retrieved from https://mymodernmet.com/kaarina-kaikkonen-clothes-installations/
To call someone out is to basically air their dirty laundry, to trace out every single footprint they have done to be hung up for all to see. So my idea was to basically have a clothesline with call-out posts put up using pegs. Participants can hang up call-outs to someone they know, it can be as ridiculous as not liking your mother’s cooking, or something serious in the political setting. Everyone’s call-out posts would be placed on the clotheslines, and for anyone to view. Receipts can be written as well, to solidify your statement.
While there is no visible body nor movement in the artwork, it provides a history of call-outs, and these all tend to stay for a long time, and can only be made by humans. I would also think of it as a sort of installation that would make anyone either ridicule how dumb some of these call-outs would be, and question the culture of calling others out for their own selfish desires.
Project Development // behind closed doors
- How does your audience experience your project?
The audience is put into a space that only has a door. Behind the door they hear noises, vaguely human, but otherwise they cannot understand what is being said, besides the crying of a child and the nagging of an adult. They are allowed to interact with the door, by either knocking (once, twice, frantically) or attempting to open the door (once, twice, rattling), or to not do anything at all. Every reaction (or lack thereof) will change the circumstances, and the audience can react accordingly again (by leaving the room, or continuing the experiment). - Is it for a single person to engage with your project or for multiple participants concurrently?
It is preferable for a singular person to experience this, as it creates an environment where you are pressured to decide if you want to shake, knock, or do anything to save the situation happening behind the door. - What is the interaction or situation you are creating for your audience?
To create the pressure of time, or a surreal situation where they are left to make a decision. - What is the intention of this interaction?
What I intend to bring across is the idea of intercepting a bad situation. Be it a small knock, or a question left lingering, it will change what happens behind the door. It will allow a child to escape a bad situation, or it might rid them of their bad environment entirely. - How does this interaction relate to the concept of “Interstice”?
This interaction tells urgently of the interstices of time. The gap of time that people create that could help another life. By just being present in a situation, they will aid in buying time, and could possibly save someone.
Research Critique 2 – i Light Singapore 2019
“But first, let me take a selfie.” These words from the viral #Selfie song characterise our current trigger-happy iGeneration and are satirised by Facey Thing.
Love me,
Facey Thing is a tongue in cheek interactive art installation that contemplates the seemingly innocuous selfie culture and its potential surveillance hazards. The installation is a large screen that displays real time footage from a black surveillance camera on the right. It is intentionally set up in an area with heavy footfall, meaning that even if you choose not to actively interact with the installation, you are still forced to walk by it and engage with it passively as you will be displayed on the screen. This underscores that even if one does not personally take part in the selfie culture, total avoidance of it is largely impossible.
The installation tracks the faces on participants close to the screen. Once the face is engaged long enough, it will be recognised and blow up to ten times the original size. This mocks the inane logic found in spy movies of “zoom in and enhance the image!”. Every time the participant moves, the blown up face will be captured frame by frame. Eventually, it will turn into shades of blue, green and purple and float up to the top of screen and out in various pixelated strips.
Old faces start to blur and float up.
Video: https://youtu.be/gXPgXJvjhIg
Facey Thing is a fun installation that gets polarising reactions from passersby; some enjoyed seeing their faces enlarged on the screen while others intentionally shielded their faces from the camera as they passed by. As aforementioned, this installation contemplates the potential hazards of the selfie culture. Sharing photos and personal information have become such a norm in our society that the dangers of such a practice is often forgotten and overlooked. Selfies (and the information revealed in its accompanying captions) can be used as tools of surveillance and oppression, a theme explored in the dystopian novel 1984. However, just because they can does not necessarily mean they will. The art installation also mocks the overt paranoia and fear about surveillance. “Zoom and enhance” is still impossible with current technology and even if you are being passively monitored, you should not be too worried unless you are doing something illegal, like murder.
Overall, this is my favourite interactive art installation at iLights and it made me ponder the balance we have to achieve between celebrating life and memory-making and not revealing so much information that a stalker could potentially find me.
Bonus:
Painting a wall can be fun, especially the result of it is a surprise. That is the experience when you interact with Shades of Temporality, an art installation version of a kinder egg. The installation starts off as a blank, normal wall. Participants can use one of the giant paint rollers to ‘paint’ over the wall. While pressing on a button on the paint roller, the ‘paint’ is projected on the wall in real time wherever the top of the roller was. The artwork is cleared via an iPad on the side.
Button at the bottom of paint roller. Hold onto it while painting!
A tourist trying to write “Heart Singapore” but I think they ran out of space.
The paint is patterned and constantly moving and changing. This not only makes the artwork very dynamic, but also adds in an element of fun and surprise as you would not know beforehand the patterns and end result.
Video: https://youtu.be/Iqu8hSAoiKY
Shades of Temporality is a stunning installation celebrates artistic freedom. There is no pressure for participants to paint the wall ‘right’ or in a specific pattern. Furthermore, as there are many paint rollers available, it also encourages people to collaborate with one another in creating an art piece. As the artwork can be easily erased with just a tap on the iPad, Shades of Temporality emphasises the impermanence of art. This temporality is not necessarily negative as it allows us to focus and enjoy the present, and once the art is completed and cleared, to start afresh with nothing holding us back.
My art piece!
Research Critique 1 – Understanding Interactivity
Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcwathieu/1795073497/
The first artwork I have chosen is made by Masaki Fujihata, known as Beyond Pages (1995 – 1997). In this piece of work, the audience enters a space that sets a scene of a dark room. There is a physical desk that one can interact with, that has a digital screen that projects a book. The audience member is made to sit on a chair. To interact with this book, one must use the pen provided, which triggers the turning of pages and the manipulation of images within said pages.
Why do you find this artwork or project intriguing?
As one interacts with the book given to them with the special pen, the images change accordingly. For example, an apple when tapped, will produce a biting sound, followed by the imagery of it being bitten into, exposing its insides. This gives the sense of it having been eaten despite it being in a ‘different realm’, which I find very interesting.
What is the situation or interaction created for the viewer?
The viewer is absorbed into the scene, such as one is absorbed into a book when reading. By interacting with the images on the book, it would either manipulate said images, or cause a reaction by an object nearby.
What is the intention of this interaction?
As Jeffrey Shaw says: “Beyond Pages definitively and convincingly shows us that our information spaces are no longer bound within their traditional wrappers (book, stage, screen, canvas, etc.) – instead they can manifest themselves as ubiquitous presences that move between and link together the totality of things in a new imaginary of being.”
This explains the title of the artwork, “Beyond Pages”, where a book is not conformed to its pages, and can exist as more than its paper self.
What is the role of the viewer?
The viewer has to be present in the chair, and interact with the piece using the designated pen. They react to the piece according to their own experiences, watching as a lamp lights up through a light switch present in the book, or a clock speed up when a hourglass is turned.
Who has control over the outcome of the artwork or project? Is it the creator / artist or the viewer/audience?
The creator plays a bigger role in creating the piece, as every interaction is pre-programmed to work a certain way. However, the audience plays a definitive role and the viewing of this artwork. The interaction does not have to be done linearly for the desired effect, but it is up to the viewer to decide what way they wish for the piece to do. This allows the viewer to experience their own thoughts and feelings about the artwork, and for them to have their own opinion on what they might think the artwork might be about.
Retrieved from https://www.snibbe.com/digital-art#/projects/interactive/fallinggirl/
The next artwork is Scott Snibbe’s Falling Girl (2008). It is an immersive interactive narrative installation that allows the audience to be part of a story about a young girl falling off a skyscraper.
Why do you find this artwork or project intriguing?
The artwork tells a narrative, while also being interactive.
What is the situation or interaction created for the viewer?
As the young girl falls, she reacts to people who are in the skyscraper. These people are seen as silhouettes in the apartment windows, who are of the audience captured by a camera. The viewer is allowed to do anything they wish in front of the wall which would then be projected in a designated window, which the girl reaches out to.
What is the intention of this interaction?
The installation is part of a series known as “Visceral Cinema”, in which the language of film is translated into meaningful narrative interactive experience, where one’s emotions are evoked while also being aware of their own body’s experiences.
What is the role of the viewer?
The viewer’s body plays an intimate role in the narrative, and they are rewarded with a sense of presence within the film. The shadows all act as neighbours witnessing the falling of a girl. This compels them to better understand the work, and to watch it to the end where by the girl eventually reaches the ground.
Who has control over the outcome of the artwork or project? Is it the creator / artist or the viewer/audience?
The creator has greater control over the outcome, as the experience is rather linear. Within the piece itself, there are periods of time which none of the viewers can interact with, as it is part of the story that has been planned beforehand. The ending remains the same no matter the number of viewers. Only the experience of the audience changes based on their perception of the piece, along with the aesthetic of the artwork depending on what the audience does.
Retrieved from https://www.snibbe.com/digital-art#/projects/interactive/fallinggirl/
Come up with 2 thoughtful questions in your essay that will benefit the class with regards to this week’s topic on interactivity.
- Where does interactivity start and stop in a linear interactive narrative?
- How can one allow the audience to have greater control over the outcome?
References:
https://homemcr.org/app/uploads/old_site/media/Art/Exhibition%20guides/Masaki%20Fujihata%201.pdf
https://www.mutualart.com/Article/Masaki-Fujihata/8B2D0D6728BA17CB
http://artelectronicmedia.com/artwork/beyond-pages
https://www.snibbe.com/bio/
http://archive.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/scott_snibbe
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