Foundation 4D – G9 (Monday)

There are 16 posts filed in Foundation 4D – G9 (Monday) (this is page 1 of 2).

Project 4: Poetics of Time (Final)

Prison of Time

Final Installation

Video documentation: https://youtu.be/snW68zRyUVo

What is it about?

This installation shows how linear time wears down on memories. It explores the treachery of time, in terms of its linear and forward motion. At this point in time, we are but prisoners to time as we cannot return to a specific moment in time to change or relive an experience. Hence, we can only rely on our memory which is a collection of memories. Yet, these memories are still subjected to the passing of linear time in which our recollection becomes estranged over time. Though with the advent of technology, we can relive experiences to some extent. That being said, we are still trapped in the present due to our inability to turn back the clock hence we can only settle for a representation of the past; in the form of photographs and videos.

What has inspired you?

This installation that I chanced upon on Pinterest, gave me a physical translation of the passage of time. From this installation, I built upon this physical embodiment and came up with the concept of the Prison of Time.

Are you trying out a new concept or a continuation?

Yes. This is a new concept as I realize that my previous projects couldn’t be applied to this project directly.

What do you intend to communicate to your audience?

I wish to convey the hopelessness that I feel in regards to our captivity to time. Time is impartial. It wears down on our memories, regardless good or bad. Hence, I hope that my audience would remember to cherish the present and to simply be fully present in the moment, as cliché as it sounds.

What is innovative or new about it?

The literary aspect to the installation sets it apart from other physical translations on the passage of time. This is so as my opinions of time acts as the crux of the installation, hence the audience isn’t left to their interpretation during the installation but are instead deciphering mine.

What am I making or producing?

A projection that screens a time lapse of a sunrise (mentioned in the poem) on a series of frosted screens; to represent the passage of time. The projection of the sunrise becomes blurrier across the screens which represent how time wears down on our memories.

Sunrise: https://vimeo.com/user23065571/review/301623355/7a13e1d171

This poem will be played in their earpieces, to create an intimate space between the audience and me.

The respective stanzas in the poem reflect on linear time accordingly,

  1. Time moves forward, Passing by quickly
  2. Unable to return, we are stuck in the present
  3. Technology has allowed us to relive some of our memories but we’re still its prisoners

Poem:

Rhythm is explored in the form of literary, in which there’s a repetition of the phrase “Time O Time”. The constant and weary repetition throughout the poem makes the audience akin to Time, like that of an old companion. This emphasizes the omnipresence of time in our lives and its overbearing weight on us, such that we will never be free until we pass on.

Soundscape: Poem on the linear passage of time with the use of the diegetic sound of the camera flash to signal the use of camera and technology

Length of time experienced: About 1 minute

Describe the materials and equipment used:

  1. Projector
  2. Table
  3. Frosted file sleeves – screens
  4. Mounting Board – stand for the screen
  5. Audience’s earpieces/headphones

In Class Assignment: Project 3 review

  1. Rhythm
    1. Before the climax, a constant rhythm was achieved with the soundtrack playing in the background. Given that it was an ambient mix, it was able to set a calm and lighthearted mood to the story.
    2. Later the rhythm was broken with a halt in the backtrack and a sudden resounding deep bass. This irregularity leaves the audience confused and anxious as a result. This works well in signalling a plot twist which was applied in my project.
  2. Movement
    1. I don’t think I’ve successfully applied movement to my soundtrack as most of the sounds seemed flat and only faded in and out for the ease of hearing on the user. I could have directed my audience more intentionally with my sounds so as to add interest to my soundtrack. For instance, the incident and climax of the story could be better narrated if I used arranged the whimpers of the mom, daughter and father’s heavy breathing in the sequence as mentioned. This gives the audience a visual understanding of the space while adding details and interests to my soundscape.
  3. Causality
    1. With a narrative, I was able to meet the audience’s expectations in a logical and systematic manner. This was intentional so that my audience could follow the progression of events and emotions. However, I did try to toy with the causality of the plot was the audience expected the daughter to be caught but it turns out that the father could speak too and sacrificed himself in her place. The plot did, however, end on an ambiguous note with the father being dragged out of the house, leaving the audience guessing.
  4. Duration
    1. The duration of the project was unfortunately too short for my narrative to be told comprehensively. Moreover, the ending was hasty which led to an unclear ending. I would have extended my film by 10 seconds more to better narrate the ending.

10 seconds in-class assignment

Don’t want to encounter for more than 10 seconds
1 a wet fart (sound and smell)
2 a creepy old uncle climaxing in my ear (sound)
3 metal scratching against glass (sound)
4 fingernails on glass (sound)
5 domestic violence, woman screaming and crying (sound)
6 snakes slithering all over me (visual and tactile)
7 a person shitting, ass pov (visual)
8 beastiality (visual and sound)
9 decay of human flesh (smell & visual)
10 a rape scene (visual and sound)
11 alarm clock going on and on, with no respite (sound)
12 police siren going on in the dead of the night (sound)
Want to encounter for more than 10 seconds
13 a beautiful man working out
14 ice cream
15 things falling in line
16 beautiful scenery
17 a beautiful lady working out
18 a documentary about saline
19 beautiful corals
20 cute kittens
I picked police siren going on in the dead of the night because it suggests an ominous ending, and leaves the audience’s minds to run wild after. Since a police siren going off in the middle of the night usually suggests some sense of danger and crime lurking in the dark, it creates an ominous emotion in people, leaving them more unsettled than say, an alarm going off.

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.

Project 1: Curating Self

Component 1: Me

Component 1.1: This mid-shot that captures me performing the most mundane and unglamorous of activity, in which every living being partakes in, pooping. I chose to construct this image to convey the message that I’m candid and frank. Given that pooping is such a vulnerable act in which one’s putrid body waste is literally being expelled, one can do little to glamourise this act. Thus, by exhibiting this sight of me to my audience, I’m, therefore, candid and frank.

 

Component 1.2: This mid-shot shows a stapler stuck in a chunk of jelly which is in reference to my favourite TV series, The Office. I constructed this image to convey my love for odd and satirical humour. This reference includes one of my favourite characters, Dwight who is nothing but an oddball and wildcard. Dwight is a satirical character who takes life so seriously, such that it becomes completely humorous and comedic. Thus, this is my tribute to my favourite TV series.

 

Component 1.3: This long shot shows a sight from underwater and captures both the reflection of the bed of the pool as well as the ceiling of the swimming complex. I wanted to convey my love for the waters as it feels liberating both in a literal and metaphoric sense as it feels like a different dimension. Thus, the decision to include both the reflection and the ceiling in the picture to highlight the dissonance and detachment I feel when underwater.

 

Component 2: Object and representation of self

Component 2.1: This mid-shot shows an ice cream melting and disintegrating. Ice-creams have always been a constant companion in my life, especially in times of celebration and loss. Thus, I’ve manipulated the ice cream to reflect my emotional state specifically in times of sorrow and brokenness.

 

Component 2.2: This picture captures the vulnerability that I shared with the ice cream in this intimate moment. The act of relishing in an ice cream has always been a cathartic experience for me, or simply a form of escapism for that few minutes. The old and ragged, oversized army shirt is a typical attire that I feel most comfortable; which brings emphasis to the intimacy shared. The wide use of negative space also represents the sacred and initmate moment exchanged.

 

Component 2.3: This close-up shows me licking the ice-cream in an almost sensual manner. This again is to emphasise the vulnerable and intimate relationship that we share.

 

Component 3: My World

Component 3.1: This long-shot captures a common sight I see underwater. I wanted to convey the fear that gripped me when I tried to pick up swimming initially. I used to be terrified at the thought of being completely submerged in water for long periods of time simply due to the inability to breathe underwater. Thus, I constructed this image such that the viewer follows the leading lines (lane markings) into the unknown depths of the pool, thereby instilling a sense of anxiousness and fear in them as well.

 

Component 3.2: This mid-shot shows me with my arm stretches out, performing a freestyle stroke. It represents the vigour of the sport and more so, the spirit of perseverance I exercised. This stretched-out posture conveys some sense of strive and resilience. Moreover, by changing the POV of the camera, I was able to meet the camera’s gaze thereby making my struggle more relatable.

 

Component 3.3: This extreme long shot depicts me lying face-up in the vast empty pool. The waters which seemed so daunting to me initially is now a space of solitude and solace for me. This is seen in me floating on my back which is only possible in a state of complete rest. The vast empty shot of the pool emphasises the isolation and peace I gain from being underwater.