It was the first time I used Adobe connect and it was so COOOOOOOL!! When I first heard about it, I thought it was probably going to be similar to the same boring old Skype. But nope I was wrong.
I had a lot of fun and it was nice to see the whole class communicating with each other and trying to co-ordinate our body parts. I loved the fact that our whole class can be involved.
A particular activity that I really enjoyed was the part where we used a transparent bottle. We could still see our faces and it looked like we were using really cool filters. Of course the only problem was that some of us didn’t have a water-bottle.
Telematic dreaming is an interactive piece created by Paul Sermon. What’s interesting about this piece is that it requires the audience’s efforts to make it work. Such a medium is unique as the outcome is determined by the public, instead of it being thoroughly carried out by the artist himself.
In this piece, two beds are far apart- by 5000 kilometres. One being in a secluded room, and the other put out in public exhibition. Paul Sermon’s idea of using a bed as a platform to interact with the audience is interesting as beds often imply intimacy, privacy and seclusion. By placing a bed in a public space free for anyone to use, Paul Sermon pushes the boundary of pre-conceived notions. The juxtaposition of two complete opposites- a bed, usually concealed in the comfort of the bedroom; and the public space, where everyone and anyone can watch.
In the clips of the video, the audience is seen interacting with Paul Sermon, where at one point Paul Sermon tries to grab some keys from someone, and his hand follows the keys as if he were really able to physically grab them.
Paul Sermon trying to grab some keys
In the next scene, Paul Sermon is seen ‘holding’ hands with a viewer.
It is fascinating to see how the audience is conscious of Paul Sermon’s presence, despite the fact that he was not really there. Paul Sermon’s work revolves greatly around the concept of consciousness and physical space. Nobody dared to ‘sit’ on his image projection, probably because it might have been considered rude (and no-one in the right mind would do that to someone in real life). They all reacted to his hand gestures and body movements as if he were really physically present. Despite both beds being 5000 km away from each other, Paul Sermon’s work obscures the distance with live image projections, convincing the audience’s subconscious into believing that he was really physically present with them.
I did the live video with Elizabeth. Initially, we wanted to video ourselves leaving south spine and meeting at ADM again, where Liz takes the bus and I’ll walk. But apparently we forgot that the video had to be horizontally done. So. Re-do.
So Liz went back to her hall and I was at ADM library. We both realised we were on our laptops doing the same work so we decided it was interesting to document it- Liz was doing it in the comfort of her hall while I was in a (cold) public space.
The contrast in the nature of the location makes it an interesting documentation process and we had fun. I couldn’t make a lot of noise because I was in the library (duh) but Liz could walk around A LOT (and she did) and had no restrictions whatsoever.
Posted by Ros Farzana on Wednesday, 24 January 2018
It was interesting to see the difference a setting can make to a person and how it curbs a person to act or portray themselves.
It didn’t feel like anything special when you were holding the phone, seeing your face on camera. But seeing everyone’s videos together on the live broadcast was really nice to watch.
