Kokopelli Research

Who is Kokopelli?

(PG ver.)

A mythical character often portrayed as a hunchback flute player. The legend originates from ancient beliefs of American south-west natives. He is thought to be a symbol of fertility, joy, feast and long life.  He is also a musician, storyteller, rainmaker, healer, teacher, joker-magician and seducer.

“This merry traveler has a lesson fro everyone. the most important seems to show us that we shouldn’t take life too seriously.”

(Whimsical figure)

In certain myths, Kokopelli carries seeds or medicinal  artefacts in his hump which some say is a sack. He would sow the seeds, and blow life into them by playing his flute. He is most welcome during planting season. Others say that Kokopelli talks through the wind and his flute can be heard in the breeze of spring, bringing warmth. In this version, he brings fortune and prosperity to those who listen to his songs.

https://www.harpo-paris.com/en/legends-and-stories/8-kokopelli.html

http://www.indigenouspeople.net/kokopelli.htm

How do we hear?

(Vibrations and Hair!)

Sound waves travel into the ear canal to the eardrum. The eardrum passes the vibrations through the middle ear bones (ossicles) into the inner ear. In the inner ear is the cochlea that has thousands of tiny hair cells that change the vibrations into electrical signals that are sent to the brain through the hearing nerve. The brain then interprets the sound you are hearing a sound.

Frogs also have the Tympanic membrane that stretches across a ring of cartilage similar to that of humans. There is rod that is connected to the ear drum (Columella Auris), which vibrates by sounds that come at the frog. That sound passes through as pressure waves and the rod sloshes around in the inner ear fluid, which causes microscopic hairs to move (similar to human!), which send signals to the frog’s brain to be interpreted.

Essay on Frogs

http://www.dangerousdecibels.org/virtualexhibit/2howdowehear.html

http://frogsaregreen.org/tag/frog-hearing/

Body Part 1: Belly

There are 3 layers of muscle in the abdomen. The first is the external abdominal oblique followed by the Rectus abdominis and the Internal abdominal oblique and lastly we have the transverse abdominis.

http://www.innerbody.com/anatomy/muscular/lower-torso

Out of the Ordinary

Inspiration

KEY WORDS:  fold, ripple, resonance, inflate, pinch

Body Part 2: Face

(So many muscle!)

Facial muscles can be divided into 3 groups – Orbital, Nasal & Oral.

The orbital group of facial muscles contains two muscles associated with the eye socket – Orbicularis Oculi (performs closure of the eyelid) and Corrugator Supercilii (draw brows together, creates vertical wrinkles on the bridge of the nose).

The nasal group of facial muscles are associated with movements of the nose and the skin around it. (serve little importance to us humans) The nasalis is the largest of the nasal muscles – split into 2 parts; transverse and alar.  The two parts compresses and opens the nares. The next nasal muscle is the Procerus. The contraction of the procerus pulls the eyebrow downward to produce transverse wrinkles over the nose. The last nasal muscle is the Depressor septi nasi which pulls the nose inferiorly to open the nares.

The oral muscles include Orbicularis Oris (used to purse the lips), Buccinator (pulls the cheeks inwards against the teeth, preventing accumulation of food in that area) and others that can be further classified into the lower and upper group.

http://teachmeanatomy.info/head/muscles/facial-expression/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIImGwTVXuQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aDCrYUKIMo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agmm3P2tUTs

KEY WORDS: Elastic

 

 

Micro Project VII: Video Selfie

https://youtu.be/yMsqa_8BM6w

The alter ego I have chosen is a musician; inspired by the duet Twosetviolin. They are down to earth violinist who put out a relatable image. Therefore the home setting and clothes.

Their content allows fans to come together and feel for musician struggles. So I decided to make my video selfie an imagination of what their practice session might be – a little comical/sarcastic, serious and finally their efforts being applauded by their audience.

This side of performance is rarely seen, the outcome overshadows the process which is commonly seen as weakness. But everyone has to practice even professionals and that is why people love Twoset.

Recess week Arduino

With May Thu

https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/may005

Noise & Piezo
We tried playing the tune of Do a Deer. It worked.

 

Movements and servos
We tried making it 360 degrees and watched the servo motor almost break itself then realised it cannot turn that much.

We tried making the Ibiza Box again because ours did not work the last time. Except here we only use the Piezo. We tried editing the code given and it did not work. The original code works fine even though we did not have all the parts.

Micro-Project VI – A Day in the Life of Super-Participation

https://www.facebook.com/groups/981877025312775/

Groupmates: Desmond, May Thu, Joseph & Teri

Time: 11am 9/3/18 to 11am 10/3/18

For this activity we voted this day as our most interesting day of recess week. However, I think we did not share as actively as we should have. We mostly shared things that we were doing; all pretty trivial things such as going to class, going home, eating etc.

Joseph and I shared quite a lot, followed by May Thu and Teri. Desmond only started sharing after half a day had gone by. We also tried to comment on each others post as much as possible, most of which is reaction to the post. Sometimes we would ask about the shared information like where we were and what it was for.

I think the motivation behind this super-participation is to gain company for being alone, sharing joy and letting others know about your current status. Its always nice to let people know where you were in case you drop into a canyon and had to amputate your own arm. (127 Hours traumatized me)

Because we are all in different locations, we use the facebook page as an extension of our senses. It allow us to communicate and express ourselves in many different ways – text, stickers, videos, images etc. Through sharing we want to try and gain a reaction from others. It could be shock, empathy, sync emotions or amusement.

In my group I do not think anyone of us were trying to a certain persona by force but the things that we choose to share does reflect our personality and character.

Research Critique 3

Micro-Project V:

https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/ytan149/micro-project-5-art-of-destruction/

In our Micro-Project V: The art of destruction, we printed the Mona Lisa in actual size and burnt it. The act of burning this iconic painting is against the tradition where the painting needs to be hung and framed on a wall to be viewed and enjoyed. As such there is aberrance in the aesthetic culture.

Jon Cates said that there was “poetic embrace of noise and error” in which is the balancing of nonsense and knowledge. There cannot be beauty without ugliness and ugliness without beauty. The aberrance created is rationalised; with purposed to reveal an important message – art does not have to be proper.

This can be further supported by the Glitched Studies Manifesto, “Here noise exists within the void opposite of what (already) has a meaning. Whichever way noise is defined, the negative definition also has a positive consequence: it helps by (re)defining its opposite (world of meaning, the norm, regulation, goodness, beauty and so on).”

Leftover ashes

If you watch the performance you may see that the Mona Lisa starts off as a proper image. As it burns, it crumbles and falls apart. Some leftover ashes of laser pigment stayed intact, with a vague imprint of the printed image. The act of destruction lifts the art from its physical form to an idea. The rules of painting – perspectives, proportions, chiaroscuro etc are quite literally erased and replaced by a new concept that we the artist introduced.

Again as mentioned in Glitched Studies Manifesto “These works stretch boundaries and generate novel modes; they break open previously sealed politics and force a catharsis of conventions, norms and believe.”

Media Burn (1975)

Glitch art is often associated with the Utopian view and freedom. In our performance, Mona Lisa’s ashes were prone to being blown away by the wind which represented art to be ephemeral and free. Chip Lord was constantly talked about creating an image and putting out there as a form of information throughout the Ant Farm’s projects. He also made a brief mention of Ethos. Ethics are mostly in question in performance art. For example Ant farm’s Media Burn performance in 1975 was used to create an image to critique and attack media.

As mentioned in Glitched Studies Manifesto “Once the glitch is understood as an alternative way of representation or a new language, its tipping point has passed and the essence of its glitch-being is vanished. The glitch is no longer an art of rejection, but a shape or appearance that is recognized as a novel form (of art).” A glitch is an adnormality but after it is popularize it slowly becomes a norm and ceases to be a glitch.

Micro-Project V: Art of destruction

Groupmates: Bryan, Reuben , Kaiting and SiHui

We burned a photo-copied version of the Mona Lisa.

The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci which is the most well known artist associated to the Renaissance. So burning the Mona Lisa is an action that rebels against the norms of art – where art needed to be in proper perspective, proportionate, chiaroscuro etc.

End result – Ashes of burnt laser ink (brown).

The use of fire turns the ‘painting’ into ashes which releases the artwork from its frame. In the act of destroying traditional art, we created and turn it into new artform. This is to show that art is ever-changing as now in modern day the scope has broaden along with technological advancements. Art is ethereal.

Close up of ashes. The printed image can still be seen vaguely.

The process of this destruction happens over a period of time – watching it light up, the flame growing and then finally watch it die. Somewhat of a slow motion effect. It was suggested to be similar to Ai wei wei’s artwork of dropping a Han Dynasty Urn.