Hyperessay – Chuwypotter

First Eva Telematic Lunch

Telematic Lunch: Singapore

Welcome to the Telematic Lunch by Anam, Win Zaw, Mirei and Isaac. This project has gone through multiple amendments from the very beginning to this final video. During our brainstorming process, we had very interesting ideas that were very ambitious. Taking inspiration from A Hole in Space by Galloway and Rabinowitz, we had the idea of having a live match making session and third space dinner after. Win Zaw and Anam had the idea of a podcast with green screens exploring the idea of third-spaception (like inception, get it? haha). After much iterations, we decided on a telematic lunch, which had components of what we discussed pulled together to form this unique piece. Alas, we were the first artists who ate, played a few rounds of “never have I ever” and had a conversation with, along with an obvious cameo from a looping neon star in the outer third space on Win Zaw – a three layer third space a.k.a. Third-spaception.

As my friends and I highlighted that A Hole in Space was a huge inspiration for this piece, I would like to talk about how another piece/group, I felt, was a major contributor to our Telematic Lunch – Second Front and their Last Supper and Heist performances. I felt that what we did was heavily attributed to the exposure of Second Front’s work, in that we were all performing in the third space, had an alter-ego on board and had that very important element of improvisation in Telematic Lunch. Definitely we took it to the next level by incorporating ourselves in the piece and added layers to it with chroma-keying and ate and drank real food, which you think about now, is like eating a third space food, like that in the Last Supper. In that very similar aspect there was also an element of super-participation involved with 4 individuals interacting in their actual self in the third space instead of using animated personas which I thought was rather spectacular that we managed to incorporate in a live setting:)

Of course there goes without a doubt that we’ll face technical issues for our piece.

Space & Aligning

I was mostly involved in the adjustment of the spaces we were using to feed into our obs screen while everyone else set up the tables, chairs and cloth for the chroma-key. (you might ask why? I had a very good reason for that, I was getting the piping hot, cheesy, crust-zesty pizzas for our telematic lunch). So anyway, back to what I was doing. Adjusting the spaces was very tough albeit our previous live-test/rehearsal. Getting the angle right and distance from the phone/laptop to where we were sitting was crucial to creating a space where viewers could believe we are all sitting at the same table. We used the pizza boxes (cut into quadrants) as reference points for our alignment process. At the same time, we allowed for some misalignment to add to the fact that it was a chroma-keyed live feed but mostly because this was as best as we could align our screens.

Connections

This is where it got me frustrated. Yes, it is a given that running OBS and live feeds will cause latency to increase. However, as we inserted the live feed into the screen to make adjustments. It was such a pain because we had to wait for 20 seconds to a minute to be able to see the corrections. This further prolonged our set up time. To add on to that, there was a constant disruption to the live feed running in OBS and I had to always refresh the pages and that meant a realigning of the spaces to fit everyone in nicely. (Not turning my phone to airplane mode was also a disaster because I received 2-3 calls and this also disrupted my feed which explains multiple instances where you don’t see me in the screen:(

Here you can see an example of the disruption

Communication

One other interesting factor to our Telematic Lunch was that all of us could not see each other (except myself because I was managing the stream on OBS). This emulated the idea of being distant but at the same time connected in a third space as we explored human interaction in a collective space. The Big Kiss (by Annie Abrahams – featured strangers over the third space to kiss without any form of physical contact but largely by the aligning of their lips to make it look like they were kissing) was a very small but significant reference that contributed to the success of our Telematic lunch. As I write this, other examples came to mind. Virtual Reality is also very similar in the same way and I think this (physical interaction) is something that many manufacturers are looking into incorporating in the near future as this offers the user to interact in a real-world simulation setting.

We communicated via Skype so that everyone could play Never Have I Ever and also have a conversation together. This also allowed me to give instructions to my teammates on their body placement and gestures for our piece (as seen in the start and end of the video)

With all the technical difficulties faced, I must say that we did overcome them with much despair along the way but it was worth going through it. Because as I write this post, flashes of what was taught in class kept appearing and caused me to lose my train of thoughts. But, it is a good thing. It felt like we had experienced almost everything mentioned in class in one setting for our final project and we were able to experience first-hand how the artists felt during the course of executing their works, which more often than not, we do not get to see or read about.

This brings me to another point on improvisation and dealing with technical difficulties. Bold3rrr came to mind. Though not at all glitchy, Telematic Lunch has had multiple instances where I had to deal with our feed cutting off live and also interacting and performing. I was constantly going back and forth my phone screen and laptop and it really felt like what Jon Cates was going through, except he was much better experienced in dealing with them while I wasn’t. Much of my “panic” was due to huge latency involved. Whenever I have to refresh a page and readjust the placement of the feed, it takes 2-3 minutes just to get it back. On top of that, I am constantly hearing the feed from the live video and also our Skype conversation and this made it hard to identify which questions to reply because of the lag. So many thing were happening at once.

Nonetheless, this made me realise that this whole idea about live performance and in a third space is something like living inside your mind. Where there are constant disruptions (to your train of thoughts) and stuck in this void with endless possibilities that may or may not ruin your performance. In closing I would like to quote Liz from Second Front:

“The tech has really evolved and no one knows the boundaries and as tech emerges, it is important to keep in mind what this tech is doing and is absolutely rewiring the brain and there is a difference in how media is consumed in the social spaces online” Liz, Second Front live interview with Randall Parker, 2017.

And it is because of this – that we are only as capable as how we think, that I am confident we will see exponential progress in this field in the years to come as we are more exposed to third space performances since they are the visual articulation of our imagination.

Thank you to Mirei who did the setting up of the spaces and monitoring the collective feed on you mobile phone; Win Zaw for the awesome idea and green suit; anam for the leadership and direction as well as logistical support for making this a huge success! Many other smaller things they have done but I’ve listed the main ones here. Do view their posts to read in detail how they have contributed to this successful performance:)

Anam

Win Zaw

Mirei

At the end of it all, I felt that this was a really tiring but satisfying performance as I was able to experience the concepts Randall had gone through with us and this allowed me to better understand them and empathise with the artists who did their performances. Pizza was great, the company was awesome and I am happy with our result:) Thank you Randall for an amazing semester! Look forward to more pizzas:)

Research critique: Jennicam

Prior to Jennicam, there were two other “live camera” web series (Trojan Room Coffee Camera and a fish camera) which were inspirations that Jenny borrowed from. The coffee camera allowed people in University of Cambridge (old computer laboratory) to know if there were still coffee in the dispenser so they don’t have to climb up 7 storeys for nothing. (superbly smart idea). Then there was the fish camera which literally just did like what the name suggests.

What initially struck me when I first review this piece was that it actually resembled that of a security guard watching from a panel a group of CCTVs.

And what Jennifer did was just that. An open surveillance into her personal life. What made this piece such a hit was the idea of letting the whole world into her life and without any form of pretentious factor. (or is it?)

In any case, Jenny confronted the idea of what privacy meant to her and more importantly, how significant it was to others when they watch it and think about it. She placed cameras around her house and did anything and everything she wanted to do like she would normally. And, this whole idea of doing nothing or just watching someone else do something was actually entertaining. People would tune in her broadcast while they did house chores.

And then I gathered that people were actually intrigued by what she does because firstly, they had some form of comparison as to what they were doing on a daily basis. Secondly, it invites curiosity from viewers to find out what she was doing and what she would do next. Thirdly, this allowed the viewers to get to know who Jenny was. What kind of a person she was from her behavior and the things that she does. And very often, these are all very relatable events that add up to why this was such a big thing then.

“In short, Ringley is the “Ed” of the Internet. She has dedicated her life to being an open book, a voluntarily Orwellian existence that allows strangers a peek of her at the height of passion, or more likely, sitting in front of her computer, staring blankly at the screen as she works at her real job, a freelance gig designing Web sites.” – By Jamie Allen
CNN Interactive Senior Writer

This has since inspired what we now call “V-logging” and and this time it allowed for more interaction with both viewers and users, with the vlogger talking through the screen and viewers leaving a comment. And I guess that the inquisitivity of human nature remains, only that now, the privacy that vloggers now face were greater and are subjected to more public scrutiny. This made them stronger as an individual and I guess this is something I think we would a want to take away from the live feeds we have been doing in this class as well. 🙂

[H Y PE RR E S S AYY] – Colourful Digits

Colourful Digits

Internet Art. Freedom. Expressionism. Equality. Devilish. – These are topics that I could come up with when I think “Internet Art“. What. is. Internet Art?

Allow me to share what I initially thought of Internet Art. I thought that there wasn’t any meaning to it and found that it was for the most part “artistic” or “cool-in-a-different-way-kinda”. Internet Art, did not convince me that it was a thing. I refused to recognise this as an art form.

As we got deeper into the different concepts, I was still hesitant but I had a better understanding of it and made some sense out of it. Basically these are the concepts covered but listed based on my own interpretation summarised.

Internet Art: Expressionism with the freedom to use any technology available to help convey the message or art direction in an easier way for the general masses to interpret yet room to have multiple understandings based on each individual’s intellect of the world and on-goings on a digital platform which may or may not necessarily be reproduced in print or any other representations.

So, Internet Art has got a meaning. But why the revelation?

Empowerment:

Alternate media or anything other than mainstream media allowed for ideas and concepts to be publically expressed in any way deemed possible subjected to technological limitations. The best part about this limitation was that it pushed one to explore “work-arounds” to solve the problems. Videofreex was a good example with this. They used what was available to them coupled with their idea on how they feel media could be done right, made them such a huge success. This allowed people of the general masses have their voices heard and also take ownership of their own work. This empowered them.

https://media.giphy.com/media/xUA7aMcImWHJ5tD9h6/source.gif

Ispossible:

Because of the advent of Internet Art, or for that matter, Internet, many things that were once imaginary was now possible to materialise despite it still being fictional. Before, we could not show others what they were thinking in their mind but with the advancements, we can do that. And this opens up so many possibilities that could one day exist in this physical world. Take Hole in Space by Kit Galloway & Sherrie Rabinowitz for example. People from a different time space can now communicate through a shared dimension in the third space. I would say that this was revolutionary in bringing individual ideas and having the possibility to turn them into collaborative ideas. It allowed for communities to grow in their own concepts. Think of this as the visualisation of what goes on inside the brains of many individuals as a result of a collaborative piece.

Relativity

Does it ever occur to you that you are nothing but a number? Or that you are just a speck of dust in this vast universe? Do you think you really matter? Can your voice actually be heard by others? Who are you?

I would like to draw a link between Internet Art and Relativity as a concept or theory. (Based on my own interpretations) The Third Space is like a canvas, very much like a universe (if you do believe it exists) and, we are one small little living matter drawing energy within it. This space that we can’t touch but only see is ever so powerful because it is limitless. The extent to which you can do anything is beyond imaginable. And this is how relativity falls into place. How we interpret our surroundings and how we believe we belong gives us meaning in this world. Of the past 6-7 weeks, the pieces that we were involved in gave us a footing. Take the collaborative piece we did on Flickr and on Adobe Connect for example.

I felt like we were more than just numbers and specks of dust. There were people viewing and/or listening to what we put out and that felt wonderful. Using OBS to broadcast and to interact or involve others further allowed me to discover myself.

Cross streaming and FB live opened further a world of possibilities of interaction and based on the history of Internet Art and Culture, it will challenge the notion of what freedom of speech actually means and the values and cultures that comes with it. Social Broadcasting, as an extension of Hole in Space, is an epitome of what to expect of The Third Space. What Win Zaw and I initially came up with was to play charades but soon was hit by the limitation of bandwidth. We then thought of doing a live portrait collective by interviewing random people we find around the school. The concept worked but the hardware was the limitation.

And, this made me realise, like what I mentioned in my earlier posts, that concepts had remained stagnant while technology improved, may not be true afterall. I would like to believe that, Internet Art and Culture’s concepts did evolve with the shift in cultures and so did technology. However, technology, perhaps, was not improving fast enough to support our ideas. Maybe, this whole Third Space concept, is all about the pursuit of what never is. And that because of this, we drive the advancements in technology we constantly see.

Now What?

But amongst all these concepts and ideas, one thing remains evident. A boundless space for the manifestation of creativity. Then again, because of the nature of Internet Art, very often, there is no particular set boundary as to what Internet Art is defined by and thus, this draws variation in opinions of an artwork. Which, therefore is debatable.

Inspirations/references:
https://hyperallergic.com/263538/best-of-2015-our-top-10-works-of-internet-art/
http://www.complex.com/style/2013/04/25-internet-artists-you-need-to-know/an-xiao
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140326-how-has-the-internet-changed-art