Tag Archives: internet art

Instagram as a medium for art

ARCADIA MISSA/AMALIA ULMAN , instagram : @amaliaulman
Interesting concept that this artist used her instagram as a platform to perform. It “fooled” many and she gained alot of followers fast. She must have planned the pictures that she wanted to post very carefully so as to create a narrative and construct a identity.

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‘BEING A WOMAN IS NOT A NATURAL THING’: SCENES FROM EXCELLENCES & PERFECTIONS, AMALIA ULMAN’S SELFIE-BASED ART WORK CREDIT: ARCADIA MISSA/AMALIA ULMAN

Transforming into my avatar

In my final project, I sought to exist in the first space and the third space at the same time and interact with both the first and third space at the same time. I also encouraged the participation of both spaces in changing my appearances in real life.

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The work that really inspired me was  Grand Theft avatar.

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I was really amazed by how the third space encouraged creativity and pushing boundaries. At one time, people went a bit crazy and started to request that I wear two wigs instead of one and also to put black lipstick instead of the usual colors. They also felt that it was fun to choose difficult colors for me to try on my eye.

In addition, JenniCam also allowed me to think about what the internet was interested to see, which is why I decided to do make up in public. It was making something private public and also showing people the process and allowing participation.

Doing rehearsals on my own also did help shape a lot of what I wanted to do.

Initially, I wanted to do it in a room in school where the webcam and my phone will be facing me.

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However, I realised that the work had the potential to be better.

“The artist studio has traditionally been a finite space, defined by its physical walls, flat file cabinets, table surfaces, portfolio cases, and print racks.”- Randall Packer (2015). “Collective Narrative“.

The third space could really allow me to push the boundaries of where I could do my performance. In addition, I could also explore how audiences can be included. The shift in power from the artist to the audience did make the work have more layers I felt. It was a constant conversation and reaction between me and the audience.

I did my work in the lounge but did not expect so many other people to join in even though it was a thursday night in school. It was also interesting to note that my audiences felt as if they were watching a show. Many of them were eating and drinking. It was quite interesting to note that they were very comfortable being part of the performance.

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It is interesting that from what I observed, when people only see a small camera and a lap top, they are not so afraid of approaching the artist as they do not see where the footage goes to or could understand the totality of what was going on. Even if they see themselves on YouTube Live. They would only see that the audience is themselves. It sort of become a private public show which is perhaps how our social media has become.

Doing a live performance has also taught me how to do improvisation. Like for example when my phone internet was lagging, I decided to go to the other side of the webcam and it turned out to be one of the glitches that I really loved.

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I don’t think I can ever replicate this but I was glad it happened.

Doing OSS has really helped me document the process and also track the maturity of my thinking. From not really knowing about the origin of the internet and its culture to now doing an art performance over the internet.

Project Hyperessay #1: Concept of Identity

My project will be a live perfomance of me transforming myself into different looks using make up. I would like to translate myself physically in the first space to the language of what can be done in the third space in virtual form. Taking for an example, the changing into a disguise in real time that is shown on  Grand Theft avatar.

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Changing of appearances online

I’m thinking of transforming myself to look like a boy and also after that have a 10-15 minute Q and A session with whoever comments using this “identity” that I have created using make up and then transforming myself to some one else afterwards and then having the Q and A session again.

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A preview of what I will do on my live performance

I think that performance like this plays into the portrayal of celebrity as people who tend to put a persona forward to entertain people. However with a twist as you see the process of how this “persona” is formed. The process is usually done in private and I would like to make the private process, public.

Moreover, I love that the third space allows me to explore what it means to do a live performance art from the comfort of a small space without people physically being there with me.

“The artist studio has traditionally been a finite space, defined by its physical walls, flat file cabinets, table surfaces, portfolio cases, and print racks.”- Randall Packer (2015). “Collective Narrative“.

It is great that the internet has allowed me to not limit myself to the physical world.

In addition, I would also like to explore and find out how the conversation might change depending on how I look.

“Billy Klüver regarded this phenomenon of the active participant as a liberating experience, untethered from the seat, and given mobility and choice to shape the outcome of the experience. The viewer in this sense becomes a “composer” of his or her own experience, pulling the levers (however abstract) of a work’s dynamic of interaction, which serves to heighten the experience of the in-between and its believability, breaking the now arbitrary fourth wall, to engage the viewer as an active participant.” Packer R. “Between the Real and the Virtual“,(2014) in Reportage from the Aesthetic Edge

As what Packer said I do feel that by engaging the audiences through a Q and A session, they do have the freedom and power to shape their own experience and also break the fourth wall. Thus, blurring the lines between what is real and virtual.  Through this, I would like to see how people’s treatment of me as a person changes through appearances in the third space. In addition, my own reaction to my own appearances in the third space.

Micro-Project: Glitched Aberrations

I played with the photos but it is kind of weird that mine became black and white. I love the effects though.

I think I do something like a blind glitch

So I go crazy on the code first without seeing how it looks like.

Kind of remind me of taking pictures with film where I compose the picture first but I don’t see the results until I develop the pictures.

Before:

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My lunch
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After:
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The Shredder & Riot by Mark Napier

In this piece by Mark Napier, The Shredder is an alternative web browser that turns web pages into digital confetti in which it sort of “tears” the website and mixes the layers that we don’t usually see in a “well done” website.

It somehow mixes code with the usual website and presents a kind of abstract way of looking at websites. It visually presents a digital reaction between code, image and information.

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Although this was done is 1997, I feel that this was very advanced as a piece of art that critiques the internet. It raises up a new perspective for people as everything on the internet is essentially made up of codes.

The deconstruction and the rearranging of these elements: codes, images, brings forth a refreshing look at the internet. shredder_entry_box_detail_wired_3

On the other hand,the work “Riot” which was done in 1998, a later year, seems to be an upgrade from ” The Shredder”.

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It merges web pages together as users surf from site to site.blends web pages together as users surf from site to site.

“Visitors surfing with Riot see their own pages merged with pages from other users.” – Mark Napier

The concept of a multi-user browser still baffles me as I would view it as not functional which made me think of this quote that I read :

“I learned about myself in that moment – about my expectations and conceptions of how a videogame should work. The strange game seemed only to return me to my own perspectives and expectations around the medium that it was failing to be.” -Menkman, R. (2011) “Glitch Moment(um),” Institute of Network Cultures

This was definitely a reflection of how I already came with expectations for the browser, something that I have been using in a certain way since I could use the internet and when something comes along and disrupts the ‘order’ of things that I expect it to be, I would view it as it is dysfunctional.

This is a perfect example of what coders might consider as a glitch and it does definitely have,

“potential to interrogate conventions through crashes, bugs, errors and viruses” – Menkman, R. (2011) “Glitch Moment(um),” Institute of Network Cultures

as we start to question what are the expectations that we have for a functioning website?

Research Critique : Grand Theft Avatar by Second Front

Grand Theft Avatar is piece done by this group called Second Front.  Second front is a performance art group that was founded in 2006. They pioneered the art of performing on the online avatar-based VR world, Second Life.  The group consists of  8 members that includes Jeremy Owen Turner (Vancouver), Doug Jarvis (Victoria), Tanya Skuce (Vancouver), Gazira Babeli (Italy), Penny Leong Browne (Vancouver), Patrick Lichty (Chicago), Liz Solo (St. Johns) and Scott Kildall (San Francisco).

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It is very interesting to take note that the people that took part in ” Grand Theft Avatar” were not from the same country but were people from different parts of the world, from different time zones.

“We essentially inhabit a swath of networked space, no longer constrained to the singularity of a single moment or place.” – Packer R. “The Third Space,” (2014) in Reportage from the Aesthetic Edge

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This piece was a great exploration of what the artist could do with the internet and technology. By using “Second Life” as a medium which they could carry out their performance of robbing a bank and making it live with conversations being carried out and the multiple camera angles really changed the rules of the narrative.

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“Second Front creates theatres of the absurd that challenge notions of virtual embodiment, online performance and the formation of virtual narrative.”  – Second Front

I think the internet also gives a sense that we can do crazy things without suffering consequences. Taking for example the part in the video which they jumped out of the helicopter without a parachute and sitting in top of a rocket. These are stunts that we can never pull in real life without killing ourselves. Therefore, I feel that this piece was very successful in showing the what collaborative effort on the net can produce.