Research

There are 4 posts filed in Research (this is page 1 of 1).

NO, REALLY, DON’T THINK TOO MUCH

 

2 lessons from the consultation with Michael:

1. Don’t speculate.

My initial idea include commentaries on how the library is a stressful place, how people don’t read the books.

But is it really?

All these perception perhaps only applies to small group of people.

It is a regret that I didn’t spend enough time in the library to understand and appreciate its true nature. I didn’t spend enough time observing what people do in the library, I didn’t spend enough time interviewing people on how they feel in the library.

2. Involvement of the space and experience

“You are focusing too much on the artwork”

Instead of using the space to create a work, what I did was creating a work to be exhibited in the space.

 

Based in the advice I worked out another idea:

The Conversational Flow Chart

People come to ADM library for various purposes, and there is a place for each activity in ADM library, some are bounded by the facilities and resources present, while others follows the unspoken rule we observe in the library.

My plan is to create a flow chart that spread across the floor of ADM library that engage the visitors in a conversation while directing them to different areas of the place.

This flow chart does not serve as a directory for visitor, but rather challenge them to think about their purpose of coming to the library, as well as high lighting some of the unspoken rules in the library, evoking thoughts on how they were derived.

 

Below is the initial plans for the flowchart. (Click to see details)

However the choice of dialogue used is not strong( or edgy) enough, and it seems to become a way-finding tool.

 

THIS IS HOME, TRULY (Footages)

I went on looking for footages to pair with the audio, the choice of almost-still images is to capture the scenes of mundane we see in the everyday life in Singapore, as well as to minimise distraction from the audio, below are the stills from the clips. (BUT TOO LAZY TO EDIT THEM FOR THE POST OOPS)

About moving abroad

hoping for the better but not actually knowing what’s in store 

it’s a billboard near my house for the new condo, the promising future we had in mind before moving abroad is often crushed by the harsh reality, here the idealistic nature of advertisement captures that naive hopefulness

About calling home from abroad

distancing from the family and friends

This is the public phone under HDB, sometimes I see foreign workers using them

 

 

About Asian food and home-cooked meal

Featuring mama Lin

Before Meredith mentioned, I didn’t notice how the hawker centre’s always filled with Chinese, she said she felt weird and alienated ordering food at hawker centre

(now that i think about it i probably could use editing and composition to make it look more overwhelming )

 

I was interviewing Meredith on the 28th , and she had to check the calendar before realising that it’s Chinese New Year for her


Also here’s the MOST HORRIBLE attempt at lou hei by my friends


Ms Huang Talking about settling here

being welcomed and finding purpose.

I wanted to use the windmill spinning fast in a stormy day to show that , like how Ms Huang did, sometimes we find our work more meaningful in more difficult environment

About being alienated, being neglected

A post of words describing words

When I ask Dawin what he thinks about library, he said there’s too much words and he’d prefer all information to be in the form of graphics.

Why are words important, why do we record things in words? What is the significance of texts?

library is where the knowledge from the past are being kept alive, where ideas are delivered from past to present via text on paper. Therefore the first round of research I did revolves around artist who deals with words.

Here are the selected artists and works from my research:

TEXT ON BILLBOARD IS A SILENT ROAR

Jenny Holzer

Truisms 

Truisms is a text series of nearly 300 aphorisms (or not) that Holzer had devised, with the intention of generating debate and evoking critical thoughts.  These sentences or phrases are printed on paper and pasted anonymously in public areas.  The project was later expanded to include more public communication device such as posters, stickers and t shirts. In 1982, the series of test were displayed, with time intervals between each sentences, on a LED signboard in Times Square.

IMHO, even though I do enjoy her list of sentences, the earlier presentation of the work did not appeal to me. There seems to be an intention to blur the distinction between everyday life and art, based on the crude and unrefined method of presentation. I can’t help but feel that, as thought provoking as the words are ( and as true as I find some of them are), the act of placing them in public domain using posters appears more as intervention, and printing them on shirts makes it seem like another product that tries to show off “individuality” using statement. (But again it might just be me being judgemental) When the presentation fails to do justice to the words, they fall short of the desired impact, and become just another statement you find during a protest or printed on commercial product.

In contrast to that, her most iconic medium, the LED lights, already has its implicatioin. The LED light sign board are usually designed for public announcement, be it for weather, time or traffic condition, while the billboard are usually for advertisements. None of them are designed to make personal statement or even slightly radical thoughts. That jarring difference between the nature of the message and the medium is what makes the viewers stop and go “what?” , allowing it to intrude the thoughts of the viewer and provoke thinking.

About the artist/ Text Source

List of sentences from the Truisms

WHAT IS TEXT WITHOUT MEANING

Xu Bing

Book from the sky

Upon entering the installation, one might be intimidated by the overwhelming presence of the words surrounding them. The words, black in colour, high in density, draping gently overhead, impose an invisible weight on the viewer.

In Chinese, Book from the sky (天书) is a term used to describe text or idea which are too difficult to understand. A closer look at the work would reveal to the viewer its nonsensical nature and how the work fit into this title. Every character found in the room is formed by elements of Chinese characters, making it look like Chinese. But none of them are existing Chinese word, rendering the sea text unreadable and impossible to comprehend.

The clear irony here draws a big question mark: why should there be words when we can’t read them?  What happens when we can’t read the existing words? The choice of medium, books and texts also brings to mind question regarding the significance of education and text. How does works and meaning appear in the eye of illiterate and foreigner?

About the work

TEXT GIVES MEANING, TEXT CREATES REALITY

Joseph Kosuth

One and Three Chairs

One of my peers once asked “What’s the point of writing about art, especially when people either ”

In One and Three Chairs, viewers are presented with three different forms of “chair”. An actual chair, a photograph of a chair and a dictionary explanation of the words “chair”. When all three forms are put side by side we can’t help but ask ourselves: which is a better representation of the chair itself?

“The actual chair is a chair because I am able to sit on it, it is able to fulfil its purpose.”

Does that mean being an artwork in the museum makes the chair not a chair , since the audience are not allowed to use it like a chair? In that case the actual chair is degraded to nothing more than the other two forms.

To me the work is simple and effective in provoking thoughts on reality.

What we see must be real. What we know must be real. What we touch and use must be real. But are they?

About the work

About the artist

 

SOMTIMES SHE TALKS TO ME AND I REPLY IN NOISES

Research on sound Art + Idea 1

 

FROM ACTION TO SOUND TO LANGUAGE

Nina Katchadourian

currently based in Brooklyn, NY

Talking Popcorn

 

http://www.ninakatchadourian.com/languagetranslation/talkingpopcorn.php

“ A microphone in the cabinet of the popcorn machine picks up sound of popping corn, and a computer hidden in the pedestal runs a custom-written program that translates the popping sounds according to the patterns and dictates of Morse Code. A computer-generated voice provides a simultaneous spoken translation.”

What interest me about the work is the nonsensical idea of trying to translate and understand sound generated by non-living object.   It playfully invite us to relook at how we communicate  through the sounds we made. How the sound we made are converted to languages, how language gives meaning to those sound and allow us to deliver complex ideas simply through the sounds we made.

 

FROM MARKS TO SOUND TO MUSIC

Melissa Tan

Singapore

“If you can dream a better world you can make a better world or perhaps travel between them”

melissa-tan 630x431xsingapore-biennale-thesmartlocal02-png-pagespeed-ic-ataxzyeaoe

https://www.singaporebiennale.org/melissa-tan.php

http://thesmartlocal.com/read/singapore-biennale-2016

 

A more poetic approach to similar process (of translation) by Singapore Artist, Melissa Tan. While the Talking Popcorn translate sound to meaning, Melissa Tan translate texture to sound via mark making and the mechanism of a music box. Both artist take spontaneous and non- living object, and translate their marks or actions into something meaningful by using a medium (morse-code/decoder and music box ). The illogical yet playful process fascinates me.

 

LANGUAGE:  SEEN _______ HEARD ______ SPOKEN______

Audra Wolowiec

currently based in Brooklyn, NY

(                      )

103787511-09072016-wolowiec-01-bomb-137

http://bombmagazine.org/article/748097/audra-wolowiec

“As the parentheses in the show’s title suggest, the exhibition placed the in-between spaces in spoken and written language at its center. How do we read (                      )? As silence? Parentheses? Space? Breath? A gap? Wolowiec is not presenting conclusions. She is inviting the viewer to investigate the ineffable.”

Okay I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this one , but what I like is how it makes you re- look at the way we translate text we see into the sound we make. Again questioning the meaning that comes with sound and the visual that evoke sound.

 

 

I was telling Michael all these without having any solid ideas, at the end of my babbling, he asked me to look at the brief (oh ya the brief oh shit)

“Don’t think too much” he said ” Just find the object “

“Okay” I replied ” I’ll think about it”

 

Idea 1: My Sound is Emo

Object: Printing Press (Found in 2D room)

How do we express in sound without words?

A cry? A scream? A sniff? A sigh? A laugh? What if we use sounds that are even more raw, sound that had less association or labels to them, what do they express?

Just like mark making, sound making can be used to express emotions. In this project the intention is to use printing press as a medium to create sound using different found materials.

The found materials will be made into a “music score sheets” in forms of a cardboard, zip lock bag or a box (description of examples on next page) and sent through the printing press to generate sound.

Each  given “score” will have number at the top corners which indicates the size of the gap that the “score” should pass through.

( Removable margin will be marked on the printing press for more precise adjustment) 

Other than using a single material in response to a specific emotion, different materials can also be used together to create a composed piece.

The aim, is not to showcase the scores made by the artist. The examples given merely serve as stimuli to open up more possibility of sound for the audience to create on their own.

By re-contextualise the sound heard in our everyday life, and realising their expressive quality, this project aims to heighten our awareness to the sound in the surrounding environment, and the quality of different sound in a playful and explorative way.

Examples of “Music score”:

Annoyed: two sand paper with the rough side facing each other

Disgusted: two metal sheets with loose clay particles in between

Distracted: pill box, with small magnets in each compartment, as it pass through the metal printing press, the magnet will (hopefully) create a “spontaneous percussion”

Fear: a plastic bag with raw, moist meat inside (NOPE MICHAEL SAID NO MISSION ABORT)

Despair: bamboo sticks ( bending and cracking of the stick)

Terms &conditions

The audience should feel free to use any found materials to make a “score sheet” to produce their own sound. (After all, the association between sound and emotions can be quite subjective) under the condition that :

  • The music score sheet should not damage the printing press,
  • The materials should be contained within the score sheet (no loose pieces dropping out)
  • No living thing (or part of it) should be sent through the printing press

Safety precaution:

  • The metal parts which will come in contact with the “score sheets” will be covered in metal sheets to prevent any potential scratching/ damage of the machine.
  • Warning labels will be placed to prevent audience from reaching their hands into the gap of the printing press.

 

For a very very long time we didn’t talk to each other, and when we meet again it’s as if we’ve lost the secret code that we never had.

She talks to me in words but they disintegrate before reaching my brain. I reply in noises, hoping that she will understand.