Month: January 2017

The struggle of contamination

Master Zhao mentioned this one work by Tan Pin Pin where she visits sites in Singapore where people have died/have been killed. It sounded along the lines of what I was trying to achieve, so I went to look it up online:

The Impossibility of Knowing

Can a video camera can capture the aura of a space that has experienced trauma? I made a list of places I knew about where accidents had happened and we filmed them. But my camera did not “capture” anything. It could be due to the limitations of physics, but the canal remained a canal, the house, a house. Maybe the aura we sought doesn’t exist. Maybe you can see better than us.
– Tan Pin Pin, 2010

17-jalan-bataig

The film comprises of still shot after still shot of “traumatic” locations, accompanied by the natural sounds occurring in those spaces, with the deep, slow narration of the traumatic stories that accompany these spaces.

I agree with Tan that the camera is not able to much beyond the objective representation of the space. The “aura” that seeks to be imbued was only possible through the narration of the story associated with these places. The experience of said “aura” then comes through through the viewer’s own imaginations, a sort of “fill in the blanks”, a trying to picture what is not pictured.

Now, what am I to do with my contaminated spaces?

Evidently it doesn’t really work to just document these spaces. Something has to be done to it. Visually through altering the space/visually through providing accompanying texts/auditorily through narration.

But how do you elegantly depict what is invisible i.e. how does one depict aura?

How appropriate it is that Robert brought us to see this one show “WHAT IS NOT VISIBLE IS NOT INVISIBLE”.

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giphy
Hans Haacke, Blue Sail, 1965

I think of all that was there I really enjoyed this one the most. So poetically captures and imbues physicality to air. I think it was really smart of them to open the show with this first work. 10/10 (Y)

But how does one imbue physicality to “aura” and memory? Crei.

2 strands. Word Vomit.

The way you navigate the world is the way the world tells its story to you.

– Robert Zhao, 2017

Lately, I have become interested in stories. The whole idea of story-telling and its intricacies and mechanics started to make more meaning of itself in my head than before. There are no bad stories, only bad story tellers (this is an opinionated fact), so in my first assignment for Shifu Zhao this year, I will aim to be the best storyteller I can be.

I have two stories I might want to tell this time round. As of the typing of this post I am still trying to wrap my head around the execution of both because both seem like very abstract concepts to deal with, especially visually.

A story about noise.

For the longest time, I have been quite sensitive to sounds. (All other senses as well but sounds seem to affect me the most). They almost always trigger my physical body into a fight/flight state which is very sucky when I’m stuck in a situation that demands me to not run away from these triggers.

Repetitive sounds – pen clicking, rhythmic whoosh of cars passing by, knocking, loud keyboard typing, feet tapping etc.

And, whistling.

I have yet to consider where to even begin harvesting a story from this idea, but first instinct is to:

  1. Pair annoying trigger sounds with peaceful environments – disparity between what is experienced by the self and what is experienced by others.
  2. Overlaying massive amounts of noise together to make some sort of grotesque symphony of visual and auditory stimuli
  3. Make a pseudo-documentary of Steve (name changed) – a guy who whistles too much all the damn time fucking gets on my nerves fuck.

A story about contaminated spaces.

A thing happened recently that got me thinking about the spaces we occupy and the things we do in these spaces – and the subsequent memories that are formed through our interaction with people in these spaces. We tend to perceive spaces differently after having experienced either positive or negative (mostly negative/significant/impactful) interactions in them.

“You know, I hate that this room is contaminated now.”

“Yeah, memories.”

I think this idea could be much stronger than the other one. I will ask Robert tomorrow. Or Tuesday.

Again, I have yet to figure out ways to depict this visually, but again, first instinct is to:

  1. Photographic stills of spaces that are significant/contaminated to me/others. But how does the audience distinguish the contamination? Physical alteration of the photograph? (Draw things, cut things, blur things, erase things, add things) Or maybe it is the way the photograph is treated to bring out nostalgic effects? (Lighting/mood/composition)
  2. GIFs of the empty space, and the space altered – lapses of people/conversation floating omnipresent in the space
  3. A short film that conveys this concept through narrative and sequencing. A little bird told me that there is a film that has similar ideas to mine – Before Sunrise (1995) – I will find time to watch it soon.