Monthly Archives: February 2018

Micro-Project 04: Exquisite Glitch

In this project, my team, Joseph, Dion and I, took turns to edit each other’s original photo. Through editing photos and transferring to the next person to edit them again using adobe photoshop and audition, layers of effects are collapsed. Each layer is creating a new form of its precursor. The collective image is a collaborative creative effort of each team member. By using different techniques due to our preferences and differences in software used, it adds on to the glitch transformation. The variety of these software editing tools contributed largely to the manipulation. As we decompose images, we are breaking down how much we are able to recognise our “self-portrait”, thus, the effects are seen as “distortions” to us.

01 Original Image

02 Edited by myself

Tools used in Adobe Photoshop: Intensive increase in colour saturation, distortion tool.

In this particular edit, decomposition of the image was clear, through the pixels that were created not by adding an effect but by increasing the colour saturation of a selected colour. Evidently, this process of breaking down could be seen in how the colours are segregated throughout the image.

03 Edited by Joseph

After Joseph’s edit, the pixels and noise were harsher and colours were more vivid. Only the distortion remained recognizable.

04 Edited by Dion

After Dion’s edit through Adobe Audition, the image segregated, adding on to the glitchiness.

05 Edited by myself (Final)

Tools used in adobe photoshop: Filter > Distort tool > Wave (random).

As the image was already heavily manipulated, I tried to use a different tool. I used the random function so as to embrace the glitch variation in the transformation. The random tool actually chops up the image even further, breaking the flow of shapes and colours from the previous image.

Altogether, it was an interesting and unique experience to edit images while embracing glitch art and not in pursuit of perfection.

Research Critique 02 – The Third Space

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To me, the third space is a space where realities are able to coincide due to technological advancements. It can also be a combination of a physical space and a remote space, where time and space is not relevant.

In this space, there are endless possibilities and many known boundaries are collapsed because of new innovations and a greater use of technology. People can supposedly interact with one another; yet, not being physically present. It allows us to experience the remote space on a greater level, incorporating our senses into this experience; sight, hearing, sound, and (seemingly) touch.

In Randall Packer’s article, The Third Space, he mentioned, it is the pervasiveness of distributed space and the degree and myriad of ways in which we are constantly connected. And from this ubiquitous state of shared presence we have come to inhabit an entirely new way of seeing via a fracturing of perception.

The term, shared presence, was what I felt, a reflection of telematic performances; the ability to feel one’s presence but not being physically there.

In my micro-project 3, Tele-Drift, Jia Ying and I created “Draw Together”. Draw Together allows participants to draw with someone else regardless of their location as long as they have a canvas. As they draw, they have to achieve their end goal together; to complete the drawing by contributing half/part of it.

In this project, there were no location boundaries and all we needed was a canvas and a live video function. Despite being in different locations, the involvement of more senses beyond sight and sound, the consistent first-person perspective of the canvas and the real-time aspect of the live video function created closeness and intimacy between the artists. While drawing, the object that is representative of the “third” body is the canvas itself. Although Jia Ying and I were not able to coordinate our hand gestures while we were drawing, I felt that the canvas spoke for us as the “third” body as we were interacting through pen and paper.

In Maria Chatzichristodoulo’s Cyberformance article, Paul Sermon mentioned, “The ability to exist outside of the users own space and time is created by an alarmingly real sense of touch that is enhanced by the context of the bed and caused by an acute shift of senses in the telematic space.” About his Telematic Dreaming (1993) performance.

Amongst all the telematic performances, I felt that Telematic Dreaming prevailed as the most impactful and intimate piece of work. In comparison with my tele-drift project, with the context of the canvas (vs the bed), it was evident that having an intimate object was more impactful.

Micro-Project 03 – Tele-Drift

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Posted by Kai Ting on Wednesday, 31 January 2018

In this micro-project, I worked with Jia Ying and we created “Draw Together”. “Draw Together” allows participants to draw with someone else and as they draw, they have to achieve their end goal together; to complete the entire drawing by contributing half of it. At the start, we determine what to draw by contributing a word each. Eg. “Fat” and “Cat”. Depending on the words written by one person, the drawing varies. The outcome would then be a collective drawing by both.

In this case, the third space for us would be the drawing itself. Most of the time, we were focusing more on connecting the drawing rather than the movement and coordination of our hands. Although it might be a good idea, we realised that one of us is left-handed. Thus, we could only choose between – bad hand coordination or a scribbly cat drawn by someone who didn’t use their master hand. On the bright side, as the drawing looked pretty similar and complete, it looked as if the drawing was a piece itself rather than in entirely different locations.

The first person point of view used, in this case, created more intimacy throughout. As compared to having a camera placed from afar and looking at it from a third person’s perspective, this first person’s perspective helped to achieve an intimate and natural look; as though the viewer is looking at him/herself drawing.

Based on the examples shown in class, Guilty Landscapes (2016) by Dries Verhoeven and Telematic Dreaming (1993) by Paul Sermon, I felt that the projected visuals were key to creating an impactful third space in real time as they connected people and had more involvement.

Jia Ying and I faced some challenges while we were doing this micro-project. Other than the left-handed issue, we initially wanted to play tic-tac-toe on paper using the split screen. However, due to the split screen, we could not plot the Xs and Os across the other screen. Also, it could be interesting if the canvas filled the entire video space and there were more than 2 participants. With this, participants are able to connect their drawings not just side by side, but from all sides. Nonetheless, this micro-project was an interesting one to work on.

Research Critique 01/Micro-Project 02 – Crowd-Sourced Time-Based Art

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Colour, is not just a visual perception. Colour is a silent language and is visceral; it is more intuitive than rational. Why is red perceived as a colour associated with anger? And for blue, sadness. Colour psychology has shown that hues are determinants of the human behaviour. Not only do colours influence perception, they evoke emotions as well.

Survey by SurveyLegend

“How is ADM Feeling Today?” is a collaborative crowdsourced artwork where the participants, our classmates, cast votes via a link, (click here to access the poll), based on their current mood. The poll options consist of a variety of colours and each colour represents an emotion.

As our classmates cast their votes, the main screen displays a colour: the averaged colour based on their responses. When our classmates were voting, colours shifted to a cooler shade as the majority of them voted for restless (green) and sad (blue). Eventually, neutral (white) prevailed as the most voted mood and the colour shown on the screen became pastel teal. Cumulated responses in real time depict the colour that will be shown on screen, thus, answering the question – How is ADM feeling today?

Colour picker from Colour Aurlien.

By using a collaborative approach to create art, we are open to endless possibilities of experiencing something new. As mentioned from Marc Garrett’s article on D.I.W.O (Do-It-With-Others), a willingness to transform our ideas and intentions not solely based on ‘proprietorial’ dependencies, and a fetish for the ‘New’, allows space for ‘different versions of the new’ and ‘old’ dialogues to evolve. This enables the embracing of holistic gradations and interactions with others, which also include differences; possibilities and diversities connecting with ecology and a variant of creative expressions (Garrett, 2014).

Relating to the article, expressing moods using colours and visuals can be an innovation and collaborative way to create greater social awareness and to know how others are feeling. How often do we express ourselves to others, especially in this digitalized world? Although it may not be much, we can bridge the gap between solely peer-to-peer interaction and digitalized mediums. Instead of asking the class verbally, “How is everyone feeling today?”, we could change it up and ask them through this collaborative experience. James Wallbank, in his essay for ISEA in 2010, wrote: “Creativity transforms value”. And, really, nothing is as valuable as experiencing and building these interpersonal relationships through art.

Screenshot of The Sheep Market.

The value is the artwork itself; a collective art piece. A similar art piece, The Sheep Market (2006) by Aaron Koblin is a collection of 10,000 sheep created by workers on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Each worker was paid $.02 (US) to “draw a sheep facing left”. This artwork “enables online users to contribute a tiny part of a large project” and “have little knowledge of what the larger finished product will be” (OSS, 2018). Both the contribution and anticipation of the collective final piece were aspects that “How is ADM Feeling Today?” adopted. As said, the value would be seeing the results; be it rewarding, satisfied, expected or unexpected. An example would be that as our classmates voted and the final colour, pastel teal, was shown on screen, it surprised Lei, who voted for happy (yellow). For people who voted for neutral (white), sad (blue) or restless (green), like myself, it may come off as an empathetic experience; having the same mood reassures me that I am not the only one feeling restless that day.

Altogether, my group (myself, Dion and Ying Hui) felt that this microproject encapsulated the essence of D.I.W.O. As both creators and participants of “How is ADM Feeling Today?”, it was a fun and insightful project to both work on and learn from. Some of the things that I felt that could have been improved are the technical capabilities and the scale of the crowdsourcing. Firstly, the change in colours was done manually. If we could make it change automatically according to the variable (number of votes) by using hex colour codes, it would have been a more complete and interactive piece. Secondly, if the coding mentioned above works, this artwork could be done in a way larger scale – from just G04 to the entire school, or even worldwide.