Here’s the link below to our live-stream micro-project 3!

https://www.facebook.com/yuolmae.ang/videos/1966177980303317/

Before diving into our Micro-Project 3, we were given readings such as Maria Chatzichristodoulou’s “Cyber-performance” and “The Third Space” by Randall Packer to give ourselves a head-start. But after making this micro-project, I had a clearer view of what Third Space really means.

The third space is a virtual platform that’s created where there is “a fluid matrix of potentiality and realizable connections to the most far-reaching remoteness”. The other person may not be physically present with the artist, but through technology it “collapses boundaries in the third space“, transporting the person’s presence next to the artist.

What Yuolmae and I did to create intimacy in a third space is to repeat the motif of the bed, which was inspired by Paul Sermon’s Telematic Dreaming (1992) artwork where “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”.

The idea of ‘bed’ – personal, in our unarmed state. And let’s say we are sharing the bed then it is something up close and personal between the artist and the other. There is that deep sense of intimacy, despite actually being so far apart in reality. To enhance that closeness, we talked about daily life stuff – what we did, whether we’ve eaten, whether we have done our home works; like as if she’s my roomie/best friend in the same room.

In that moment, we are not only connected through livestream but somewhat skin to skin, hair strands “connected to each other”, we are “sharing” the earpiece and listening to the song I was listening to. We share the same food or somewhat the same in a bowl and pass it back to each other like as if Yuolmae was just right next to me. This was how we formed the “third body”.

But in contrary to this, we could not entirely connect through all 5 senses we have as a human  – to experience a full on closeness. Yes we can hear, we can see and communicate with each other, but we can’t really touch and feel the other through this third space. It’s weird I guess because the viewers watching us could probably sense the closeness and intimacy.

This reminds me of the movie “Her”

where this newly-divorced man gets close to the a new operating system which reportedly develops into an intuitive and unique entity in its own right. She functions as a operating system but like a person, she can accompany him everywhere he goes and be his friend but without having a body like a human does, yet both manages to fall in love without experiencing all 5 solid senses.

That just shows the intimacy this third space could really create and like what Randall Packer stated, “The third space has become the new order of what it means to be human.” – that couldn’t be any more right.