Open source platforms have opened up the boundary to advocate for more community participation, creating a space for collective efforts to constantly push the boundaries of creative thinking. With the ease of accessing such platforms at the tip of the fingers, artists/ aspiring content makers can easily find inspirations for their next artwork or even share their experience and thoughts. For students like us, open source platforms meant that we can save money on licensed inspirations and resources. It is useful when a question/ difficulty is posted online and people are prone to answer it. However, the trustability of these open source sites maybe questionable at times due to it being open to the public, with most people being unlikely to be professionals in the field.
One example of open source platforms given by Prof. Randall Parker’s article is Wikipedia. To most people on the web, Wikipedia is not an unfamiliar website to us and we often use Wikipedia to access quick information and to roughly familiarise ourselves with certain topics and genres. It provides the audiences the ease of information and also constantly update them with the latest news in our fast paced society. One good example of the detrimental side of open-source websites can be seen here at Wikipedia; just because an information source is extensive and easily available, it doesn’t make it authoritative. This is why we should proceed carefully when using such platforms as human factors like biased feelings nad opnions may be included in these information at times.
“You still have to carry out the human element of information, which is to compare sources and evaluate what’s good and what isn’t.”
EmOCEAN is a soundscape that reflects emotions through the use of an ocean landscape. It explores the happenings when emotions take over tranquillity. I made the audio to be under the night sky as the night always exudes a feeling of a mystery to uncover which fits my aim to let the audience uncover the emotions inside my soundscape. In the audio, different elements like thunderstorm, rain and waves were utilised to paint the landscape of an ocean. Also, windchime to represent tranquillity. Emotion is not felt based on just one element but many. Hence, this project gave me a good opportunity to uncover the abstrusity of feelings.
Research/ Concept
My original idea was to actually record an audio about a day of my life. However, I tried with some test shots and I felt that the audio was relatively mundane- there weren’t any layers and complexity to the audio. It felt mono. Furthermore, the idea was kinda cliche. My next idea was actually an inspiration from a song in my playlist which I was playing on my way home.
The introduction to the song was actually my most favourite part of the song whereby it plays the sound of waves and windchime. Hence, I decided to do an audio on an ocean/ sea landscape. However, during the consultation, I realised this was another cliche idea but I insisted on the ocean concept due to my obsession with the introduction of the song. So Lei suggested me to incorporate emotions to my original idea.
Yeap, that was the start of my misery. How in the world am I going to incorporate emotions to my audio? Like how? Do emotions have an audio to represent it? How do I even invoke such emotions in my audio? I decided to do some research on emotions through sound and below are some of my inspirations.
The audio in this clip made use of repetitive rhythms to evoke feelings and emotions which inspired my to use the sound of wind chimes throughout my soundscape.
Through this video, I decided to include some foley elements into my audio like rainfall which I created through the crushing of plastic and blowing into the mic and doing some post editing after that.
Making of Soundscape
The making of the soundscape was another challenge for me as I have no experience with audacity although we did some exercises in class before and having an extra clear recorder wasn’t helping much either as it tends to record other disruptive audios too. For the waves audio which I recorded, it was actually filled with many background noise like footsteps, the rustling of the leaves and people talking. Also, this problem arises in pretty much every audio of mine- the sound of the crickets and frog. After much struggling and playing around noise gate and noise reduction, I managed to tune down the background noise to the best I could and cover the redundant sounds by underlaying it with a constant base audio.
To ensure that the audio does not sound choppy with the many different sound elements that I incorporated, I translated a picture of waves into audio. I used this image as it has a sense of motion to it- an ambiguity towards whether it is a stagnant wave or a moving wave, hence, a neutral stand in terms of wave.
So after much talking, here’s the end product~
The dynamic in my soundscape is actually quite simple. First, we start off with equal audio from both the wind chime which I used to represent calm and neutralness, and the waves which paint my scene. The use of crickets here is to represent the night sky. As we proceed, we realised that the crickets started to disappear and there is a short moment of peace before it is replaced by a storm/ thunder which mimics strong emotions like anger and anxiousness or even anxiety that we are bound to feel at any part of our lives. My intentions with the raindrops which came after that was to evoke a sense of turmoil within the audience. The wind chime is still playing here as I intend to show that anger has taken over and our emotions are skewed now. In real life, we always hear frogs croaking after the rain stops, hence, I included that to show that it is not raining anymore. Lastly, I tune up the volume of the wind chime to illustrate the comparison between emotions before and after the rain.
Credits
Thunder
I was praying for thunder for the past week but it only rained and thundered really softly sigh so I had to get the thunder sound from an online source below.
It just so happen I was drinking milk that day and when Lei gave us this assignment, I was like “why not just use something that is easily neglected”.
Milk carton
What do we normally do when we finish our drink?
There are two types of people when they finish their drink, they recycle or they don’t.
Signifier
As how I would put it , something that is ambiguous.
Milk contains calcium that is beneficial for the growth of bones. Just like how we thrive to grow by drinking milk, this plant thrives for it own growth too.
Isn’t it common today that we accommodate our own growth to societal norms or hide our growth behind a facade?
TAKEAWAY:
I found this assignment quite meaningful and intriguing as I like to discover the meanings behind certain placement of products and objects. This assignment gives me a chance to instil my own meaning and life to my chosen object. I also realised that what you see may not be what it really means, there might be many underlying meanings and stories waiting to be discovered.
I always believe that everyone has a side that no one knows of. This may not always be a bad case as I feel that we should have a comfort zone that we enjoy our solitude in.
Hence, I often ponder over this question.
How much do you really know about the people around you?
Task 1: Me
As a single child (hence the bear which (kind-of) represents me), it is normal for me to spend most of my time myself. I used a low angle to show that I am viewing myself as a third party here and it spreads out to how I view myself below.
In this task, I feel that sharing my hobbies will create more common grounds with new people. Hence, I placed a few objects to signify some of my daily routine and hobbies. Also,I used the bed as my medium to represent my reliance in my own comfort zone. In which, I enjoy doing the things I like (eating, drawing, making coffee, sleeping etc.) and here’s a small bad habit of mine, I am a heavy sleeper(no number of alarms can wake me up :O).
Task 2: Object and Representation of Self
“I am not alone”
The object that I have chosen here is my bear. Its a common gift that me and my close friends got for each other in 2014. This bear is a representation of our 5-years friendship milestone. Mentioned in task 1, as a single child, it is inevitable for me to feel lonely at times. However, I am grateful for the friends that stick by my side and this has become a part of who I am. I have arranged the photos according to the gradual change of the term “friends” in my life. From when I’m used to being alone and my first interaction with my acquaintances to getting to know them, and finally embracing them into my life and they have became irreplaceable to me since then.
Task 3: My World
I have chosen Changi Airport as its a place that holds many remembrance for me. I used to frequent the place for family dinners, to study with my friends (some of which we lost contact) and even sending some friends who are migrating off. The first photo represents a walk down a memory lane. Life is a bittersweet story, there are some ups and downs. Along the way, we have many snapshots of the wonderful memories (second photo) of different people in our life. However, through the years I have come to this hard truth- people come and go. Instead of dwelling in the past, we should move on and keep these memories close to our hearts because when the time comes, we are all gone and all thats left is our footprints (third photo). Also, the photos are in a sequence according to their focal point. From the first photo whereby there is a clear focal point to the last one whereby the focal point is dispersed and the displaces person, this emphasised again the people com and go in life.
Final Presentation
I have arranged my photos (left to right), task 2, task 1 and finally task 3. In all my photos, I have applied a layer of filter that is common in most phones and computers called Fade and toggled the brightness and saturations with the same system. This is to suggest that I do not have the necessary preowned skills before coming to ADM, however, I will make do with what I have and create what I have with it.
The reason why I chose to display task 2 first is to introduce the origin of my bear and therefore, explain the frequent appearance of the bear in my photos and the importance of it in my life. I have placed the photos in a sequence of bottom up to highlight my emotion deposition. From the loneliness before getting to know my close friends (you need to look down to view this) to the getting-to-know-each-other stage (eye level) and finally the gratitude and happiness to have them in my life (look up).
Whereas, for task 3, I have position the photos from top down to reenact the process of recalling those past memories (look up to suggest recall movement) and finally coming to that we are all moving on from the past now.
And hence, this concludes my project 1 of Curating Self.
TAKEAWAYS:
every photo lies a story behind it regardless big or small
we can use several photography techniques like changing the shuttle speed to express our stories too
In this task, I feel that sharing my hobbies will create more common grounds with new people. Hence, I placed a few objects to signify some of my daily routine and hobbies. Also,I used the bed as my medium to represent my reliance in my own comfort zone. In which, I enjoy doing the things I like (eating, drawing, making coffee, sleeping etc.) and here’s a small bad habit of mine, I am a heavy sleeper(no number of alarms can wake me up :O).
