Micro Project 6 – Glitch Aberrations

For this micro project, I decided to use a photo of a stock picture perfect family. I chose one with a watermark on purpose as it enhances the unbelievable / unrealistic / fake / silly quality of the concept of a perfect family. The family composition reflects my real family: parents and 3 daughters.

The series of glitches debunks the idea of a perfect family, because no one is perfect, and no family is perfect. Each letter, symbol, or character that is moved around in the code represents the many events that happen, the actions taken, and the words exchanged in a family. While many are of a positive quality, many are also of a negative quality. With every negativity exchanged, the perfect family becomes less perfect.

Eventually, this idea of a perfect family turns into something that is completely different, and that’s okay, because every family is unique, just like how the picture is now unique after its glitches.

 

BREAKING IT DOWN:

At first, I cut individual letters from different parts of the code and pasted them together in one space creating the text “PERFECT FAMILY”.

It created an interesting composition where the father’s eyes got edited out/displaced. The colours also became more saturated and neon-like, almost saccharine, amplifying the happy mood from the original picture into something psychedelic. Can any family be this perfect?

Then I added “DOESN’T EXIST”, and the image glitches into a warped version that seems to destroy the idea of the perfect family.

Next, I added “OR DOES IT?” at another section of the code.

At this point the image glitches into a clearer version of the family, but just in a different colour, and the lines became finer and more even. This improves the possibility of the existence of a perfect family.

Then I added the different components of a family: daughter, sister, mom and dad. I tried various ways of adding letters to the code, whose meaning is open to interpretation.

I didn’t include any son or brother because I do not have a living brother.

As you can see, the image does not warp too much with these changes.

Other than that, I also tried randomly copying a part of a code and copy-pasting it multiple times to fill the window with that particular part of code.

I also constructed a word with another phrase through composition.

Lastly, I kept on cutting and pasting different parts of the code to other parts, and/or copy-pasting code multiple times to distort the image until I was happy with it, until the image can barely bee recognised.

Micro Project 5: Split Screen (Clarita and Ling Ern)

Here’s a saved video of our split screen live broadcast!

Ling Ern and I thought of the concept of “teleportation” through the third space, which is a common idea in science fiction. We decided to teleport food from one place to another through the third space.

This was filmed in separate places in ADM. We had a list of food that we wanted to share, and how we wanted to interact with them. From just passing food from one side to the other, to sharing the food together, to passing an object back and forth and it “transforming” when passed around.

The outcome I would say is really fun to watch, almost as if it was edited, but in actuality done live. Many videos like this are available on the internet, and these composite videos mimic visual effects.

If we had more of the props, we could have done more takes to perfect the synchronisation.

Even though the end result is not as seamless as we would like it to be, we thought that it was a really fun video to do in the end. After multiple tries, and problems with doing split screen on Facebook live on android phones, we were finally able to resolve connection, broadcast issues and do a full take.

Here’s the full video on Facebook:

Posted by Clarita Saslim on Tuesday, 25 September 2018

The only unfortunate thing other than the imperfectly synced parts is that some of the comments from my friends during the live broadcast were gone. In the video you can hear me reacting to their comments, however they did not appear in the final post when I shared the live video.

A friend asked me to do a virtual high five with Ling Ern at the end of the video, but sadly Ling Ern had logged out at that point of time haha.

Even though Ling Ern and I were in different places, we could interact as if we were right next to each other, defying any physical boundaries or geographical situations.

The third space really gives humans unlimited connectivity, and in the future, I think haptic connectivity would be developed even further. Maybe we would even be able to interact with physical, tactile avatars of people from across the world. Who knows?

Micro Project 2 – Pirate Broadcasting

CLASS TIME WITH WEN LEI: Final Projects?? Say hi to Lei

CLASS TIME WITH WEN LEI: Final Projects?? Say hi to Lei

Posted by Clarita Saslim on Thursday, 6 September 2018

My first ever Facebook live video, and I do it for class. I have never been too much of a social media user. The times that I use it though, I like to get to know what my friends or family are up to. However, I rarely use it to share my own life. There’s something about letting others know things about me, or the fact that if I post anything/everything online, information about me will be permanently available on the web space for strangers/FBI agents/criminals to find, that just don’t sit well with me… somehow. Most of the time I don’t think or care about it, but there IS that little part of me that thinks that… you knOW?? DOn’t you toO?!

Okay anyways, doing the live video was brainless to me, something that doesn’t happen too often as I always put much (sometimes too much) thought before doing things. As a result, I defaulted into my defense mechanism: being a little awkward and silly. I decided to live stream the idea generation Lei was conducting in class, and anyone speaking on screen.

Not a lot of people saw the video live, but I think what was most interesting is the conversation generated through posting that live video. Family that I don’t interact in real life much, and even my old Balinese dance teacher contacted me through comments on the video.

   

So I realise that even when the medium itself is live and real time, it doesn’t mean that the conversation won’t live on past the broadcast duration… It will be there as long as the internet (or Facebook) exists, and through sharing may be able to expand and develop.

Ok enough of the word vomit bye