Category Archives: Project

4D II Project 2 – Soundscape

For this soundscape project, I did a sonic portrait of my mom. The reason for choosing my mom as my subject is because I realise the sounds that are related to my mom are sounds of childhood, which is meaningful to me. These are the sounds that I have been listening after I am dismissed from school from kindergarten till the days when I was in junior college. And also, I realised that amongst the people that I observe, I actually observe my mom the most in my life due to me being inquisitive ever since I was a kid.

In this soundscape, there are some elements of what I thought were some iconic elements that remind me of my mom. Although the sounds depict the subtle things that she would do around the house, they still instil a sense of nostalgia. My mom is the only one who would wear bedroom slippers around the house. Spraying the plants instead of watering them (very inefficient). Settling down for a cup of iced milo and butter crackers before cooking for dinner. And also, I remember her tuning into 958 FM (she refuses to tune into 933 FM) as an accompaniment while she cooked for dinner.

All in all, I would say the concept of this soundscape would be more oriental, raw and homely.

The sounds in this soundscape are all recorded by me except for the radio static sound.

  1. Opening of metal gates
  2. Handling of the keys
  3. Footsteps
  4. Spray can
  5. Water from the sink
  6. Dropping ice into the drink
  7. Stirring of drink
  8. Munching on biscuits
  9. Flipping of newspapers
  10. Starting the gas
  11. Turning on the radio
  12. Taking out chopping board
  13. Taking out ingredients from plastic bag
  14. Chopping of fishcakes
  15. Frying of fishcakes
  16. Clearing of throat

As for research, I went to listen Hildegard Westerkamp’s Kits Beach sound walk. I really like the variation of volume, allowing me to imagine the distance of her from the ducks and that she was near to the crashing sounds of waves, just the space between her and the subjects at the beach in general. This inspired me to have a variation of sounds in terms of the volume and the direction as well. Whenever my mom comes back from work, the sound of the gate opening would always be from the left as I stay at my study table and also since my room is far away from the gates, this explains the low volume of the gates. In contrast, the dropping of keys on the table and frying of dishes will always be remembered as the louder movements.

Also, as for the background sounds, I decided to use the sounds in the morning when there are sounds of bird chirping to depict a more peaceful mood when my mom is having afternoon tea.

In this soundscape, I  tried to feature a few movements of my mom at once such as listening to the radio while cooking, reading newspapers while munching on food because my mom is known to be a multi-tasker. And in fact, she is very good at it. I actually focused a lot on my mom cooking because when I was young I would always sit at the dining table and watch her cook and I would remember how the sounds of the radio diminishing as she is trying to fry food. These are the little details that I have noticed and they’re edged pretty vastly in my mind.

So, all in all, presenting to you, Nostalgia.

Ciao!

 

4D II Project 1 – Alter Ego

Alter ego means a person’s secondary or alternative personality.

In this piece, I harboured the idea of portraying both my public and a more personal persona in an exaggerated manner – happy, simple-minded, indecisive, poor-time management and a whole lot of quirkiness. And also another side of me that many people don’t usually face. It is a side that I would not usually want others to know of and would keep a conscious effort to keep it to myself. Hence, this video starts of with my public persona – light-hearted, happy, poor-time management, slightly eccentric, indecisive, straight-forward and a whole of of quirkiness. It later progresses to a side of me which is less seen and felt by others – sensitive, dejected, abit mysterious. However most of the video would still be more “happy” as that is how I really am and feeling pessimistic is a rarity, though it still happens.

Hence, I decided to put all of that into a very simple “story line” or perhaps a setting of me getting ready to go out. The reason to do that is because I feel that the very easy act of getting prepared to go out can already portray one’s personality clearly such as inferring if one is positive about the day or if one has a sense of urgency etc.

With all that in mind, a character that surfaced in my mind is actually a character from a drama called My Love From Another Star. Her role in this show is a celebrity who is known for being blunt, comedic, rash, simple-minded, quirky and slightly self-centered. Basically a very exaggerated version of myself and someone who reminds me of myself when I watch the show. And also, as a celebrity, she would sometimes feel lonely and that she is alone in this career path thus feeling unmotivated at times which is also something that I can somehow relate too as well.
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One challenge is that, with her character in mind, I had to make the conscious effort to best portray myself and not deviate far from my actual personality although the plan is to exaggerate it.

Before choosing this character as my reference, I had a dilemma between quite a few people actually.

  1. Jennifer Lawrence
  2. Emma Stone
  3. Zoe Suen
  4. IU
  5. Cara Delevigne

I once took a very detailed personality test and the results mentioned that I had the same personality type as the first two mentioned above and thinking deep into it, I do feel that I can relate to theirs words in videos and screen tests. However, I was then advised to not refer to public figures and their personas because it may be personas that they have been developing as celebrities and may not be true. Hence, I decided to go for fictional characters instead and the first character that surfaced in my mind is the one that I chose.

As for Zoe Suen, after much thinking I feel that the reason I thought about choosing her is simply because I like her style in her works and videos and sees her as a role model. In terms of personality, I think we still have some sort of difference. Lastly, Cara Delevigne is known for her eccentric personality but then again, models nowadays are taught to be individualistic and Cara of course stood out by being bold and funny and all in the first place which is not what models usually do and this “individualism” that they are taught to have may not actually be genuine.

This piece is basically about how I prepare to go out from waking up to brushing my teeth, being fickle-minded about selection of clothing till the end of waiting for a call. At first, viewers may think that I do actually have a company or a date to out with since the character I am portraying shows that I am somewhat anticipating a date with glee and would probably infer that I’m just someone sociable and fun. But in the video, there are hints that the character in the video does not actually have a company. This is shown with a few clips of a phone without any notification or alarm jingles and is pretty much stationary from the very start, especially the part when I am holding my phone, portraying my anticipation for the phone to ring. The twist of loneliness and dejection of the character is then shown in the end when she faces the music of being alone despite having prepared to go out with a company. Just like how Venetian masks are used to protect one’s identity, it is being put on at the end to signify how I would cover up that side of me which is not usually shown to many.

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