For this final project, I mainly decided to play with Edited Time, incorporating a bit of Linear as well as Experienced Time. I also tried to infuse my Style into the video as well as the live performance.
Medium Chosen: Video Installation and Live Performance
Inspiration:
Due to my awkward and quirky nature, I decided that a joke would be an appropriate way for me to express myself in this manner. Hence, I thought of how to play with edited time mainly focusing on the 2 areas of changing the sequence of events or playing with the speed and duration of the joke itself.
I also decided to play with edited time because I was inspired by Douglas Gordon, Through a Looking Glass, where he used edited time to bring out the psychotic behavior of the protagonist through mismatched time in an enclosed space.
Video analysis (Video Installation only):
” Do you know why Bruce Lee died of thirst? Because he wanted WA-TAAAAA (water)!!!”
| Duration | What happened in the video? | Intention |
| Before the Video is played | Live performance:
“I’m going to tell you guys a joke through the video. Listen carefully and you may respond when a question is posted to you.” |
Setting the Audience Expectations
– Listen: They expect to hear something. – Joke: It should be Funny. |
| 1 to 13 seconds | The joke had no sound despite there being a “beep” and a “huh huh” sound. | Playing with the Audience Expectations
– Before the video begin, I told the audience that I was telling a joke and asked them to listen carefully. – Joke: expect something funny – Listen: expect sound Yet, only the joke had no sound hence it was something different.
“Huh huh” – A predicted reaction I intended to get from the audience. |
| 21 to 28 seconds | The joke was played again but in a much faster speed, followed by the zooming to my eyes to show bewilderment and the sound of “What the hell is this?” | Playing with Edited time
– Compressing the video and hence speeding it up – Second time the audience are unable to hear the joke
“What the hell is this?” – Audience are likely to be confused at this point as they are still expecting to hear the joke but there is none. |
| 40 to 70 seconds | The joke was played again but in a much slower speed, followed by the zooming to my eyes as it was being rolled and the sound of crows in the background. | Playing with Edited time
– Stretching the video and hence slowing it down – Third time the audience are unable to hear the joke
Rolling of eyes and crows in the background – Audience are likely to be frustrated and annoyed at this point as it may seem like they will never know or hear the joke. |
| 80 to 95 seconds | The joke was played again in a normal speed, followed by the zooming to my mouth as I gasped and maintain still for a few seconds. | Gasp
– The gasp was a reaction predicted that acts as a form of realization where the audience can finally hear the joke after such a long time of expecting the joke. Stillness – Create a form of anticipation as to what may come next in the video, but the video simply ends there. |
| 96 seconds till the end of the performance | Live Performance, Live Joke:
I repeated the Joke again here as a live act. |
Live joke
– Ensure that everyone could hear and understand the joke and therefore would result in a live reaction of laughing together. |
In between every joke, I would ask the audience “Do you guys hear the joke? Do you guys hear the joke? Its okay, cause you are not suppose to hear the joke! Let’s watch the video again.” (seen from the Video recording of the Live performance below)
Structure of my video installation
Telling the joke in different ways –> Predicted reaction of the audience
- Soundless joke –> Confused audience
- Fast joke –> Confused and Frustrated audience
- Slow joke –> Frustrated and Annoyed audience
- Normal joke –> Enlightened audience
- Live joke –> Laughing audience
Analysis of Concept
Edited Time: Lengthening and Compressing of the joke duration
Linear Time: Predicted reaction in a chronological order adds a sense of time as compared to the joke being on a loop.
Experienced Time: The audience experienced the confusion, frustration, annoyance, realization and laughter. Each having different spans of time for each individual.
Rhythm: “Do you guys hear the joke? Do you guys hear the joke? Its okay, cause you are not suppose to hear the joke! Let’s watch the video again.”
Movement: Each reaction filmed moves from the face to a specific part of the face such as the eyes and mouth.
Stillness: Gasp, to create a sense of suspense of what is coming after that realization.
Causality: The expectations and reactions that where being played with.
In order to make the video more engaging and entertaining by itself, I dropped hints of the joke such as the posters of Bruce Lee each time his name was mentioned, imitating his signature shout and actions as well as placing the sound of water flashing whenever the joke ended.
Reflection:
I was very proud of this piece of work as it not only had my style in it but also because I was able to incorporated the elements we had learnt about time into this piece of work. The specific planning of expectations resulted in reactions that I wanted and the audience did laugh at the joke itself, making it very much successful. This would not have been possible without the constant help from Serena and my friends who actually participated in the response section of the live performance. Through this Foundation 4D class I was really thankful for all that I had learnt and it felt amazing that I was able to accomplish something like this and make a work I am proud of when I wasn’t confidence with the medium of videos and ideation at the very beginning. I felt that it was a successful piece of work for me despite and I really enjoyed and grew from these lessons.
Check out the live performance and presentation below and the responses of my classmates!
(PS: The front part was cut off as the operator was tricked by my soundless joke and thought that the audio device was damaged.)
