F4D II Project 3: Time, Space & Body – Research

Video Installation is a contemporary art form that combines video technology and installation art, making use of the surrounding environment to affect the audience.

Bill Viola

He worked with video tape recordings, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, flat panel video pieces, works for television broadcasts

His works revolves around human consciousness, related or link with Life and Death.

One of his works, “Anthem” (11:30mins), include insides of fruits that relates to the insides of the human body. He explains that this work is “our deepest primal fears, darkness, and the separation of body and spirit”. His camera technique is using a fixed camera pointed at one direction, to keep the focus.

What makes his works controversial? It triggers the audience to evoke certain emotions, fears or disgust towards his work and questions his intentions. Its graphical content emphasises on his dark theme throughout his works, although everyone knows that the production is fake. However in “Anthem”, there is a real heart beating of a body being cut up, this upsets the audience further.

Wolf Vostell

He worked with prints, videos, environment and installation art. He has worked with Paik and Maciunas too.

One of his works, “Elektronischer: Happening Raum (Happening Room)”, 1968. It was recorded in a spaced out room with objects scattered around the room which most of them moved in one way or another. The items in the room includes: Classic Televisions with weird tools attached to them which moved, old pile of clothing which looked rugged and dirty, a lot of meat and pipes on the floor, blood stained cloth, ski equipments and sharp weapons.

The television showed what seems to be of key relevance about a past event, which includes a lot of meat battering.

What makes his works controversial? He puts his audiences to be thinking “What? Why?” about his artworks (random meat battering and the amount of blood in the video). It may be reflecting on his views on the political society.

David Wojnarowicz

He was a photographer, painter, writer, filmmaker, performance artist.

One of his works, “Fire in my Belly”, 1987. He may had put religion down by having Jesus Christ with insects that are crawling all over the figure. There were dripping blood, figurine of Jesus Christ covered with insects and rotting hand in the installation. His techniques with camera included sudden transitions and playing with lighting (flicker).

What made his works controversial? It made a majority of his audience upset, where he added the imagery of Jesus Christ in his video installation. Many think that it was irrelevant to do so.

Tony Oursler

He was a multimedia and installation artist. He has worked with video, sculpture, installation, performance and painting.

His works revolved around the theme of visual technologies influence and even modify our social and psychological selves. He mostly work with projections, combining it with interesting fibre-glass shapes and structures, as well as natural environment. He uses trees and smoke as gallery spaces.

What made his works controversial? He experimented with methods of removing the moving image from the video monitor using reflections in water, mirrors, glass and other devices. Later, he moved to projecting his works on trees and smoke for his public work: Influence Machine in 2000, as commissioned by The Public Art Fund and Artangel.

4D II Project 2 – Soundscape

Soundscape

Artist Statement

This soundscape is composed to bring the audience through a personal take on a typical bus ride, conveying an emotional journey. The soundscape starts with boarding of the bus and ends off alighting the bus – like having a beginning and end to every story. There are 3 events that take place during the bus ride – A noisy environment, a missed opportunity and being lost in thoughts. This soundscape expresses a dialogue between the external factors of the environment (Objective Sound) and internal thoughts of an individual (Subjective Sound). The sense of depth is subjective as every individual has different take on what sounds he/she wants to focus on. Notice the difference and contrast of the 7 categories of sound in the soundscape. Each element is portrayed as a contrasting comparison and a transiting process.

Concept Development, Research, Film/Artist Reference, and Challenges

I was inspired by Hildegard Westerkamp’s Talking Rain and Zul Mahmod’s contemporary genre and experimental edge. I was interested in experimenting in foley techniques, to create sounds from different mediums. Thus, sparking the idea of dialogue between Objective Sound and Subjective Sound.

Some of my initial ideas included journey on the train, journey in a car, state of mind in a quiet place and physiological factors like being famished. However, I feel that there is more interaction and variation in a bus ride compared to being on a train. There is more external factors and dynamism if one was to be on a bus ride.

Thus, I recorded an audio clip of a bus ride as the background, experimented with foley – heartbeat using a towel, and created the ambient sound of thoughts using synthesiser in Logic Pro.

As I do not have much experience with Audio Engineering, I had to experiment with the vast amount of controls in Logic Pro. When I was editing the heartbeat sound, I had to experiment with the EQ of the flapping towel sound. I do not have a music background, hence, coming up with the ambient sound of thoughts was tricky as I do not know how to pick the notes in a chord to harmonise them.

Project 2 Part I – Infographics

After my exploration around Telok Blangah, I have decided to make an infographic as a guide for drivers (Target Audience). The road the bends around in the middle of the composition brings the audience’s eyes around the context, which will inform them about things in Telok Blangah.

At the top of the composition, there’s the Southern Ridges which includes Henderson Waves, Telok Blangah Hill and Mt Faber. It then leads to temples, Gillman Barracks, petrol kiosks, schools, markets and emergency responses. At the bottom of the composition, I included a short write-up to include information on the icons of the neighbourhood so that they can find out more about the place.

In the middle of the composition, I have included some speed limits to advise drivers to keep while driving past the areas as there are elderlies and children around the neighbourhood. They can increase to cruising speed when they are travelling to attraction sites like Gillman Barracks and archery range. The high speed is to indicate that the emergency responses will travel at a high speed, so drivers should be aware of their surroundings and keep a good lookout to prevent accidents. The “hot temperature” symbol is to indicate that Telok Blangah is a mature estate which offers high property prices even though it is a quiet neighbourhood. I have also included petrol kiosks and parking spaces in the infographic as I find it intriguing to have 3 different petrol kiosks down the same road on Telok Blangah Road. It is very convenient for drivers to find them on the main road.

In conclusion, I find that this Infographic exercise allow us to better appreciate the neighbourhood and know what information we want to bring across to our audience.