Virtual Insanity

[On Social Broadcasting: A Communications Revolution]

 

|| During the Art of the Networked Practice 3-day (or night) symposium that took place from 29th-31st March 2018, I got to listen to very insightful speakers and witness before my very eyes how far art has grew simultaneously with technology. It is amazing to think how unfathomable all of these works would have been way back when the social broadcasting tools and platforms were just made available.

Groups like Videofreex were filming using the Sony Portapaks to create simple films, who would have thought how far this form of art could come?
https://videofreex.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/img_2520.jpg

 

Since then, social broadcasting has been used as a medium by artists to explore how communication and interaction between people can be altered through it. Annie Abrahams mentioned about how this change is not necessarily better or worse, but rather, just different. In her keynote speech, Maria Christochatzidolou (MariaX) questions the development of social broadcasting art by sharing a myriad of examples of works that use social broadcasting to push the boundaries of art even further.

 

MariaX giving her keynote speech on Telematic performances and the ways they have experimented with and changed the way people communicate.

For one, social broadcasting changes the way we perceive interactivity.

MariaX introduced the concept of the use of technology to bring people together into the same ‘Space-time continuum’, where people can transcend geographical boundaries and be brought together over the metaphysical ‘Third Space’ (coined by Randall Packer). This greatly enhances the opportunities for collaboration and allow more artists to practice the art of Do-It-With-Others (or DIWO), advocated by groups like Furtherfield and Blast Theory.

Throwback to our lesson about Furtherfield where we discussed how it hosts artists in a community that allows for the exchange of ideas between people of different expertise, producing fresh and creative ideas, a successful product of DIWO.

Together with DIWO came the concept of giving up the ownership of the performance partially, if not fully to audience members, such that they had the power to influence the outcome of it. One example of this is Kit Galloway’s and Sherrie Rabinowitz’s ‘Hole in Space’, which was part of their satellite art projects in collaboration with NASA. People from different cities were pulled together into the same metaphysical space through the ‘hole in time’ and the way they responded was completely unrehearsed, as with how some of them even started to organise meetings with their family or friends.

MariaX defined the interactivity of social broadcasting as ‘the performer being affected by the audience, and the audience affecting the performer’.Annie Abraham’s Entanglement Training performance was also a far cry from a passive delivery, rather, performers (some of which she has never met) were able to work alongside her.

 

Annie Abrahams and her co-performers whose actions were slightly rehearsed but nevertheless completely unpredictable and out of her control during the performance itself in Entanglement Training: Ensemble.

In the case of the symposium, I was participating in the act of DIWO literally just by typing in the chatroom. The performers were able to interact with the online audience and this allowed for a collaborative act of helping each other understand the works and the intentions behind them. Essentially, this flattens out the hierarchy between performers and audiences and changes the way we perceive artists to work and interact with their audiences (contrary to the idea that artists worked in isolation in their own studio space).

 

Next, social broadcasting has changed the expectations of human interaction as new dynamics are introduced with this new medium.

Social broadcasting nevertheless allows us to be hidden behind our screens in a safer environment that in real life where physical confrontation is a possibility. We discover this and over time, we find ourselves trying to paint the most ideal picture of ourselves online, trying to polish our ‘Digital Identity’, which is a re-imagination of ourselves, and our tele-presence projected into the ‘Third Space’.

 

xXxtra.Princesses’ use of Snapchat filters to paint an idealised picture of themselves as a digital entity.

In actual fact, the use of the Third Space encompasses the technical issues such as connection that come with it. To have the ‘Third Space’ in co-existence and seen in totality with the local and remote spaces would be to also accept the faults that comes with it, just like how we do not act in a perfectly rehearsed manner in real life, for that would be way too unnatural (the word in itself suggests that it is not characteristic of a living creature).

 

Arcangel Constantini also showcased one of his newest projects ‘bakteria.org’ that makes use of technical fault as a style, with the noise distortion soundscape and code glitch as a font type that gives rise to a unique and recognisable style. His little bacteria illustrations also represent how information is spread across the Third Space just like how bacteria spreads amongst people.

 

 

Annie Abraham’s works are quintessential to this very theme. In Entanglement Training – Ensemble, her co-performers followed her protocol to read out the latency in their connections, indicating how all of them are never really existing in the exact same moment in the Third Space, which may be a state which technology could ideally bring us to. However, she makes the latencies the very subject of her work and in turn explores the beauty of this imperfection of the medium to create a rhythmic, choreographic performance that really enchants the viewer.

 

 

“one millisecond”. “138”

“Excellent”

“Status”

“Connection status”

 

Annie Abrahams’ works are about the ‘sloppy’ side of people online and the intimacy between people. She likes to trap her co-performers in a state of ‘No Exit’ such that they are forced to expose their “messy and malleable” sides, prominent in her other works such as The Big Kiss and Angry Women. This shows how the digital medium is far from perfect and by making these faults the main subject of her works, we are continuous exposed to them and they are more normalised. In this way, we learn how to accept and embrace these imperfections more.

Annie Abraham’s work shops with our class!! We learned how it felt like to be following a protocol and it was surprisingly a lot harder than I thought because we could not rehearse any timings with our groupmates and we just had to give up control and let whatever happen happen naturally. This liberating effect was really enlightening and now I really appreciate Annie’s works even more than ever.

 

As the saying goes: ‘to err is human, to forgive is divine’. Then, following this train of thought, artists that work around the concept of the fault in human behaviour and technical glitches have already achieved a certain level of divinity. They have the power to change the way we anticipate the way our interactions online will proceed, and encourage us to embrace these imperfections as part of our newly established communication medium.

 

Last but not least, social broadcasting changes the way we want our new form of interaction to grow towards. 

 

After being aware of these faults and learning how to embrace them, where do we go from there?

 

With a new world comes new laws to maintain some sort of order. New morals and ethics will arise and they will definitely be different from that of the real, physical world. MariaX brings up the issue of “Telematic Abuse” experienced by a performer where although her physical body was not abused, the abuse was directed towards a fictional existence of her real corporal body. How will we define laws that resist this sort of acts? Can they even be counted as legitimate abuse? These are definitely new questions that will arise as we continue to develop in telematic arts.

 

During the symposium, the ethics of respect was questioned when audience members were conversing in the chatroom while the performance was ongoing and apparently some people thought it was rude was others did not. Whereas, it is expected that people stay silent when watching a performance in real life since they are occupying the same space and may affect the performance.

 

During the performance of
#exsanguination, the audience members were discussing about the significance of the leeches in the performances.

 

Social broadcasting also gives people the ability immortalise a moment, as seen in from works like Ant Farm’s Blast Theory. This can be wielded as a tool to call for action by the wider public. We can see this in The Pixelated Revolution 2012 by Rabih Mroue, where a victim continues to film a sniper who is hunting him down and eventually shoots him. The very fact that he does not stop filming shows that he believes that the recorded video will be able to serve as a form of evidence later on. The way that we use this form of evidence is even prevalent today in court legislation.

Telematic Dreaming by Paul Sermon allows the artist to interact with audience members within the intimacy of the bed space. Whether the same social norms and rules apply to this situation is still largely unexplored.

 

 

 

Station House Opera also staged At Home in Gaza and London (2016) which  also uses the technique of ‘dissolving’ to impose two images together to form a mutual performance space, where people could occupy each other’s’ homes, streets and social spaces, such that it focuses on the situation of people in Gaza, contrasting storytelling of Gaza versus theatre in America. This highlights the political isolation of people in Gaza and acts as a coping mechanism with the temporary relief of technology for them.

 

 

In conclusion, social broadcasting has revolutionised the way we communicate. It has changed our perception of interactivity, our expectations of interaction on this new medium and the direction where we want these new developments to head towards. Whether we like it or not, the ‘Third Space’ has already invaded and influenced our real world; whether we want to maintain its position as a partially isolated platform, separate entity, or continue to learn about it and embrace its faults to assimilate our physical world with the Third Space seamlessly is up to us to decide. We must continue to seriously consider the limitation of each form of interaction and find a way to strike a fine balance so that we can enjoy the best of all spaces.

 

 

Resources:

————–

Keynote Maria Chatzichristodoulou, artist Annie Abrahams, and artist Matt Adams/Blast Theory
 
Jon Cates / Chicago performance
 
Annie Abrahams performance
 
Keynote Matt Adams / Blast Theory
 
Social Broadcasting
 
The Symposium Website also has program information and participant bios
Bakteria.org by Arcangel Constantini: http://bakteria.org/
MariaX interviews Annie to gain insight to her work:

Annie Abrahams. Allergic To Utopias

Zine Project: Back to the Future in Chinatown!

ZINE: LOCALE PROJECT

 

 

– RESEARCH –

 

|| For my Zine: Locale project, I decided to pick the area of Chinatown since I’ve never really thoroughly explored the area before despite having been there on a few occasions during Chinese New Year. So I thought that this would be the perfect chance to get to have a nice adventure around the area on my own!

 

The slides below are a compilation of the primary and secondary research that I have done at the site:

—

Chinatown was made into a social enclave for the ethnic Chinese immigrants in 1822 when Sir Stamford Raffles first founded Singapore.

The general Chinatown area is actually split into 4 major areas, Kreta Ayer, Telok Ayer, Bukit Pasoh and Tanjong Pagar. The sites with more tourists and things to see are the Kreta Ayer and Telok Ayer region, where you can find all the souvenir stores and temples!

Kreta Ayer is named after the water carts that were pulled around in the past because accessible water was usually far from homes. This gives us insight into how Singapore used to be a not-so-well off place, compared to now.

 

 

It would literally be impossible to miss these shophouse style architecture around Chinatown. There are different styles, as one can tell from the window decoration. They could be first, second or late transitional, or art deco style shop houses from the colonial times that are really iconic to the venue.

 

 

There are bronze sculptures littered around Chinatown of its inhabitants in the past such as Rickshaw Pullers, Samsui Women and Coolies that came from China to Singapore in hopes of better job opportunities. Many immigrants that came here toiled hard and worked tough jobs. 

After reading a book called Kreta Ayer I borrowed from the library, I learned a lot more about the lifestyle back then. Samsui women, for example, “could be found in construction sites, digging ditches, scooping sand and cement, and carrying stones and bricks.”  They also had a hair combing ritual called the Golden Orchid Pledge which they swore celibacy by. Areas used to have a more morbid past such as Sago Lane having death houses and opium dens while Keong Saik road was basically a red-light district with many brothels where pipa women would work to entertain men.

 

 

This giant mural near Maxwell Food Center was made by ACS students and is one of the most popular murals at Chinatown!

 

 

One of the iconic temples there was the Thian Hock Keng temple – Temple of Heavenly Happiness, which I happened to step into randomly (had no idea about it before reading Kreta Ayer). It is the oldest Chinese temple in Singapore and is dedicated to Mazu, the Goddess of the Sea that people would pray to before leaving for voyages at sea. When the 2nd World War came to Singapore in 1942, Chinatown suffered the brunt of Japan’s frequent air raids. There were no air shelters and with Chinatown being so crowded, casualties reached as many as 2,000 a day. During the Japanese Occupation, the loss of jobs caused thousands to turn to hawking on the streets.

 

Here is an audio recording I took while inside the temple:

https://soundcloud.com/l-ryuugahideki/chinatown-temple

You can hear the sound of a bell which I rung, out of multiple bells there that catered to different wishes!

 

Of course, we really can’t miss the most iconic temple in Chinatown: the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple! It is said to contain the real Buddha’s tooth (which….I actually highly doubt so because my sister once told me she saw the relic on a tour and it was like… some sort of jewel?) 

The prayer hall is really massive and sparkling golden and the moment I saw it I had already decided that it was a contender to be in my middle spread.

 

 

 

Here’s the Chinatown Food Complex! I’ve been here with my family once, the food is so expensive TvT As expected of tourist sites…
The complex is meant to revive the idea of al-fresco dining in a street setting. It re-opened in 2014 with an internal cooling system and high-ceiling glass shelter. The street hawkers, operating out of nostalgic mobile carts, recreate the good old days of open-air eating.

 

The area of Telok Ayer and Club Street is well-adorned with an abundance of pubs and bars.

Now, I don’t drink, so I can only imagine what kind of heaven this area of Chinatown is for alcoholics.

Here are where many of the shophouse architectures are as well, and is one of those spots artists like to go to to sketch.

Club Street is named after the Chinese Weekly Entertainment Club, and exclusive social club founded in 1891 for the English-Speaking Straits Chinese elites.

 

Needless to say, there are a ton of shops, especially along Pagoda Street, selling souvenirs ranging from hip shirts, to paintbrushes, to just… really weird stuff.

 

 

I found this quote in Urban Sketchers’ Chinatown book, and really relate with:

“Chinatown offers me neither a sense of identity nor belonging. Yet I take great pleasure in walking its streets, secretly revelling in its contrived nature, while seeking out the genuine connections people may have to the place.” Nursil

a, social worker.

 

Here is a video made up of a bunch of smaller clips of the things I saw and heard walking around Chinatown:

There are multiple juxtapositions of pop culture and old architecture.

 

– IDEA DEVELOPMENT – 

Initially, I was looking through a few styles to come up with a style for my zine because I felted kind of daunted by the task of filling up 8 pages of a zine on my own.

How about an Alice in Wonderland style illustration book with me meeting mythical creatures in Chinatown?

 

Perhaps I could do it like Dr Seuss books; spaced out compositions with some fun text?

 

 

All this history talk also reminds me of Night at the Museum, perhaps I could bring historical figures alive?

 

The possibilities were endless with a zine.

 

It wasn’t until I was chatting with a senior until I realised that Chinatown and the world of Ghibli’s Spirited Away had uncanny similarities, especially with the lanterns and all. I mean, this:

versus this?

At this point, I’m practically Chihiiro (the protagonist).

So I drew myself as her.

It gave me the idea of a tour.

And then it struck me: if it was so hard trying to imagine myself back in old Chinatown, why not bring people in the past back to modern Chinatown?

We could bring people like the rickshaw puller, coolie and samsui woman to present day Chinatown to witness the fruits of their labour and have fun while at it!

 

And so begin my humble project:

I spent a good hour learning how to make this font on Illustrator by following this tutorial:

Yay! Now I know how to install new fonts, control gradients and distort my text!

 

I thought hmm… I literally have over 260+ photographs. It would be a huge pity not to use any of it.

It would also be a huge pity to make them black and white (I toyed with the idea of viewing Chinatown in monochrome but someone did it already, plus Chinatown is so vibrant, that it would just be a waste.)

So I decided to make a photo compilation infused with digital illustrations that I really enjoy doing!

Below are some of the individual drawings I did on FireAlpaca programme:

—

I grew attached to the characters and decided to call them

  1. Coolie (short for… uhh Coolie)

2. Rickie (short for Rickshaw puller)

3. and Sammie (short for Samsui woman)

 

I was thinking about my back cover where I had to include my contacts and there was no way I was going to miss the chance to but my name on a sign :)))

(Something like this)

 

I also forgot to mention earlier that around the same time of doing the actual graphics, I did a sketch of the entire zine.

To plan the content of the zine, I listed out several ideas on Notepad first to filter out which photos mattered the most or told the most stories.

Then I proceeded to create a rough sketch by placing elements around the pages to see how they work out. There’s no other way than to just do it and trust your eyes.

 

 

 

After intense drawing and vector graphic making, here are the final pages!

 

– FINAL ZINE-

FC: 

The title of the zine and illustration would be smack in the middle to focus all attention in the middle. The diagonal arrangement of the lanterns in the background and the logo makes the composition a lot more dynamic.

 

IFC: 

I drew the three musketeers (Coolie, Rickie and Sammie) hanging around Chinatown Food Complex ordering food and included the description on Al-fresco dining at the bottom! Shirley helped me to create the PERFECT header and I was honestly so amazed by how adding a simple rectangle with complementary colours in the title would work so well!!!! I have learned something new again. I placed myself in the middle of the two pages so that they would be seen as a group instead of being two separate pages.

 

Pg 1:

Here are the three musketeers again, having fun around the various kinds of shops in Chinatown. (Coolie in the clothing shop, Sammie in the medicinal hall, and Rickie having his fun jab at an Ofo-bike). I tried to mask the images into more dynamic shapes that also helped to create visual hierarchy.

 

Pg 4 & 5 spread: As promised, here is the majestic landscape spread of the interior of the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and I think it looks as awesome as I had imagined.

 

Pg 6 & IBC: On the left page, I added content about Club Street and booze. The colourful vomit in the middle (which is a warped watercolour mark with a gradient colour overlay) joins the 2/3 area to the 1/3 area of Chinatown Bingo! I decided to add in bingo since it was a really popular trend that was going on during this period and I figured it would be a fun way to make the zine interactive, as well as give suggestions for more areas of Chinatown to visit since I can’t fit all of its greatness into 8 pages only.

 

Back cover: Here I overlayed a continuation of the photo from the front cover on top of a photo of a couple strolling with shadows of lanterns on the floor.

I added an engraved effect to an illustration of a map I did for the presentation slides. And there it is! My name on a sign!

I also did some cool vector illustrations of the 3 musketeers.

 

– PHYSICAL ZINE – 

I spent soooooo long trying to get the PDF exportation right because I didn’t have Acrobat 🙁 But using the school computer, I managed to do it by expanding my text and packaging the entire zine!

Here is my physical baby!

 

 

 

 

Class zine cover page grid!

 

 

 

– Reflections – 

Some difficulties I faced and things I learned:

  1. Facing the epic task of creating a layout for 8 pages of zine out of pure content researched by ourselves was pretty daunting. I was trying really hard to think of a style to follow, and I think it helps to talk to people about your idea, you never know what fresh ideas they have!
  2. Creating hierarchy for the header. I was having a hard time thinking of a way to make it stand out more until Shirley just smacks on a blue box with yellow font and all of a sudden it gives my zine 20 times the amount of life it had compared to before. I think this taught me to be more daring with using elements such as shapes and colours in my design. Just because there are photos doesn’t mean your font has to hide!
  3. How can I miss out learning how to use InDesign? At first, I was extremely not pleased with how confusing the blue and brown boxes were, but I gradually managed to get a hang of it after placing 1304910294 photos into InDesign for this project. I thought that InDesign was quite useful when it comes to layouts, and I also learned about how designers would use placeholder texts to gauge word limits. I thought that was pretty amusing since I always thought the number of words dictated the design, but I guess designers have the power too!!!
  4. Exporting InDesign files as .pdfs for printing! Oh boy did this process take a long time for me, but now I know the importance of Adobe Acrobat!
  5. I think another important takeaway is how to translate research findings into material for a zine. By going down to the sites to experience them first-hand, it really gives us the genuine motivation to want to create content about something and share it with others, as compared to if we were just to simply do some Googling online.

 

 

 

 

@youthfulyue

For my 1 minute video selfie, I decided to do one of those Take On Me video memes with the icon head turn at the start. The original music video by a-ha depicted two settings, one being real life and one being an sketchy, illustrated fictional setting. By applying this outline filter, I wanted to show that I like to be projected as an imaginary goofy persona online which I may not reflect upon first impression in real life.

Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914

Parodies:

 

I compounded another meme on top of it by intentionally playing the recorder horribly.

By using memes as a theme of popular culture, I am able to portray my own sense of humour that shapes my art style through this video, in the sense that I do not really adopt a neat, stylistic style of design, but rather one that is just ever so slightly self-derogatory and relatable to other people.

Also, I filmed this video right in front of the lift of my floor, the space right outside my house which is my space of comfort but yet not in a public space. This shows how I’m not really comfortable with completely exposing my weird side publicly, but I like to slightly step out of my comfort zone and take things slowly.

 

P.S.: I was intending to do some sort of a dance cover but then I realised I have no dancing skills… I guess I’m still not too ready to embrace my ‘sloppy’ side on the internet………….

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned

[ On S O C I A L  B R O A D C A S T I N G ]

|| In Angry Women (2013) by Annie Abrahams, female participants had their webcam screens lined up in a 4×3 grid and vocalised their anger in front of the camera. This entire project involved 24 participants, and none of them knew each other.

 

 

Having previously done a research critique on The Big Kiss by Annie Abrahams, I was really interested to see what Angry Women was all about.

 

 

 

Watching this video was pretty unsettling for me, and probably to others too and there’s a reason why.

 

When on social media, we send messages out to our friends, coupled with emotions embedded in our messages. Sometimes, it is also broadcasted to the public, not just our friends. Either way, we are likely to curate an image of ourselves online via these multimodal messages, and more often than not, create an idealised version of ourselves.

 

The emotion of anger is seen as a rather negative emotion since it implies conflict between two or more parties. Following this understanding, it is only logical to conceal our angry sides online. Now this may seem a bit contradictory to the proliferation of rants in online posts, but is definitely different in the sense that we are still somewhat hiding behind anonymity and not showing our faces, which also partially equate to our real identity.

 

In Angry Women, these participants were strangers but had to reveal their faces to each other, leading to them being a little cautious at the start.

 

” It was tough and courageous, but we are moving on 🙂 – very interesting and tumultuous.

We are still struggling to express our anger and we also still have difficulties to co-construct in this situation of lonely  togetherness. It’s exciting and sometimes overwhelming to try to transgress one’s limits.”

– from http://bram.org/angry/women/

 

 

In fact, research has shown that people regularly suppress anger in order to maintain healthy and successful social relationships. [1] Only by being in this space curated by Annie Abrahams under a ‘No Exit’ situation could they take some time to fully unleash their fury (much like She Hulk transformations, which is terrifying to watch).

[She Hulk] https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ2Ts4BGs6efsafq1h7yVsVXw6n5HFV1aIcdOCD4jMOVuRmwr4Abw
Exploring anger as an unglamorous side being exposed also parallels how Annie Abrahams works her way around and embraces  glitches on the more technical side of this medium, as seen from how she turns a malfunctioning webcam into an artistic expression. [2]

” So instead of dwelling on the frustrations of the network connection, she finds inspiration, and perhaps more importantly, she sets up compelling situations that allow her and others to make critical observations about connection and disconnection. “

– Randall Packer

 

Since Annie Abrahams has a background in biology, she uses social broadcasting as a tool for investigating and testing out hypotheses that she forms about human behaviour. In Angry Women, the 4×3 grid is a curated  ‘Alone Together’ [3]  setting whereby participants are able to see each other all at once over the ‘Third Space’ (as coined by Randall Packer), and since it is a continuous take, they have to deal with the situation of “No Exit”, where they are forced to reveal unglamorous sides of themselves that they would normally unconsciously avoid doing so to others. [4] This social situation would not be possible without the aid of technology and social broadcasting capabilities.

Perhaps by learning how to embrace our ‘sloppy’ sides online, this could transform parasocial relationships into much more genuine ones in the future.

 

 

Resources:

[1] Riet, Jonathan Van’T, Gabi Schaap, and Mariska Kleemans. “Fret Not Thyself: The Persuasive Effect of Anger Expression and the Role of Perceived Appropriateness.” Motivation and Emotion42, no. 1 (2017): 103-17. doi:10.1007/s11031-017-9661-3.

[2] Randall Packer, Disentangling the Entanglements, Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium Website

[3] Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books, 2017.

[4] Annie Abrahams website: http://bram.org/angry/women/

 

Welcome to my Digital Crib!

 

My desktop is as cluttered as my brain is. (so is my room)

 

I have a lot of junk files and applications that I don’t even frequently use stored on the left of my screen. It’s like an organised mess, you know?

 

My to-do list are always open in my notes.

 

Youtube is ALWAYS on for music.

 

Facebook is always there for distraction and there are various tabs open for school.

 

The background is from one of the only few computer games I own called Life is Strange and I really love the game :DDD

When will my online biography show who I am inside?

|| The term Digital Identity refers to the way that an individual chooses to present and depict themselves in online and digital communities (the Third Space). An individual’s digital identity is largely curated by themselves in order to portray themselves in a favourable manner.

In Eric Erikson’s fifth stage of psychosocial development individuals start to question their identity and personal values starting from adolescence, and henceforth embark on a life-long journey to resolve their ‘identity crisis’. The Internet allows individuals to experiment with self-identification in a virtual space, serving as a tool or platform for individuals to satisfy their innate curiosity. [1]

 

In his article in “Facebook and Philosophy”, Wittkower suggests similarly that:

“Facebook gives us the same richness of interaction because it, too, fails to determine the meaning of our relationships and communications.”

In other words, the customisability of online social media platforms gives people space for creativity to invent new meanings out of any content posted, thus creating new content identifiable with the self. All the seemingly meaningless things that we post onto our profiles contribute to our digital identity and shape this indefinitely aberrating form in different ways. [2] We are able to put up whatever we want to define ourselves, even if it is an idealised image.

Facebook offers users the opportunity to curate their digital identity by providing information about themselves, and using multimodality to accessorise their pages.

The absence of a social context also liberates us from shaping our output such that it conforms to a particular social situation; this gives us freedom to post whatever we want, whenever we want online.

 

In Carla Gannis’ solo exhibition “Until the End of the World”, she explores technology as a medium to depict herself in a virtual context as a character model.  [3]

“Gannis’s process the work should be understood as a conscious interplay between portraitist, portrait and the camera itself. “

With the use of augmented reality in a virtual space, the possibilities for depicting the self visually are endless. This contrasts the mundanity of the image of self in real life in the sense that we are not able to portray what goes on in our minds, as part of our identity in totality. Others are only able to perceive what they see of you.

 

The idea of using the Internet as a tool to better express ourselves is also evident in the gaming realm, where the virtual re-embodiment of players through self-extension and self-aggregation allow them to build a whole new identity that is idealised, yet closely related to who they are in real life. [4]

Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) like World of Warcraft (WOW) have character customisation screens that allow players to edit the features of their characters to their liking.

 

In conclusion, we utilise the Internet as a platform to explore the idea of self. Even though our potrayal of self online may be idealised, there is, to a certain extent, an inherent undeniable truth about who we are in real life, echoing the idea of how technology is an extension of ourselves in an online “global village” (McLuhan).

 

Resources:

[1] Images, Self-Images, and Idealized Identities in the Digital Networked World: Reconfigurations of Family Photography in a Web-Based Mode by Luc Pauwels (Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium).

Pauwels, Luc. “Images, Self-Images, and Idealized Identities in the Digital Networked World: Reconfigurations of Family Photography in a Web-Based Mode.” In Digital Identity and Social Media, ed. Steven Warburton and Stylianos Hatzipanagos, 133-147 (2013), accessed March 04, 2018. doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-1915-9.ch010

[2] Wittkower, D. E. (2010). “Facebook and Philosophy: What’s on your Mind? A Reply to Facebook Critics,” Popular Culture & Philosophy

[3] Until the End of the World, Carla Gannis. http://carlagannis.com/blog/prints/until-the-end-of-the-world/

[4] Online identity construction: How gamers redefine their identity in experiential communities.

PINTO, DIEGO COSTA, et al. “Online identity construction: How gamers redefine their identity in experiential communities.” Journal Of Consumer Behaviour 14, no. 6 (November 2015): 399-409. Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed March 4, 2018).

[5] McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1964.

Is this burning an ETERNAL FRAME?

|| The Eternal Frame (1975) is a videotaped reenactment of the assassinated of John F. Kennedy’s assassination by Antfarm which seeks to draw attention to the power of the mediated image.

 

Antfarm is a collective of radical artists founded in San Francisco in 1968 by Chip Lord and Doug Michels (1943-2003) that sought to rebel against the conformative style of art in their time and build a community of artists that vigorously experimented with new forms of art.[1]

 

http://kadist.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ant-farm-eternal-flame-2.jpg

 

In an Interview with Chip Lord by Randall Packer over the Third Space Network stream, Chip Lord mentions that John F. Kennedy’s death was the first televised American tragedy ever, and Eternal Frame sought to explore the power of the media to immortalise such a historical moment and ingrain it into the minds of people by converting a real-life event into a processed memory via the media. [2]

 

 

In another interview about The Eternal Frame hosted by Constance Lewallen (2012), Doug Halls states that he resonates with Jean Jacque-Rousseau’s view that something cannot be true until it’s fictionalised, and the interpretation of a memory aberrates as it is constantly reappropriated throughout time, which is possible if an event is immortalised in a digital form. [3]

 

” I think that idea of you kind of grasping to it and extricated into your time, then in the act of doing that, certain truths disappear but other ones begin to emerge.”

– Doug Halls

 

 

Taking the achievements of past post-modern art movements like Constructivism and Futurism to a greater level, Antfarm’s fearless venture into different media and experimenting with different spatial contexts allowed them to successfully added new layers of meanings in their artworks that allowed them to make political and social statements.

 

 

Resources:

[1] Constance Lewallen, Still Subversive After all These Years

[2] Interview with Chip Lord: https://vimeo.com/257224713

[3] The Eternal Frame, hosted by Constance Lewallen: https://vimeo.com/53734504

TAN YUE LING

|| Image Making through Type ||

 

~Gallery~

In this first project for Graphic Form, we have to translate the essence of a job (that can be imaginary) into visual, typographic forms of our names using any sort of media.

 

Since the jobs we chose were not specified to be pragmatic/realistic, I started off by brainstorming up some ideas for imaginary jobs that are grounded in the essence of real jobs that exist in reality. I came up with a list of existing jobs and modified them by merging them with each other. This would not only help me come up with much more interesting outcomes, but also give me a wider range of job fields and their nature to explore. Thereafter, I searched up the jobscopes and items that are iconic to these jobs to make them easily identifiable.

 

Initial Shortlisted jobs:

  1. Baby DJ
  2. Pool Colourist
  3. Professional Liar
  4. Alien Communicator

 

Click here for research and process post!

 

 

My name is

and I’m a Baby DJ playing them hit lullabies like Rock a Bye Baby and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!

 

 

2.

My name is 

and I’m a professional liar helping you bury your sins; office @ 222 Baker Street!

 

 

3.

My name is

and I’m an alien communicator! -Beep Beep-

 

 

4.

My name is

and I’m a local pastry chef lah!

The More We Get Together

Doing It With Others (DIWO)

 

|| The noble venture by Furtherfield into establishing and investing in a common space that facilitates the sharing of ideas and execution of projects among artists has reaped the benefits of social practice in art.

Furtherfield – Finsbury Park, London
https://www.furtherfield.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Plan-your-visit-600×400.jpg

Before the proliferation of Open-Source culture, artists were seen as solitary creators who worked for their own gain, as in with the case of BritArt which led to a limited development in the field of art (mentioned in Ruth Catlow and Marc Garrett “Do it With Others (DIWO): Participatory Media in the Furtherfield Neighborhood,” 2007):

:

“It degraded and smothered artistic discourse by fueling a competitive and divisive attitude towards a shrinking public platform for their practice and the representation of their work.”

Furtherfield provided the opportunity for artists to start co-curation, such as in E-mail Art on Netbehaviour.

 

Mail box showing Netbehaviour contributions to DIWO Email Art project 2007
https://www.furtherfield.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/diwo_mailbox.png

 

This tore down the notion of the artists having a mandatory role of curating the entire viewing experience themselves, rather, it involved viewers to take ownership as well. In class, we explored the act of co-curation with our Collective Body project, where each of us could determine the order of photo upload in order to create the artwork in its entirety.

Flickr – Collective Body microproject

The exchange of ideas also led to technological experimentation as a new medium. Projects like Hole in Space by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, and Telegarden by Ken Goldberg make use of real time technology to allow people to interact across a Third Space, and also give up ownership of the result of the artwork to the audience, making their outcomes inclusive, unpredictable and ultimately genuinely interesting.

Telegarden by Ken Goldberg

In class, we tried our hands at creating art via the Third Space in our Tele-stroll and Telematic Embrace projects. By negotiating and compromising, we are able to create a digital connection across screens.

Telestroll micro-project: Journey to the East/West done with Francesca. We had to collaborate off-screen to come up with a plan to execute before performing the piece on Facebook live.
Telematic Embrace project: Onscreen Cross screenshot. Our class had to agree on who was going to be part of the cross, and if so, how were their hands going to be aligned on screen.

 

With a conducive space for conversation, Furtherfield artists took the liberty to create projects like Plantoid by Okhaos that utilises the Blockchain system and Harvest by Julian Oliver that explored technology as a medium to get viewers from the public to be conscious about nature and rethink our relationship with technology. These are issues that our generation faces and such artworks allow the current generation to ‘connect with issues in their time’, which, as mentioned by Marc Garrett in his lecture, is one of the strongest virtues of being an artist.

Plantoid (2015) by Okahos

 

Harvest by Julian Oliver. Making use of wind energy to power up graphics cards without burning up the ozone.

In conclusion, the concept of DIWO empowers artists with the capability to break the artist-viewer hierarchy, explore new mediums and better allow the public to connect with their work and the issues we face today.

 

Resources:

 

M̴̨̡̛͖̱͚̭̩̘̠̩̳͍̬̐̀̽͂͌̉̃̍̇̄̏̐̕̕ͅY̸̢͇̟͈͖̜̆̀̈́̈́́̎̅̀͝ ̶̣͍̯̖̥̣̭͙̥͉͉̙̌̇̍͜Ỉ̷̟̘͕̱̯͕̞̫̎̑̒̈̃̋̚͠͝͠Ņ̶̨͎̥̦̲͉̤̣̟͙̈́̌̽́̆̈̒̾̀̕̚͝͠T̷̞͇͍̜̗͓͗͆̊̿͠Ę̷̡̛͇̦̞͎͕̫̙̟͇̭̺̈́̀́̎̽͂̌̉̏̂̊̿̀̓͜R̶̡̲͇͓̮͍̲̉͂͒̂͜Ň̴͈̼̹͉̖͍̤͖̳̲͖̘͛̉͒͐̈͋̃̔͛̃̆̅̚Ä̶̡̧̘̩̯̩́̚L̸̨͕̬̠͚̪̫̫̫̟̣̗͋͂͐̅͝ͅ ̷̡͓̹͍̟̺̺̞̘͈͉̂̽̊̄͊̔̽̐̐͌̈́̔̋͝S̶̛̛̞̻̦͓̬͙̪͔̩̟͋̓̍̎̿̐̂̊̔͆̿̎T̴̗͎͉̪̻̓͆̾͜Ã̶̡̛̗͚̟̦̗͔͍̈́̀͒͒̅͋̓̓̓͗̏͠͝T̷̰̥̰͉̱̘͙̽̈̇̅̉̓̀̅́̀̀͒̃͛̇Ĕ̵͚̺̜̭̥̤̽ – EC, Liz and Jas

|| This week, we did a g̶̛̞͚̬͈̠͖̺͕͔͚̲̩̬͗͗̒̉̋͊͐̉̅̈́͝͝l̵̛͚̤͆̍̏̃̇̈́̕͝ị̶͇̰͓̘͚̤̹͒̄̈́̀̏̓̃̄̐͐̕͠ͅt̶̖̹͎̣̦̩̪̣͌̚͜ç̵̜̦̣̩̲̩̲̬͎͈͌̀͐̂̆͒̑̍̒̓͆̓̓h̵̢̢̟̬̲̼̦̬̰̰͊̊̑̍͂̽͂ project in class!! We selected a photo of ourselves from our previous Collective Body project and surrender them over to our groupmates to destroy them, essentially creating a g̶̡̛͔̬͍̼̻̞̩̳̲͚̯͔̱̟̐̏̀́̔̋̏̉̄͋̋̂̓ļ̷̙̫̭̙̠̦̖͚̞͑́͆̀̿͋̎̎͗̚ͅi̵̧̨̧̢̜̦̭̫͔̫̖̠̎̆̿͒͗̈͒̋̑͘̕͠͝͠ț̴̨͕̺̘̲̘͛́̀́͆͆̏̑́͝c̵̘̍̏́̋̂̀͗̾ḣ̷̨͓͎̦̱̯̦̲͚̅̂̈́̍ ̵̢̨̢̥̖̹̭̦̻͙͈͒̾̑̋̉̎͑̓͜m̸̛͉̱͔̤̞̱̩̠̫̍͂̈́͆̓̎͛̕͘͘̕ͅa̷͚̪͕̞̽̀̓̎͋͜s̴̛̠̙̦͇̪̯̻̠̭̞̞͑̆͛́̏͗͛͐̕͜͠t̴̨͔͇̞͇͖̦̟͇̦̭͚̥̯̓͐̋̈͋̈́̈́̚͜͠ẻ̷̞͕͖̖̖͉̄r̴̢͖͍͉̤͉͐̔̕p̸̛̱̥͇̲̗̤̼̹̝͋͛̔͆̏̀́͗́̎̊̔͐̕͜͜į̵̢̡̮̠̰͚̬̮̻̹̹́͌ḙ̵̡͙̳̥̩̠̝̓̈́͐̃̉̕͜c̶̢̛̘̦̬̜̾̾̒̍̋̐̆͠e̷͎̥̲̥̝͐̔̑̃͒̈́̎͌͌̔͋̚ 😀 This is what my friends made me into:

 

An accurate representation of my internal state.

They know me well.