The Vampire Bat – A Prototype

The Prototype

For the vampire bat prototype, I decided to focus on the bat’s wings, since it is very much different from the wings of birds. Yet, it is similar to the human hands, but with web, forming the wings. What I brought forward to this project is the hinge mechanism from Project 2: Kokopelli!

This is what I got!

Take a look at The Vampire Bat – A Prototype in action!

Animated GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Third Space Fallacy, A Statement

As read in the prelude to our final project, Third Space Fallacy, uses social media to broadcast a certain friendship conflict that two girls have, Daphne (me) and Bella. Of which, polls put up on our Instagram stories will decide the next cause of actions. To disguise this project that we were planning for the final project, we decided to create another Instagram account @abracadabrrun that will decide the narrative for Bella’s death.

Inspiration

The inspiration for this piece is our realization as a team how social media can affect our first space decisions and actions. On a more extreme note, the case of the death of Megan Meier because of social media, that further motivated us to create a a friendship drama narrative broadcasted on social media to observe how our followers would react and respond.

Also, we realized how emotionally connected netizens are to their social media accounts. During one meet up with the team, Bella said, “it is as if everyone has a mobile phone, an addition to themselves”. It is true, our mobile phones always need to be within sight, occasionally checking our social media platforms for updates once in a while. Besides, Bella also shared with us during team talk about a comment that Randall Packer left, that spoke to her:-

“Very interesting how you expressed your thoughts on interaction in such personal terms: how we engage emotionally in the third space. This has been one of the key ideas we have discussed this semester, how meaningful interaction can be achieved despite geographical separation. Wasn’t this proved when you elected not to interact in the chat for Annie Abrahams’ performance, and found yourself removed and disconnected. This implies that is direct interaction that creates the quality of engagement in any form of interactive art. Perhaps it would be interesting and helpful to your thesis to applied this to Blast Theory’s work: how the players and performers engage in something dynamic, arresting, and challenging in both physical and virtual spaces. ”

– Comment on Are We in LOVE with the Connectedness? Randall Packer

We decided as a team that apart from achieving our project objectives, we, as a team wanted this piece to be a statement addressing the potential of the Internet.

Execution

The team has agreed to activate Bella and I in the conflict that will be put online. Both of us used our own personal Instagram accounts, @um_brella and @d/aphnepotata. To create a narrative (if people question us about our friendship), we planned to create a fib of Bella and my past. We met in secondary school in a writing competition and had been really close friends since. Then we came to the same university, but problems in our friendship arise.

Our first postings:-

First post by @um_brella

Second post by @um_brella

First post on @d/aphnepotata in response to @um_brella

Indirectly talking about a specific someone is a common sight on social media. When “indirecting” someone, it is often posted up on social media platforms that the person is following you on, and you speak about the situation or the “beef” you have with the other person but not mention or tag them on the post. The objective is for the other person to get the message or the hint through that, without directly telling them. This is what is done between Bella and I on Instagram. The people who follow the both of us by this time have gotten the hint.

Posed by @um_brella, highlighting the fact that @d/aphnepotata did not reply her after many messages.

A post put up by @d/aphnepotata, stating the fact that a certain someone (@um_brella) has been spam calling her, seeking for her attention and she is annoyed.

A poll posted on @um_brella with the conversation between Bella and I up on the Instagram story.

Bella had purposefully not do a clean job in censoring who the sender was, and revealed part of the name “Daphne”.

Apart from using our personal account to post the drama online, we also created another Instagram account, making polls for people to take, forcing them to make uninformed choices through the polls, that will ultimately be the narrative for Bella’s death.

 

@Abeacadabrrun on Instagram.

 

This account is filled with short poems that might suggest a certain quest that is taking place for our team’s “final project”, but instead it is used to decide the ending of our actual project’s narrative.

Polls done on @abracadabrrun that was featured on the trailer deciding the narrative of Bella’s death, of which the truth behind her death was revealed.

Polls done on @abracadabrrun that was featured on the trailer deciding the narrative of Bella’s death – of which she chose to die in a black outfit.

Polls done on @abracadabrrun that was featured on the trailer deciding the narrative of Bella’s death – of which Bella chooses death, to leave the entire situation.

Polls done on @abracadabrrun that was featured on the trailer deciding the narrative of Bella’s death – of which 0000 is the time Bella will take her own life.

Thereafter, Bella posted this on her account @um_brella indirecting it to @d/aphnepotata on the entire situation, hinting that she will take her own life.

Translate: It doesnt matter if I die today or tomorrow as long as you can witness it.

Thereafter, Bella left social media for 18 hours to make her death as real as possible. Not answering any calls or messages.

Because of that, meals had to be sent to her at her dormitory, to avoid her being in the public.

Responses

Throughout the entire process, Bella and I had received many comments, messages. The bolded ones are the responses we received regarding each Instagram stories that we have each posted.

 

Bella  Daphne 
Omg I cannot take this anymore, am i just a push over…. (emo post)

4 Replies

  • Angry 1
  • Curious 2
  • Comfort 1

Should i confront her (vote)

So it’s okie to just make use of ur friend? WTF can I do with her/this toxic friendship?

  • Make it clear 22
  • Just let it go 20

6 Replies

  • Comfort 4
  • Giving positive suggestions 1
  • Curious 1
Sees post

Rants about how sensitive she is

Complains about this friend.

Responses

-wondering who i am talking about x2

-Jokes- “sorry I offended you”

Maybe they just need some ice cream in their life

Confront her on Insta about the blue ticks (emo post)

8 Replies

  • Show Empathy 2
  • Curious 2
  • Angry 2
  • Giving positive suggestions 1
  • Sad 1

Confront her on Insta about the blue ticks and insta story (emo post)

2 Replies

  • Got the name right 1
  • Ask me to move on 1

Am I sensitive?

  • Stop overreacting
  • She should respond
Call out and rant about Girl A for spam calling her many times.

Responses

-A lot of people are very interested to know who it is. The regular “omg who isit” message.

Some made a joke out of it.: “wow you have a stalker”,

“wow time to get a restraining order”,

“Nani, thats some insane calling”,

“ITS TIME TO REMOVE THAT HEART HAHAH u savage”,

“omg what? Does she follow you? I think she should get the hint already”

Really concerned: “Aiyo everything ok?”, x2

Would you rather lose a friend or fight with a friend.

  • Yes
  • no
Should I just find her in school? (vote)

  • Thats rude
  • Go ahead
Wolf wearing a sheep coat

 

screenshot of friends concern

Thank You for your concern, i feel so much better now.

Again freaking clingy sia (spam call log)

Should I block her (vote)

  • Yes
  • No

Bella and I had to be proactive on posting Instagram stories about how troubled both we were about each other. Because of that, many people in ADM have already caught the hint that it was Bella and I who are “fighting ” indirectly on social media.

Some had mentioned and asked us personally about the entire situation and had comforted us about it.

Many actually believed what they had seen online, and bought it. Hence, the performance had to be brought offline as well, in the first space when we were each questioned about the entire situation that we had put up online.

Making of the Trailer

Initially, we had wanted to remake a news station on YouTube inspired by the InCentral.

InCentral is a channel on YouTube that updates its subscribers about dramas happening online between celebrities and happenings that are juicy and interesting.

Behind the scenes of Let’s Talk the Talk

We named the channel Let’s Talk the Talk and filmed a whole news about the happening between Bella and I.

The script used for Let’s Talk the Talk – SCRIPT-Lets Talk the Talk

Influence of The Blast Theory

Blast Theory is a pioneering artist group creating interactive art to explore social and political questions, placing audience members at the centre of our work. -Blast Theory

We were inspired by the Blast Theory’s quote “explore social and political question”, of which we touched on how news received on social media are treated seriously by many netizens. Even for Bella’s death, she cannot literally die in the first space, but she sure can die in the third space. By going inactive and unresponsive, her death on the third space can be staged, allowing people to really believe it.

Also, touching on death is a controversial topic, yet it is very real that we can fake a death on the third space, similar to what my team did for Bella. This then helped us explore fake news that very much came as a package with the rise of social media.

Initially we had wanted to put up a death note by the parents of Bella to inform her followers about her death, but scraped it and replaced it with a scene in the trailer of her cutting herself. This approach has brought out a much poetic way of expressing her death, which we thought was a better way of addressing death, a sensitive topic.

Scene of Bella cutting herself in the trailer.

Fake news is fabricated or false news. Because of the speed that social media can deliver to its users, fake news on social media can be found.

The claim and counter claim that spread out around ‘fake news’ like an amorphous cloud of meta-fakery, as reams of additional ‘information’ — some of it equally polarizing but a lot of it more subtle in its attempts to mislead (e.g. the publicly unseen ‘on background’ info routinely sent to reporters to try to invisible shape coverage in a tech firm’s favor) — are applied in equal and opposite directions in the interests of obfuscation; using speech and/or misinformation as a form of censorship to fog the lens of public opinion. -Natasha Lomus

Our project touched on the issues and flaws of social media, riding on its speed to spread fake news and touched on the idea of a staged death on the third space.

This process is collaborative, between Bella and I with our followers on our accounts. They are able to interact directly with us through direct messages to comfort us, provide suggestions, take our polls, on the third space. This entire narrative is then brought to the first space when people around us ask us in real life about the entire situation.

Third Space Fallacy, as its name suggests rode on the emotional attachment people have to social media to create an entire narrative of friendship problems and the resulting death on this platform. It is as its name suggests, a mistaken belief happening on social media. Our aim, discussed, was for viewers who knew Bella and I to at least partially believe the entire narrative.

Upon finalizing the project when our trailer was being played in class, many were shocked yet they saw the entire narrative coming into place on social media. Even so, most were in between believing and not believing it.

In a nutshell

It was quite an experience when the entire performance was brought to to the first space in the span of one week. We had realized the power of social media. Both Bella and I ended it by posting a note to our followers online.

Both Bella and I had “emotionally cheated” on our followers as many bought our act and were concerned for the both of us in that one week, the tough thing was to ride on the entire narrative when they approach us checking up on us in the first space.

But we had some encouraging message about the entire performance put online!

As a team, we hope that we had highlighted the power of social media and the amount of time and emotions we had invested in it. As technology advances, our human interaction also advance with it, bringing it online. We hope as a collective, that we had brought a statement to all our viewers and audiences.

References

Blast Theory

Fake News is an Existential Crisis for Social Media

Third Space Fallacy, an Introduction

[About]

A Third Space Fallacy is an experimental interaction performance on third and first space that combines the responses collated on the third space through Instagram polls and stories to curate the next move in a friendship conflict between two girls (Bella and Daphne). To make the entire performance as real as possible, both girls had to put up an act in the span of 1 week in the first space, when questions arises from the people around them. Also, to stage that this is not part of our project for Experimental Interaction, our group have created another Instagram account @abracadabrrun, collating uninformed decisions made by our followers, which is part of the narrative of the death of Bella.

Locale Part II: Process + Zin(e)spiration

  

About Assignment 2

In Locale assignment 2, we are to visit a neighbourhood and create our very own zine!!!!

A “zine” is a self-published, non-commercial, independent publication, a DIY magazine-like thing.

Because you do it yourself it can be pretty much anything you want it to be, favorite bands, personal stories, subcultures, or collections (that’s the joy of zines!).(*screams* really excited) To embark on an exploration around a local neighbourhood! Find out what makes the neighbourhood unique and what are some of the interesting features in the area. The aim is also to develop one’s investigative research skills and present information in a visually engaging manner. To introduce inspiration and serendipity into creative development. To explore experimental formats and understand alternative layouts and grid formats. To learn more about binding methods and ways of putting together a self-made digital publication.

Concept Behind My Pieces

After exploring and discovering Chinese Garden (as seen in Locale Part I), the concept behind my zine is highlighting the contrast of Chinese Garden in a much subtle way through short proses, and photographs that might highlight each type of contrast in each spread.

1st Spread: Highlighting the contrast of the living and non-living “animals”.

2nd Spread: Highlighting the past and present objects, architecture that we can observe.

3rd Spread: Highlighting the complementary colour scheme of red and green.

Site Visit & Photographs

from my iPhone 7 and camera

Mood Board

images from pinterest

I looked through Pinterest many times and collated a few images or covers and layouts that I really like and the colour scheme that I am going for (green, blue, red).

Inspirations and Research on Layout and Presentation

taken from: http://ceoul.tumblr.com/post/124438211816/gridologie-just-finished-this-one-santa-monica

Texture & White Spaces

I particularly like the memphis texture that the artist has included to the white spaces, yet giving it enough breathing spaces for the reader.

Texts

I like the adventurous approach to the texts. The warp effect gave it a sense of flow and rhythm to the otherwise static page.

Colours

Enjoy the colour consistency throughout the page. Analogous colour of pinkish tone and purple makes this page really soothing to read.

taken from: https://78.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcusdfv0tG1qctmo8o1_1280.jpg

Sense of Hierarchy

There is a sense of hierarchy in this page. The biggest is the picture of the shore, then the headline “surfetur” then the smallest is the rectangular box “LORDAG 28/11”.

Colour

Complementary colours used (blue and orange).

Texture

Used the squiggly to create a sense of texture.

taken from: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1d/6a/af/1d6aafef758f12c866fbfc00b2f96266.jpg

Theme Continuation

I like how there is a conversation between the hands at the top and bottom of the page.

Collage

The collage of small elements gave the page a little three-dimensional effect.

Texture

The lightning bolt and the star gave the page a quirky texture, something of strong statement and gave interest to the page aside from texts and images.

Balance

There is balance in both sides of the page. Although it is heavily highlighted by the black borders, the right side is balanced out by the busy elements going on on the left. The orange texts and the eye on the picture on the right creates another minor visual balance, everything else is muted in colour (black, white, light beige)

taken from: https://www.behance.net/gallery/53249095/Analog-Reflections

taken from: https://www.behance.net/gallery/53249095/Analog-Reflections

Really like the entire vibe of the zine, minimal, few texts and the pictures speak the message.

taken from: https://www.behance.net/gallery/58335321/The-Chelsea-Hotel-zine

Like the photos edited, very uniform throughout this zine. Something I want for my zine too!

Fonts Used

Yorktown is used for headers

Yorktown

and Minion Pro used for the proses.

Minion Pro upper and lower case

Designing Process

My designing process came a long way. Started from the bottom and now we’re here! hahhaha

But my final design really looked a lot different from the start!

Initial Phases

that evolved slowly…

then this happened after a talk with Brendan over how troubled I am about my zine at 3 am in the morning at NTU Starbucks… this happened after a few hours…

the rest is history!
BUT here’s my work from bleed to bleed

Adding Videos

Also, I decided to add moving images to enhance the visuals from the zine to the audience. I thought that to fully be able to grasp the environment of the place, merely pictures will not suffice. Besides, my first visit there was filled with boomerangs, as seen in my research presentation, so I thought for my subsequent visit, I take videos too! Special shoutout to Jun Meng , a film student who went to site visit with me and got some footages with me! Enjoyed it thoroughly! Here are our fruits from the labour which I had included in the zine using QR codes!

takeaways!!!

Initially I was super excited for this project!! To design a zine is my first, plus I really enjoy writing, so I thought I can really combine both together into my first ever publication. Then as the process continues, it got harder and harder especially when my layout was not fixed, and had to go back and forth with merely sketches which was when I feel like I am lagging behind everyone.

That was when I realize talking to your friends about it is really important especially when you have a mind block and you don’t know where or how to carry on!!!! special shoutout to Teri, Sihui, Niki, Brendan, JJ, Gloria, JunMeng. (hope i did not miss anyone)

And people around are really there to help you, when you have the ideas, ask for opinions, don’t shy away. Just get the critiques, you will learn and be better from there!

Also, during this project, I tried many new things in terms of layout, stared at InDesign for hours and hours and I can still be on similar layouts, but Pinterest is your good friend! (but don’t plagarize!) get inspired, use the elements you like and make them your own! Look out for the vibes you’re going for and work from there. It is similar to finding your style first then choosing the clothes! (cuz then you will have selected designs to choose from! easier)

overall it was quite an experience! to start from a blank inDesign

to something you can call your own!!

It was hell of a ride! BUt it was one of the greatest ride!!

Thank you for viewing!

View my final product here and Part I here!

Locale Part I: Research Presentation (Infographic Style)

 

Freeze Frame + My Explorations

  • I procrastinated going to the location for a long time.
  • When I finally decided to go there, it was during the weekends, in the end although it is very near to NTU, 2/3 times I went there from home in the central area:-(
  • Throughout the entire journey there, what’s going through my mind was “okay, I’m on my way there, I’m really on my way there!!!” The ride was painful.

  • At the entrance of Chinese Garden, I was greeted by the chinese guardian lions or the stone lions at the entrance of chinese garden.
  • A funny sight I got to witness was that birds seem to like to land on top of the stone lions, each taking turns.
  • And to me, when a bird lands on the stone lion, they look like they are of one entity of stone and flesh.

  • Thereafter, I was greeted by the pagoda!!!!

  • It is 7 storeys high, and I went to research after I got home and found out that it is inspired by the Ling Nan Temple in Nanjing, China.
  • Also, in the past, the pagoda was used to store human bones by the Buddhist.

  • I was marvelled by the interior architecture of the place
  • the chinese patterns, the spiral staircase and the grid windows

  • While I was in there I also spotted someone taking a nap there
  • And thereafter, I saw a handful of people taking naps at the little corners of the chinese garden

  • Walking around, I realize that the main colour scheme of the Chinese Garden is red and green.
  • Interestingly, there are complementary colours.
  • The red mainly from the ancient architectures and the green from the dense vegetation there.

  • I then walked into the Bonsai Garden and saw HDB emerging through the vegetation from afar, as if they were peeking at me.
  • I realized that at the Chinese Garden, I can observe past and present architecture (past: the pagodas, present: mrt tracks & HBD flats)

  • Walking in the Bonsai Garden, I saw many pots of bonsais and as I inch in closer to have a look, I realized that they look like trees on mountains
  • Seems like tiny humans can live on it, making a small ecosystem there.

  • Strolling through Chinese Garden on a hot day, I also witness the shadows casted on different surfaces : on the walls, on the pavements.

  • I always seem to walk in the shade, and the shadows of the trees look like guiding paves that leads my way.

  • I walked out of the Bonsai Garden and saw a cat and decided to observe it for awhile

  • I took a few boomerangs and pictures of it because I was inspired by the Cat zine that Shirley showed us in class.
  • It started to walk around the area and I followed it thinking “are we on a scavenger hunt?”
  • It just seem to laze around, outside the Bonsai Garden, could it actually be the living fortune cat?!?!

  • Nope! then it brought me to the bikes that were left outside the entrance of the Bonsai Garden … hmm

  • And talking about bikes, I realize I saw many bikes around, in solo, in pairs, as a group, left in the middle of the pavement in Chinese Garden
  • I thought they look better with someone’s arse on them (hahaha)
  • They destroy the scenery of the place
  • So… bikes? yikes!

  • Afterall, what stood out to me about Chinese Garden is the contrast of the place
  • Contrast: non-living thing and living thing (the stone lion and the bird, the living fortune cat), past and present (the HBD flats and the ancient architectures) and the colour scheme (red and green)

Thank you for viewing! :~)

Communication Through Social Broadcasting, A Preface

Computers, Changing the Way Art is Viewed

… if the first computer was the abacus, the ultimate computer will be the sublime aesthetic device: a parapsychological instrument for the direct projection of thoughts and emotions. -Gene Youngblood

Yes, it is obvious that in today’s world, technology and the “screens” have taken over the world instead of the evil ones… or is the former the evil ones?

A group of us got the privilege to attend the international Art of the Network Practice Online symposium over the course of 3 days, of which I had attended day 1: Keynote by Maria X and internet performance by Annie Abraham, who we got to work with for a previous internet performance with her in class, and day 3: Internet performance by Jon Cates and his collaborators.

But the chisel, brush, and canvas are passive media whereas the computer is an active participant in the creative process -Gene Youngblood

While the traditional mediums are submissive to the creation of work, the computer remains on par with the creators of art. Though there was a fixed linear way of the interaction of art in the past (and still occurring), whereby the audience only gets to interact with it after it is done up in the studio, this audience interaction with the art piece and the creation of art can now occur concurrently. That being said, the computer remains the one that will perform under instructions and rules, codes and hypertext markup language. Annie Abrahams’ Online En-semble -Entanglement Training shows how a performance can be put up on the Third Space, and how audience interaction and the creation of art can now occur concurrently.

Annie Abrahams’ Online En-semble – Entanglement Training

In Annie Abrahams’ Online En-semble – Entanglement Training, entanglement is accepted, embraced and celebrated. A performance that needs the collaboration and the compromise of the collaborators, this performance shows clearly how it cannot be done without DIWO and the Third Space, concepts that are greatly emphasized. As the subject matter of the online performance, latency, something that is hard to take control of, takes over instead of being suppressed. Latency being understood as “the wait time introduced by the signal travelling the geographical distance as well as over the various pieces of communications equipment.”

The collaborators took turns to report their latency and saying “excellent”.

Her collaborators come from different countries who possess different cultural backgrounds, where they are connected on the Third Space through Adobe Connect itself on Thursday night, 29 April 2017. In the online performance, latency was observed. The collaborators had to accept the disruption, act upon it and make do with the imperfection. The protocol was to have the collaborators take turns to report their latency in their connection. Also, her protocols were simple for the performance, that allowed for the free-play and the authenticity of her collaborators.

The collaborators were in-sync as they showed their hands on their webcams.

What the mass then realize was that it was tough for them to be in the Third Space all at the same time, despite seemingly being connected to one another through the visuals. They embraced the glitches, the lag-time, creating a new paradigm dismissing the events where disruptions and wait are detested. Just like the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-sabi, Online En-semble: Entanglement Training captured the beauty of disorientations, turn it a hundred and eighty degrees, creating a mesmerizing choreographed internet piece. Although there was a point in the symposium that Annie Abrahams microphone was not working the way she wanted it to, I thought it gave a perfect touch to the piece, aptly applying to the very objective of Online En-semble: Entanglement Training, the ultimate test of the entanglement training itself. Rather than considering it as a katakana, it was taken in as part of the piece. Annie Abrahams successfully took the minor keys of the internet and composed an internet piece with a perfect harmony, a harmony of disorientations.

It is internet performers like Annie Abrahams who revolutionize the way art is – how art is portrayed across to its audiences and how art is perceived by its audience. Moving drastically from brick and mortar museums and art studios, art can also be observed just at the comfort of our homes, performed on the Third Space for its netizens.

Jon Cates’ IGAIES – How the Boundaries of Communication is Pushed

Jon Cates’ IGAIES (intimate glitches among internet errors) then further touches on how Internet Art can communicate through a performance our very society that touches our senses that challenges, pushes the boundaries of a performance art.

It first started out with a few performers showed on screen with filters over their faces, with their faces still visible to the online audiences.

XXXtraPrincess with filters on their faces.

I thought this has very successfully bring across the notion of our digital identities, our online personas, illustrated with the different filters. We can be who we want to be online. At the beginning of the performance, classical music was played at the background, as if signalling the very start of the performance and how we used the internet when it first start to bloom, creating the global village, a notion brought forth by McLuhan.

As the performance progresses, the imageries became more mysterious and left the online audiences wanting to know more. This is especially so when the online audiences can see a jar of leeches on the table, yet not know what is going to happen.

Leeches seen on the table

This is an example of a part where the online audiences are left more unsure than the physical audiences at Chicago itself.

Leeches seen on Roberto Sifuentes

What really shocked us was when the leeches are placed on Roberto Sifuentes, a near-death experience.

Leeches can be seen as good and bad. Good in the way that it can cleanse the body by sucking out the toxic in the blood and bad in the way that it gains out of the the body it hangs onto. Perhaps, it is both. The same way how the internet has impacted the world. How it sucks the living out of us, that we live for the “gram”, or “do it for the gram” which shows how netizens are living for the things they put on their social media. And on the other hand, the saving grace, or the realization of our overdosage of it. “Everyone dies cause of technology”, perhaps its a question of when.

It is fascinating how IGAIES brought to light the dark side of media. Of which, the venue of the performance, Chicago, had a huge role to play, “the birthplace of dirty dark media”. Dark Media, a term coined by Eugene Thacker describes a side of media that “have, as their aim, the mediation of that which is unavailable or inaccessible to the senses, and thus that which we are normally “in the dark” about”. Breaking its boundaries of what is deemed as acceptable and what is not, triggering the human sensory, our sight and hearing. It is of no doubt how art has continued to bring to light the situation of the society.

Communication, Taking an Unconventional Route

Another remarkable way that communication has moved away from its conventional method is a piece called Me and My Shadow highlighted by MariaX.

Me and My Shadow

The idea of shadow communication stood out to me. Instead of merely using words and/or the webcam to speak as a form of communication, body language is in the limelight for this installation by Joseph Hyde.

The life-size projection used the shadows of the participants to communicate and bring people together namely in London, Paris, Istanbul and Brussels. People were able to communicate in real time by their shadows. These people although located in different geographical locations, they are brought together in a virtual space, the Third Space.

Immersive and shows how technology can push the boundaries of communication is indeed the highlight of this piece. And how the other parties view you on the other hand voice down to how do you perceive yourself and how do you plan to portray yourself through the shadows. An interesting approach in communicating, letting go of the words and languages, but solely by our bodies.

Evolution of Media, Traditional to New Media

Moving away from traditional media, new media has changed interaction from a main source to its audiences to a peer-to-peer interaction system where audiences gets a say in affecting the transmission of information rather than a more top-down approach. The chat system throughout the symposium itself is an apt example of how the audiences get to interact with one another without directly interfering with the Internet performance itself. This further proves McLuhan’s idea where “the medium is the message”. The way the performance impacts its audiences is dependent on the medium in which it is used to convey the performance to its audiences. Take day 3 Jon Cates’ IGAIES for example. There were two types of audiences. One the physical audiences who got to view the the performance in real life and the online audiences who viewed IGAIES through Adobe Connect.

The chat box where online audiences get to interact with one another, discussing about the symposium without interrupting the speaker.

When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.” – Nicolas Tesla

Migrating as a village from physical to the virtual world, this village has accepted more people, more diversity than the old one – the global village. As we advance as a community, I wonder how Internet Art will continue to evolve in the future. This is merely a preface, my fellow netizens.

Additional Readings and References

Latency

Expanded Cinema

Marshall McLuhan Predicts The Global Village

Online En-semble: Entanglement Training, Annie Abrahams

The Third Space Network: Art of the Networked Practice – Program

Urban Dictionary – Do it For the Gram

Me and My Shadow – Joseph Hyde

The Language of New Media