Project 4 (Research)

The Artist is Present by Marina Abramovic

The Artist Is Present, is an extended performance that aimed to extend the length of a performance beyond expected so as to alter our perception of time and foster a deeper engagement in the experience. Abramovic was seated silently across the table and the audience could sit in the performance to lock eyes with the artist. This performance lasted nearly over 3 months, for 8 hours each day. “She met the gaze of 1,000 strangers, many of whom were moved to tears.”  (MoMa, 2010)

Subject: An intimate exchange with strangers

Form: Artist, physical space and interaction

Context: The disconnected society brought about by the rapid and instant gratification that technology provides

Content: A silent human interaction

Abramovic challenged the “socially accepted” measured time period of a performance art so as to engage the audience better. She also toyed with experienced time as this piece was deeply emotional thus making the experience for every individual personal and unique. For die-hard fans of hers, it was probably a time that flew by since they would be deeply enthralled to simply be in the presence of their idolised persona. For apathetic visitors, a single minute could have felt like an eternity as they would not have been emotionally invested in the performance. She is also known for pushing the limits of her biological clock, as seen in her often excruciatingly prolonged performances, for instance, Relation in Time.

 

XYZT by Adrien M and Claire B

With the use of light projection, graphics and sensor motion detectors, Adrien and Claire created an interactive installation that allows visitors to create or destroy their space and environment. The graphics react to the motion of these visitors, which then affect the space in immediate and reactionary ways. (Vice, 2016)

Subject: Motion-censored light show

Form: Light, Space, Motion

Content: Interactive light show

The interactive piece can be seen here: XYZT – 2015

The couple manipulates experienced time by engaging the audience in an immersive light show thereby, making the measured time spent at the exhibition feel shorter than it would.

Evaluation of both artworks: Both artists manipulate measured time in their exhibition through experienced time. However, Abramovic lets into the different possibilities of experienced time more than Adrien and Claire since Abramovic allows the visitors to have full autonomy over their experience while Adrien and Claire deliberately construct an experience that visitors should go through; to be enthralled and engaged in the light show.

In-class assignment: Clock Time

I wanted to manipulate experienced time by documenting the varied pace of occurrences within the same time period of 5 seconds.

The first 5 seconds clip shows a stopwatch going off and stopping at the 5 seconds mark. This is so as to give the audience a gauge of what a neutral and objective time of 5 seconds would feel like. The second clip shows a woman blinking so as to set the pace with a “slow” activity. The next clip shows Marc letting out a long breath of smoke to signal an increase in activity and pace. The third clip presents Jia Xi pacing slowly towards the camera. At this juncture, the pace of the video quickens with the next clip capturing the door meter beeping furiously. The last clip is a panning shot of a car wheezing by, thereby elevating the pace and activity to a heightened level.

The video can be accessed here; https://vimeo.com/user23065571/review/296388487/ab9f5e3c6d

 

 

Project 3: Impossibilities of Being

 

Critique:

Positive

  1. Good and intentional choice of colours
  2. Bold attempt to tell a story within 1.5 mins
  3. Presence of a storyline that works as a metaphor for oppression in reality

Improvements

  1. The ending could be clearer
  2. Lesser reliance on text; it’s disconcerting when the audience has to vacillate between listening and reading in the film.
  3. Lesser reliance on a single soundtrack to convey the setting of the film

 

Project 3: Impossibilities of Being (Process)

Conceptualisation

I knew that I didn’t want to simply explore the sights and sounds of a fantasy setting/world as I was afraid that I couldn’t retain my audience’s attention. Thus I thought of a few storylines as seen below:
Only gifted children are born with a voice box, desperately sought after by the society.
  • child grew up in an environment where emanating sound is forbidden; parents teach child to feign being mute to fit in and as protection
  • child grows up and realises the beauty of her own voice; spends time alone to relish in the freedom of singing
  • gets caught one day by neighbours as a “vocal”
  • dad sacrifices himself in place; turns out the child inherited her vocal abilities from her dad
Living in a world where everyone’s hearing abilities have been altered at birth to be impaired.
  • society signs and lives in peace and tranquillity
  • protagonist’s hearing “kit” breaks down one day and starts to hear distant wailing, gunfires, and explosion
  • follows this sound and realises that bulk of sound comes from outside the city walls
  • massacre going on outside the walls, govt hiding this
Evidently, I went ahead with my first idea which I partly regret now as the second storyline could have been easier to execute and would have given me a greater contrast between the two soundscapes before the hearing “kit” fails and after.
The main inspiration for the film was A Quiet Place. It was interesting how John Krasinski (JIM FROM THE OFFICE YAYY OFFICE PRIDE) could create tension and a storyline with the lack of sound. Thus I wanted to take on this silent approach as well.

Execution

Illustrated storyboard:

The film starts off with the protagonist introducing herself by using sign language. Here, the audience would have assumed that the protagonist is mute or would have an inkling of an unusual/dytopian setting. This was further emphasised with the non-diegetic soundtrack playing in the background.

 

                      

The reason for picking the complimentary colours, orange and blue, was for its high contrast and symbolism. The dark shades of blue represent the oppression and uniformity of the mute community while orange represented the expression and energy.

 

Soundscape:

Initially, I wanted to narrate the storyline as I was afraid that the illustrations could not convey the storyline well enough. However, after consulting serena, she made a valid point on how the storytelling could be better executed if there was a lack of narration so as submerge the audience in the dytopian world of verbal silence. Thus, I relied more on text to tell the story which was again another folly (expounded further in Final post).

The sounds used in the film were royalty free clips I sourced from the web, mainly youtube.

Backtrack: The first track sounds ephemeral and lighthearted so as to induce a rather peaceful and calm emotion in the audience. The use of asynchronous and non-diegetic sounds is often employed in montages that use slice-of-life storytelling. Juxtaposed against the lack of a backtrack and sole reliance on diegetic sounds later, this creates acute tension in the incident, leading up to the climax.

Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFWLe9_R2Fc&t=988s

 

 

Noise, Listen, Sound and Silence

Today, we did a short performance that allows us to dabble with different facets of sound, mainly noise, sound, silence and listening.

We interpreted noise as an auditory experience that you can’t tune out or escape from even if you wanted to. Sound as a sound wave that your eardrums picks up, but have yet to be interpreted. Silence as ambience noise since silence is impossible if one has hearing abilities. And lastly, listening as an act in which you interpret of your auditory experience.

In this class exercise, we arranged a series of clips that started out with static television noise, the imaginary sound of a balloon popping, the ambience of a rainy day and a visual of the same static. This is so as the ambient noise of the rain is similar to tv static so we decided to screen a visual of static so that our audience can draw parallels between the two sensory experiences and interpret the sound as static instead of rain.