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.

Research Critique 1: Micro Project 2

First Impression (In collaboration with Felicia and Hazel)

Naturally, we get curious about what our first impressions to other people are. It isn’t “socially acceptable” to ask people you just met about their first impression of us, we usually only ask this question once we get to know them a little bit better. However, by then, they would already have forgotten about the first impression or their judgment could be clouded by their current impression they have of you. Thus, we decided to conduct an experiment to ask people we have never met before about their first impression of us.  Generally, the use of art as a way to tackle or bring awareness to social issues in our community has become prominent.

“[…] art has become too narcissistic and self-referential and divorced from social life. I see a new form of participatory art emerging, in which artists engage with communities and their concerns, and explore issues with their added aesthetic concerns“ [34] (Bauwens 2010)

 

Artists involved:

  1. Felicia – the canvas (the one who will be “judged”)
  2. Fizah – the speaker (the one who will tell people what to do)
  3. Hazel – the videographer (the one who will record people’s reactions)

We begin by asking Felicia what she thinks her first impression is; bubbly, scary. We wanted to make a comparison on her idea of what she thinks versus what others actually think.

After which, we went to the ADM lounge to gather the first impressions. We got the participants to contribute to the artwork by writing their impressions on Felicia’s arms (only at the beginning) and back. We hoped that we could gather a plethora of impressions from different people.

As mentioned in Marc Garrett’s article on D.I.W.O (Do-It-With-Others),

“The practice of DIWO allows space for an openness where a rich mixing of components from different sources crossover and build a hybrid experience.”

Having collected enough impressions, we wrapped up the experiment and shared our findings with the class.

The finished artwork, co-created with our participants

Analysis

The artwork requires participants’ involvement through writing their first impression of Felicia on her back. In doing so, we (the artists) do not have control over the final outcome of the artwork. We (Hazel and myself) are there to provide instructions to the participant whereas on Felicia’s part she provides them a canvas. The participants have the freedom to respond in whatever way they want. Hence, we have no control over the direction and outcome of our artwork that traditional artists have.

The idea of involving people by allowing them to contribute can also be seen in the artworks discussed such as the Human clock by Craig D. Giffen and the Sheep Market by Aaron Koblin. Without participants’ contributions, the artworks will remain at a standstill without any development.

Similar to Cut Piece by Yoko Ono, we made use of the interaction between participants and artists where the participants were up close with our canvas and had to write on her. Differing from the Please Change Beliefs by Jenny Holzer which is web-based and does not involve physical interaction.

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.