Micro-Project 6: A Day in the Life of Super-Participation

(In collaboration with Clara, Minjee, Tanya, and Youlmae)

24 hours on social media… In the beginning, that sounded really fun. Oh boy, was I wrong…

Courtesy of Clara Cheng

Rules of the Tangy Young Classy Fine Mingoes:

  1. to post an update every 30 minutes for 24 hours on the Facebook Page
  2. to appear to be having a conversation with each other on the page
  3. use as many ways possible to show the updates

I felt that before this project I was already sorta addicted to checking social media (more of a nothing-better-to-do/boredom thing). But after this project, I had a realization that actually my addiction isn’t as bad as I thought it was.

Having my phone around with me 24/7, social media is available to me with just a click of a button.

However, I realized that my dependency on social media was more towards an entertainment platform rather than communication. For example, I would rather be scrolling through social media reading memes, than posting tweets about what I did.

At first, the idea of updating people about what I was doing every 30 minutes, did not feel like a challenge. But as I was constantly updating, I realised how this act was disrupting my day-to-day activities.

In the beginning, I felt that my group members and I were excited to start this project.

But eventually, everyone got sick and tired of having to stop whatever they were doing to post something.

On that day, I was at the Asian Civilisation Museum for my Art History research,  I couldn’t even appreciate the artworks properly because I was busy looking at the clock to check whether it was time to post. Imagine trying to appreciate art, but there is something in the back of my mind, constantly thinking “has it been 30 minutes yet?”

It was a fun first experience, I’ve really never updated anybody on my whereabouts or what I was doing for 24/7.

Was it an invasion of my privacy?

Hmm… Nope, not to me. Because I still had control over what I want to post.

Will I ever do this again?

Hell no.

 

Micro Project 7: Video Selfie (Marina Abramovic)

Based on Marina Abramovic’s Rhythm 10 performance at a festival in Edinburgh in 1973.

She lays twenty different knives and two cassette recorders on a white paper on the floor.

For my Video Selfie, I wanted to recreate the same setup. For obvious reasons, I replaced the knives with a pencil, a marker, and a penknife. I chose this 3 replacements as it symbolizes traditional art which I detest. These instruments serve as a painful reminder to me that I can’t excel in traditional art.

To further reenact the performance, I sat on the floor, facing down, and dressed in dark colours. Portraying myself as a vulnerable being which I believe Marina intended for.

I proceeded to record the sound on my phone which is placed on my side. Similarly, with the Rhythm 10 performance, I stabbed the areas between my outstretched fingers of my left hand using the instruments.

After completing the cycle, I repeated the process but this time, trying to be in sync with the sound recorded from the first cycle.

As much as I wished to completely recreate this performance, due to certain limitations, I had to change certain ideas. To recreate the idea of blood, I splattered some dark paint on the paper and my left hand.

“the mistakes of the past and those of the present are synchronous”

In some way, I am facing the consequences of the past where I used to reject traditional art. Thus resulting in me suffering now as I learn to adapt and figure out traditional art.

Micro Project 4: Exquisite Glitch

(In collaboration with JJ, Youlmae and Tanya)

Original

We were tasked to take a self-portrait of ourselves, either an image of our face or any part of our body. Thus, I chose to take a photo of my eyes.

First Iteration

And so begins, the glitching process.

As we can see, the first form of glitch was a little subdued with just an addition of what appears to be a filter of small mosaic tiles. I believe that for most of the first iteration was not as exaggerated could be because we were directly editing the original image, thus feeling a little apprehensive about glitching the image. It could also be that we did not want to glitch it too much because we were aware that the image would inevitably go through more layers of glitch.

Second Iteration

In the second iteration, we can see the exaggeration escalate.

This edit, the image was skewed to create a deformed look.

Third Iteration


Things get interesting here. Youlmae decided to try and glitch the image through the audio editing software Audacity.

And this was the result. She decided to export the file as small as possible, thus the image came out really tiny.

Fourth Iteration

I was deciding whether to enlarge the image for the final iteration. However, I embraced glitch and kept it that size. Nonetheless, I added some other filters which created more contrast within the image.

As we can clearly see, the transformation from the first image to the final image was drastic. In the final image, we do not see the slightest resemblance to the first image, it became completely unrecognizable.

Micro Project 3: The Walking Story (Collaboration with Chen Jingyi)

Posted by Norafizah Normin on Monday, 29 January 2018

The video begins at 2:50

The Walking Story – A collaboration between Fizah & Jingyi

The Walking Story shows 2 wondering souls traveling around a place called ADM. They have enlisted the assistance of each other to aid them in their random journey through a Facebook Live.

As shy souls, we only see their feet as they wander around the school. The two souls begin their journey at different places unbeknown to each other. Using only a piece of paper with helping directions written (up, down, left, right), they ask the other for their opinion on which way they should go on their journey around ADM. The other will respond by performing directional signs only using their hands.

After 5 minutes of endless walking, the two souls stop in their track to reveal where they have ended up with the others direction.

THE END

Objectives:

To see where we would end up when you leave the decision on where you should go to someone else.

Outcome:

Fizah

Start: Basement near lift lobby

End: 1st floor at the corner of the locker area

Jing Yi

Start: ADM Library

End: 3rd floor facing the grass patch

Other Ideas:

We started off by brainstorming ideas of how we should work together in sync. The other idea we had was similar to charades. We will be in different rooms and each takes a turn to give each other things to choose from. For example, someone starts off by saying “winter or summer”, then after 3 seconds, we will both have to say out our choice and try to be in sync with each other. It will gradually get more and more difficult; for example, if we say “love”, we will see if we both could do the same actions associated with “love”.

However, the cons are that there wouldn’t have a “climax” for the game and we are also afraid that the live stream would lag causing a delay in the reaction time by a few seconds.

Experience:

Fizah

In the beginning, being unfamiliar with Facebook Live, we were unsure of how to do the split screen. With Lei’s aid, we managed to get back on track. Throughout the journey, I also got worried about losing Wifi connection while walking around. I started the live stream with 58% phone battery and ended with 1%. Thankfully, my phone battery survived for the 5 minutes of filming. It was personally a fun experience and broaden my mind on ways to interact with someone through a live stream.

Jing Yi

Personally, I learn something new cause I seldom use Facebook and even to go live will be a challenge for me. It provides me with a different experience and also we use the third space as an interactive platform to communicate with each other.