Tag: InternetArt&Culture

Telepathic Stroll Final Project with SuHwee, Makoto and Bao

I really like the outcome of our Final Project very much.

This is the link for our video wall, Video Wall on Third Space Network

This is a Screen Record of the Video Wall on Third space Network.

 

And This is What I did before the wall was made in Premiere Pro to get a general feel of what it will look like and to get the exact timing to start each video in the video wall.

 

Lastly, this was my Individual Facebook broadcast, Just to re-emphasis on the point, what made our project really interesting was the video wall, every individual Broadcast doesn’t seemed like much, but when we are linked with the rest, we will produce a piece that is much more than itself.

Posted by ZiFeng Ong on Friday, 10 November 2017

we are the third space and first space performers.

The main purpose of our project planning was to begin with the end in mind – To present the four broadcast in a video wall that will be interesting for the viewer to watch, we will be the third space performers by having our broadcasts interact with each other in the third space. Our final presentation in class will be a live performance and I am not taking about the fact that everyone will watch what WAS BROADCASTED LIVE, nor all the audience in class will be watching it in THE PRESENT, but as the timing to click start each of the video must be precise to the miliseconds and will not be replicable when anyone play it again by themselves later as Telepathic Stroll will look vastly different if the time to click play each video are slightly different, so we are making a Live Performance by playing the four video in a way that we think it is for the optimum viewing sensation.

how did we perfected our timing even when not being able to see each other?

This is the reveal of our broadcasting secret! GET READY! CLEAN YOUR EARS(EYES) AND BE PREPARED! We called our system the….*Insert drumroll in your mind*

“THE MASTER CONTROLLER”

so… what is the Master Controller?

Basically, it is a well crafted sound track that is 23 minutes which consist of drum beats that worked like a metronome for syncing our actions and careful instructions to tell each performer what to do at which exact moment and every performer has a personalized sound track because we are doing different task at the same time.

How was it made?
It was made in Premiere Pro and a web based-Text to Speech reader and I screen recorded when it was reading to extract the sound from it into Premiere pro. The whole process to create the soundtracks took more than 18 hours and I’ve lost count of the time afterwards.

 

So how does it works exactly?
On the basic Idea, we will have the instructions preparing us and telling us what to do like “Next will be half face on right screen. Half face on right screen in, 3, 2, 1, DING!” and we will have our actions/change of camera view being executed on the “DING!” so that all our action will synchronize.

It started when we were at the meeting point where we started the sound track at the same time, counting down to 7 minute to walk to our respective starting point and wait for broadcasting to start, first, I will start broadcasting and then Makoto, SuHwee and then Bao on a 5 second interval, this was done so to allow us to have control when we play the four broadcast in the class to achieve maximum synchronization, if we started the broadcast at the same exact time, we could not click play on all four video in class which will result in de-synchronization. After started the Broadcast, we filmed the environment which was to remove the difference the timing from 30 seconds to 15 seconds depending on the time we started the broadcast and have everything happening afterwards at the exact same time.

Afterwards, we will have different actions at the same time, like when Bao and me entered the screen, Makoto and Suhwee will be pointing at us, this was done by giving different set of instruction in the Master Command at the same time, since each of us could only hear our own track and there will not be confusions among individual and clear instructions were given although I was confused for countless of times during the production of the Master Command because I have to make every command clear and the timing perfect, and it includes countdown on certain actions but not those repeated actions. The hardest part to produce was the Scissor-Paper-Stone part in the broad cast as everyone was doing different actions at the same time

at the end of the scissor paper stone segment, we all synchronized to the same action of the paper and Bao and I were counting on 5, so we all were showing our palm.

Towards the end of the Broadcasting, many of our soundtrack was specially instructing us to pass the phone to a specific person like Bao will have it saying “Pass the phone to ZiFeng. 3, 2, 1, DING!” and “Swap phone with Makoto. 3, 2, 1, DING!” this was done just to avoid confusion during our broadcasting rather than going “pass phone to the left” which is quite ambiguous.

Overall, there was a lot of planning and every details must be thought out carefully when I was making the tracks because every small mistake will affect our final presentation to not as good as it should be, I am lucky that I only made one mistake in the Master Command which was the direction where SuHwee and Makoto will be playing their Scissor Paper Stone with and we clarify it before our final broadcasting.

On the actual day of our broadcast.

The whole week will be raining according to the weather forecast so we did our final broadcast in the rain, luckily for us, the rain wasn’t too heavy and we could just film it in the drizzle. We started our broadcasting dry, and we ended our broadcasting wet.

We explored Botanical Gardens for a bit and decide the path each of us will walk and we walked it 3 times before the actual broadcast – the first time we walk when deciding where and how it will be like, second when we walked back, third was right before we started the broadcast as we walked 7 minute to our starting location so our first 7 minute into the broadcast will be us walking back the same path in the same timing.

we did a latency test by broadcasting a timer for two minute right before the broadcast and we could make some minor changes in our timing if there are some latency issue by calibrating the individual Master Controller to the latency before hand, but luckily for us, non of us were lagging and we had the best connection possible so there was no need to re-calibrate the Master Controller. Also, just to mention, Since Bao and I were having calibrated connection due to the previous Telematic Stroll (NOT Telepathic Stroll), he doesn’t have to calibrate with us again since I am doing it, so we filmed his phone ‘s timer.

Some recap of Telepathic Stroll:

 

our project inspirations.

Telepathic Stroll was highly influenced by BOLD3RRR and our lesson on Adobe Connect.

On the First glance, one can see the similarity in the association in Adobe Connect lesson with Telepathic Stroll, we had been pointing to the other broadcast, merging faces and trying to (act) interact with each others in the video wall just like the exercise we did during the Adobe Connect lesson,

This was the seed for our project, to live in the third space and interact with others and have a performance by doing things that is only possible in third space like joining body parts and point at things what seemed to be on the same space when its actually not in the first space.

In our discussion before the final idea, we had many different good ideas that was inspired from music videos like this:

In the end, we only used minimal passing of object (our face) in Telepathic Stroll and we grew our idea from a Magic trick kind of performance to an artistic kind of performance.

I feel really weird to have many of my project in this semester being inspired by BOLD3RRR, not in a sense that the style or the appearance or even the presentation, but in the sense of the preparation and the extensively planning before the Live broadcast as I always liked good planning that leads to good execution which I am really inspired by BOLD3RRR in this, especially in using pre-recorded track and incorporate it into a live broadcast to make it blends into the live aspect of it. This time, instead of using pre-recorded tracks and image over the broadcast like in our drunken piece (which was also highly influenced by BOLD3RRR), we evolved from this idea to using a pre-recorded track in the background for us to sync all of the movement even when not being able to see/hear from each other.

In our multiple occasions of class assignment which we went Live on Facebook, we figured out many limitations of Broadcasting

  1. If you go Live, you can’t watch other’s Live unless you have another device to do so and if you can’t watch others live while broadcasting, two way communication is relatively impossible.
  2. even if we have another device to watch, there will be minimum of 7 seconds delay.
  3. If you co-Broadcast, you can see the others in Live, but if we are doing a performance and yet we discussed through the co-Broadcast, since we can see each other and the viewer could also see it and this is not the effect we want in our final project.
  4. Co-Broadcast will have the quality dropped.
  5. There will be possible lagging in the connection that will cause the “!” during live and skips in the recorded playback. This must be overcome by all means.

This is why, doing individual broadcast with careful planning and our Master Command system will overcome all of the limitation we faced and with the calibration before the final broadcast, most of the problem were solved.

our idea of Social Broadcasting

In Telepathic Stroll, we are trying to present the idea of social broadcasting in a way that is like the real world social – the collective social,

In our individual broadcast, we could not know what the other was doing nor feeling, yet when we are placed together in a location(both the physical and third space), we could interact with each other and do amazing thing that individual can’t do. In Telepathic Stroll, even when just doing our own task without knowing the status of each other, by doing these individual task collaboratively, We united as a group forming as a single unit, every member is as important as all of us and if any of us were removed, the whole structure will collapse into a Problematic Stroll, nothing more than just an individual broadcast

If that wasn’t Social, what is?

Team Telapathic Stroll: Signing out.

 

 

Telematic Stroll to the Sunrise.

First of all, we did not want to use the Facebook Co-Broadcasting function as our goal of this Telematic Stroll is to test out the system for our final project(there will be four broadcasting at the same time and none of us could see what others are doing, yet we will form a piece together.) ANNDD MANNNNNNN~~ THIS WORKS SOO MUCH BETTER THAN EXPECTED!!

Telematic stroll

Posted by ZiFeng Ong on Monday, 6 November 2017

This was the Broadcast which I did and viewing it individually doesn’t seemed like much, its just a random walk-around video which wasn’t impressive at all.

But when linked it with Bao’s Broadcast… Things get a little more interesting.

 

  1. Both Broadcast were not edited in any way except for putting them side by side, if we create a video wall and play it directly, it will be the exact thing.
  2. The video were done on the spot through Facebook Live without any feedback of the other Broadcaster available to both of us, we only know what we were doing while unable to see the other party, even if we do, there will be a 7 second delay between broadcasting and watching live.
  3. In conclusion, This is Magic.

But how are we doing it? It’s a secret for now and we shall keep it until our final project. For now we are still improving our system and you should just take it as it is a MAGIC. TADAA!! A sense of wonder for a viewer is what we wanted to achieve. 

This is our one and only try. Most of the times we were uncoordinated and we did not discussed what to film beforehand while there were mistakes made everywhere throughout the broadcast and we did some of the mistakes at the same time which made it seemed intentional, making it even more magical.

To point out some of the wonderful MAGIC we did.

In this Telematic stroll, we had found out what problem there is during the live broadcasting and will improve it for the final project, also, it had been a really long time since I woke up this early.

When I left house, the sky was still dark and it reminded me of my future.

 

I really like this random shot before the Stroll.

After the stroll, when the sun finally rise.

we checked the timing for sunrise and it stated that it was 6.47a.m, but the actual sun came up only around 7a.m which is when we finished our Telematic stroll.

Luckily for me, right after we finished the broadcasting, it started to drizzle. And did I mentioned that we were supposed to do on Monday morning and we woke up at 5a.m. and it was raining so we postpone our stroll, it was really lucky for us that it wasn’t raining on Tuesday morning even when the weather forecast said would.

Finally, I am REALLY impressed when I put the video next to each other, they worked really well and there is improvements that could be made and we all learnt from it.

 

 

Networked Conversations With Second Front Review.

This was a eyeopening Network Conversation with five of Second Front’s member – Bibbe Hansen, Liz Solo, Doug Jarvis, Patrick Lichty and Jeremy Owen Turner  This Conversation was HIGHLY advertised on Facebook by Prof Randall, and I found it really funny that the artists(Patrick Lichty) commented that they sensed danger in it and Liz Solo and Bibbe just found that comment funny and went along with it.

During the live stream, when there was a technical error when Prof Randall disconnected as a host and many disconnected together, I was lucky to remained in the chat room with a few of artists still streaming, they were really excited about the technical error, they Laughed Out Loud and being really thrilled about the fact that “Every where they go, they would crash the system.” JUST WHAT HAD THEY DONE IN THE PAST? I am also really amused with Bibbe with her animated personalities that she felt like a 8 years old kid in a 60 years old body where she gets excited fairly easily.

It is really interesting to see that the artists viewed their Second Life character (Avatar) sometime as themselves and sometime as a separate entity where they would mention what they did in their performance with “I” but also gave third person introduction to their Avatar during the introduction in the Network conversation. I guess they see the body of the Avatar as a separate being but shared the psychological, intellectual, emotions, conscious and all intangible aspect that made us human with the Avatar, this really seemed to be similar with the movie “Avatar”(2009 film) where the “Blue Avatar Thing” shared everything with the main character except for the physical body, and when Second Front logged out of the Second Life, the character will be inanimate and lose their “body” until they logged in.

On the upper half of the poster are the faces of a man and a female blue alien with yellow eyes, with a giant planet and a moon in the background and the text at the top: "From the director of Terminator 2 and Titanic". Below is a dragon-like animal flying across a landscape with floating mountains at sunset; helicopter-like aircraft are seen in the distant background. The title "James Cameron's Avatar", film credits and the release date appear at the bottom

They also mention about the identity within Second Life where they did a work in the past by interviewing the people in real life and recreated the information they gained and place it directly into Second life, They would also change their Avatar appearance to replicate the other member’s Avatar and place a tag with the name of the character they copied and act as them for some time, also to add to this identity within Second Life, Second Front found it really interesting to place unsuspecting Real Life people like Andy Warhol into Second Front’s performance, as mentioned

“There was a Fluidity of Who was Where and Who Was What In Second Life”

Anyone could be anyone at any place, there was no clear boundary of what you can be in Second Life, this was what made Second Life so intriguing to a point that people lost themselves in the game.

 

Throughout the Network Conversation, Second Front talked about topics which were really got me thinking about the third space performance, as they are moving towards the VR, Patrick Lichty also mentioned the possibility that the neuro-plasticity might takes hold, if we gets too engrossed with the Virtual Reality, our brain may be rewired to evolve along with the technology and they briefly mentioned something about Neil Harbisson (I think, my ear-to-brain-to-hand function were not fast enough to write it down, but Patrick mentioned about some guy and I think its Neil Harbisson after I googled) where his brain was rewired because he uses sense that we would otherwise not use in that context, This is why the VR headset will someday affect our visual cortex, and by using VR, isn’t it just putting a screen to the third space right in front of our eyes and transport us directly into the third space? The future will be amazing for sure.

Lastly, I would like to agree the Network Conversation (I cant remember nor did I write down who said it again, and this is not the exact words but what I interpreted and summarized) that

“Performance is all about the body, what if we take the body out, we have emotions, we have feeling.”

When we are in the Third Space, it is real as there are all of what made us human, except the physical body. These panels(the Adobe Connect grids) is a great example of bringing people together through Third Space.”

If there are anything that I learnt from the Network Conversation, It further emphasis that the third space is a very new platform for human to be in and we are still in the process of integrating into it. It may take some time before our brain complete the rewiring so that we can have the thirdspace as a new human sense through the “Evolved neuro-plasticity” which might not even happen, but while the possibility are endless, so why not just learn from the Second Front and to have fun in doing things we all like while enjoying the process of creating something regardless of the end result but only focus on the enjoyment of process.

Nonetheless, the Second Front enjoyed and had fun in the Network Conversation!

 

Final Project Rehearsal

Posted by ZiFeng Ong on Tuesday, 24 October 2017

In our final project rehearsal, we are focusing more on the grid appearance and the technical aspect of the overall feel, we also discussed and understand the flow through this rehearsal.

 

In our discussion, we decided on a few combinations like what to film and how should film it, also the passing of phone is rather tricky because we are afraid that we will drop the phone that doesn’t belong to us.  there are many more fine tuning needed to be done, but for now, we will see what these 4 piece will look like together and decide what combination will we do.

 

This is the segment where we pass the phone to the next grid, we hope to achieve an effect that feels like we are moving in a straight line instead of passing in circle, we will only know the final effect when we view it from the grid.

and this, just one video alone wont have any effect, but we hope to achieve a panorama spin effect through this when the grid is out. 

We are just as excited because of the fact that we doesn’t know how the true effect of these rehearsal will be like and we are waiting for a surprise which may or may not be what we would like it to be. The first time we see the final outcome will be the first time our class sees it.

 

 

Research Critique: Second Front

The Second Front performance was extraordinary and unlike anything that we’ve experience in internet art and culture, the performance is entirely within a virtual world(third space) where what was common in the Second Life was totally impossible in the real world that we live in(like physics and such).

To be really frank, I started the research about Second Front by reading the Assignment Post and watching the two video over there, IT MADE EXACTLY ZERO SENSE TO ME, I am like..

WHAT THE SHH IS HAPPENING? WHY DID THEY USE THE HELICOPTER WHEN THE BANK IS RIGHT BELOW THE MANSION? WHY DID THEY SIT ON THE MISSILE HAPPILY? WHERE DID THE MISSILE EVEN COME FROM? WHAT IS THIS FLOATING BALLET DANCER THING?  WHAT IS HAPPENING??
WHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY~~~~~~~~?

“A good piece of art gives you a sense of wonder but a piece of astonishing art make us feel foolish” but I felt really stupid after watching both of the video, because I must be too slow to not get the meaning/message of them. So I carried on in the researches by starting to understand what exactly Second Life is….

Wait… This Second Life is actually a really interesting “Game” that have no boundaries or whatsoever. Users could create their game character anyhow they want, make their character to do anything, build all sorts of structures and items in the game and there are even user using Second Life to raise funds for real life volunteer funding which I think is such a good use of third space as a medium to solve problem in the third world! 

 

Back to the topic of the work of Second Front

I think what Second Front was doing was really amazing as they are all from different country and meeting, planning and executing the performance in the third space while transcending any laws(physic or social) which is only possible in the third space, Grand Theft Avatar felt like a piece that was drove by the inner desire of human, it started with the characters in the “Evil Genius Mansion” with the dramatic music and I think this is a reflection of us dreaming to be a badass in some point of our life like having super power- able to fly, super strength etc. and in the Grand Theft Avatar scenario, they are the “Rich Evil Genius”(rich because of the helicopter which is totally unnecessary) whom disguise themselves to rob the bank with the “Genius brain” that could unlock the safe to take all the Lindens in there, annnnnnnddddd *Plot Twist* they are trying to portray that they are not evil at all but rather acting as the Robin Hood who steals from the rich and “Give” it to the poor as we can see that the money is all scattered from the helicopter soon after they take flight but if it was the money they were after, scattering the money will be the last thing they do.

I really admire that Second Front is an adult group who are really childish(Just to clarify, being childish is a good thing, like child in their heart still survived) and they could make such wonderful performance in Second Life, when I was much younger, I was a gamer who did things which were really similar to the what Second Front were doing but on a much smaller scale, I remembered that I made my friends to wear a set of costumes in the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) called MapleSea but in a private server, we dressed up as the Meso Ranger and went around helping(Disturbing) people.

It was fun to be “Someone else” other than the normal character we used in the game and doing something we normally wouldn’t do with the disguise on, this was exactly what Second Front had done in the Grand Theft Avatar.

I would like to quote Alise Iborg  when asked question about the rehearsal vs Improvisation in their work:

If it is better improvised we will probably do that. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

With prerecorded performances, we can fine tune and edit out things we don’t want the audience to see. But with improvised performances, the work takes on a life of its own fueled by the creative energy of our players which really shows through.
Also, many times, it’s the surprises and unintended actions that make the work really come alive!

Isn’t this exactly what we learnt in this module? “Also, many times, it’s the surprise and unintended actions that make the work really come alive!”. Alise Iborg is more likely to have an improvised performance than a prerecorded one (its kind of paradoxical as their work was prerecorded and edited, but the content in it seemed really organic and improvised) and this is the spirit of having a performance(live or not) and if we embrace and accept the possibility that things will not go as planned or even planned to have the unplanned happenings, it would make organic pieces which unique and flavorful due to the shift against logical interpretations.

Afterall, Second Front is having fun making these artwork which some were funny, some were totally illogical, but the main thing which we all can learn is to have fun in the process is more important than having the perfect end result, I am sure Second Front laughed out loud when they were executing their pieces while they were like “FLYYY!! MAKE MORE OF THEM FLYYY!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!”

 

 

 

 

Research Critique: Jennicam

First thing that came to my mind when researching about Jennicam….

It is wonderful that she was doing what she liked by putting herself on the line(ONLINE).. but what if its a ugly man doing the same thing but because he is an exhibitionist, would “Johnnycam” be as worthy as the Jennicam?”

This is just a thought of mine on the thought of “What If” and there will be no clear answer to this.. or is there?

OK Nevermind.

Back to the reality… The critiques.

Jennicam is a wonderful form of broadcast that was developed from a simple test of trying to write a script that takes a picture with a webcam and upload it onto the website, she started to show the website to her friend and slowly, it gained popularity and there is no reason to stop. Then when she became relatively popular, she started to charge a subscription membership at $15 per year, for those who are subscribed to Jennicam, they could enjoy the pictures to be uploaded every 2 minutes while those who are not subscribing, they can only see the new picture every 20 minutes.

Things that you charge people to view must be really exciting so there will be this many audience willing to pay just to see it? NO! As mentioned by Jennifer:

I think if I weren’t normal,  it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.

She agreed that Jennicam is full of boring-day-to-day-stuffs and this is what made Jennicam so interesting, because there is nothing extraordinary in it, everything is unscripted and whatever happened on Jennicam just happen naturally and this is the beauty “Livecasting” that Jennifer was the pioneer in.

What might have made Jennicam so popular back then?

I think what made Jennicam so popular to an extent that there were 4million view on a single day at its’s peak was because of a few reason..

Firstly, there wasn’t that much things to do on the web during that time and like our senior Kapi said during his presentation,

90% of the information on the internet was generated in the past 2 years

and I found some source of it for credibility check
It meant that before 2003,(the year that Jennicam ended) the information on the web was so far lesser than 10% of what we have in the current time, this means that the chance of people spending their time on Jennicam are far greater than if Jennicam were to appear in the current time. Also, Jennicam was pioneer to do this online and surely she did gain some popularity because of this.

Next, It gives the viewer a sense of treasure hunting as the selling point of Jennicam was that it is normally boring 99% of the time and there is the 1% which Jennifer would show something that people were waiting for on the Webcam like being naked, having intimacy contact with her boyfriend and she said

“The first time one boyfriend and I did started kissing, the site went down pretty much immediately from too much load”

The beauty of having 99% of the time as being boring and 1% exciting bit made it feel like the good thing are worth the wait, which unlike other webcam strippers, who are naked most of the time so once Jennifer do something out of her ordinary, it will make the Jennicam viewer feel lucky.

Lastly, it feeds on the Loneliness sentiment within people. People who feel alone will feel better if they see someone are as boring as they are in real time as David Letterman said in the video:

“This is really all people want, people are lonely and desperate, they are lonely, desperate, miserable human beings. They are reaching out, they want to see life somewhere else taking place, it’s comforting, don’t you think?”

Yes, I think so too, there are reasons why Mukbang are so popular all over the world.

Jennicam is like a 24/7 Mukbang which accompanied lonely people so that they can see another human somewhere in the world and the more they watch it, the more connected they feel to Jennifer. But this is where things gets weird.. those who are feeling really connected to Jennifer only have a one way connection and they could possibly see Jennifer as a 7 years friend while Jennifer doesn’t even know them. I personally think that this is somewhat similar to fans and idols while some hardcore fans revolve their life around the idol, the idol don’t know they existed. This is really sad for these people whom watch Jennicam due to their loneliness, Jennifer might be all the friend they have in their life, and in 2003, BAM!! ONLY FRIEND DISAPPEARED.

Image result for lonely gif

The Idea of private and public had changed since internet.

In the past, privacy was what was behind the walls and if you close all doors and windows, you will have a private space, but now the invention of the webcam and internet, it opens a window within the private space and on the other side of the your window, there could be countless of viewer who is able to look into the window you’ve opened in your private space and since anybody could just look into your window, doesn’t that made it a public thing since anyone can just take a look and decide to stay and watch it further or just leave?

This is what the Jennicam was doing, she opened a window for 7 years that anybody could look through it, in her own private space but was her private space really private as anyone could just take a look at anytime? Although she said:

“Because I don’t feel I’m giving up my privacy. Just because people can see me doesn’t mean it affects me – I’m still alone in my room, no matter what.”

Yes, she is alone in the room but that doesn’t meant that she got her privacy, imagine that the webcam is an actual opened window and every time a viewer would pop his head on the window and look into her room but can only stay outside.(Jennifer is still be alone in the room) would she freak out? I think she would, at least for the first year.. The biggest difference is that she is unable to see her viewer and have this false sense that she is protected through the barrier of the internet distance. So was she losing her privacy? I think she definitely did since she will have to adjust her life due to Jennicam like when she is having intimidate actions(sex) with some of her boyfriend, they would turn off the light and do it under the blanket, this, isn’t it losing of privacy?

 

In Conclusion

In my opinion, Jennicam is similar yet different from when we do a live broadcast. The Similarity is that both are unable to retrieve what was put on there when the viewers saw it although we could probably delete it afterwards but we are unable to undo what the viewer saw. The difference between Jennicam and our live broadcast is that due to the short time frame of the live broadcast, it is possible to have a general idea of the content within the stream and “Act” upon it but in Jennicam, who we saw is probably who she was as it is virtually impossible to act 24hours a day for 7 years, and we are getting the realest Jennifer as possible.

Jennicam was a work that place herself on the limelight of the internet for 7 years, the popularity she gained might be accidental, maybe she is an exhibitionist who like to show herself naked sometime, but I think that she was definitely lonely because when she wrote her code and uploaded the webcam picture to her website, she showed her friend as a form of attention seeking and she unexpectedly seek-ed the attention from the whole world. Although she did not start with this reason, but she definitely progressed into capitalizing and selling her privacy for some fame and money.(which I don’t think it is negative at all, its really smart to do it!)

 

OBS Livestream Documentation

I Am Unable to embed the video here as I posted it directly to the NTU OSS Facebook Group, Hence.. >> CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO IN NEW TAB<<

Initially I wanted to tackle on the idea of multi-tasking by having doing many task simultaneously while on live, but after watching BOLD3RRR by Jon Cates, It gave me an idea of having multiple prerecorded videos in the live stream and produce a piece that is slightly chaotic due to the amount of events happening on the screen of the viewer and with sounds from the recordings disrupting my live speech. Originally I wanted to have multiple cameras, one filming me from the front, others will film from other angles like from the back of my head, side view and such, however I’m unable to find my additional webcams I had. So I resorted to having a share screen from my phone whereas my phone is usually unlocked and in the “auto play mode” of some sort of game and recently it’s Pokemon Go so I wanted to show it as part of my life.

Before the stream

I’ve recorded 3 grid of 15 minutes each on different days but I wore the same shirt to give a illusion that it all happened at the same time. Since I’m using my desktop which does not have a webcam installed(my laptop keep crashing), I stuck the USB camera onto a small tripod and placed it in front of me.

In my 10 minute live stream

As I said, I will talk more after the first class assignment,

Note to self: I should talk more in the live video.
-Zi Feng, 21 Aug 2017.

Although I am really bad in English and don’t enunciate words properly, I tried to narrate like living in a third space and interacting with the recordings which I dragged myself in the third space to describe what’s happening on the screen, I remembered that during our Adobe Connect lesson that when the camera is flipped, I had a hard time coordinating my movement so I flipped the live camera(only the live is flipped) to make it a mirror. Also, I am not sure if there audience but went ahead and asked if the audience could hear me, Makoto replied but I only saw the reply about 5 minutes later. (Should check comments more frequently, now I know)
“Live” me flying over to point at “third space” me

The reason that I used this Youtube video from TrainerTips was because it was his first live stream of the series and I was watching and recording it while he was on live. The basic idea is to use a Live streaming video streaming me doing things Live in my Live stream, its like a Live-Streamception.

And then something happened as mentioned by Makoto when he was an audience during the live stream.The top right(pre-recorded) and bottom right(live) goes to the desktop at around the same time and you can see the changes that happened on my desktop within that few days.

As mentioned by Alvin’s comment in my previous post, Gesture is an important factor in communication so I tried to incorporate hand movements into the live stream when I was explaining about something. I was talking about how Korean manga is usually in a long strip format but the website which I read it(MangaFox) cut it into a page format.

Throughout the 10 minute of live, I am kind of lost and got mind blank multiple times, guess this is the cons of going live but also the beauty of it- the imperfections in realtime, I also asked the audience if there is anything they could recommend me to do and I think there were no audience during that point of time so I ended the stream soon after.

Lastly, I think that the future live streams will be posted to my timeline and then shared to the OSS Facebook group because posting directly to the OSS group prevented me from showing the video in this post as the OSS Facebook group is a closed group.

Special Thanks to Makoto and CherSee as they were my live audience and reacted to me during the live stream.Thank you!!! =D

 

Adobe connect reflection

I think that our lesson on Adobe was really fulfilling as it really enhance our understanding in the third space. I think that the fact that we could see ourselves in the screen act as a reminder that we should really act appropriately when the webcam was turned on. It was also a great way to have a lesson especially when the lecture would set ground rules that we need to respond when called, this was a really well thought way to make sure that we are paying attention at all times.

The part which I enjoy the most was the last part where we did a collaborative performance which we were supposed to join up with the person beside us to make something interesting.

I also love the part that we could chat in the chat box during the lesson which gave us a form of entertainment as we were joking in it.

Overall, this was a really fun experience for me and i am sure that we would definitely do this again over the normal physical class that we are always having(for other module too).

 

 

Research Critique: Hole in Space

Image result for ms-dos
The best computer I could ever buy in 1980 look like: MS-DOS. GIF from https://archive.org/details/msdos_shareware_fb_MDCD10.ARC

If I imagined that I am living in 1980 where the best computer I could ever purchase(if I am even rich enough) are only running on MS-DOS operating system, a period which the first computer that runs graphical user interface only appeared 3 years later(Apple Lisa), and I heard that I could talk to someone else 4800km away- face to face, real-time, I will not believe it until I went down and have the random someone from 4800km away replied to what I said.

This is how insanely amazing I think that the work Hole-In-Space was, this work by artists Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz was so forward in the time where the audience(also became participant) were not prepared for it and since during the 3 evening of the work, there was no signs or sponsor, no explanation was given to the work, it definitely struck curiosity within the passerby thinking :”Wait, What is this? is this a screen? *stares at someone and he stares back* Hmmm.. *Wave and the person wave back* HOLLLLLYYYYY SH*TTTTTT ITS MAGIC!!!!”

This made me wanted to see how the work was back then and I found a Youtube video of the work which was really interesting in how people communicate through the work.

“Its just, umm, television like telephone, right?  …. What a revolution it’s gonna be eh?”

– Random guy from the video A Hole in Space LA-NY, 1980 — the mother of all video chats (8:40)

People were singing, playing charades, finding their family or friends.– Playing charades through the work. From the video A Hole in Space LA-NY, 1980 — the mother of all video chats (13:20)

I think that the fact that the work was placed there for only 3 days with no explanation was just right because on the second day, there was news reporting and on the third day, people were calling their family or friends and asked to “meet-up” over the Hole-in-space this escalated to a big crowd holding signs shouting and screaming, and the whole situation started to get chaotic. The Hole-in-space has the power to bring people closer psychologically(definitely not physically), family and friends saw long lost friend, strangers interacted with each other they normally wouldn’t and this was evident in the reading Welcome to the “Electronic Cafe International”  

“Los Angeles’s Korean community and black community traditionally are at odds with each others. As they met and got to know each other through the network, they wanted to visit each other!”

Welcome to the “Electronic Cafe International (Page 349)

 

That people could gain understanding through meeting in the third space where people could react to each other. Seeing each other face in real time was essential in people opening up due to the fact that they know they are protected from harm however in the reading,

“Still, a person is offended when the virtual-space hand “touches” body part that wouldn’t be touched normally “in the flesh.” In virtual space, we learn the extent to which we “own” our body image”

Welcome to the “Electronic Cafe International (Page 347)

This made me goes to deep thought that since our virtual image are just a group of pixels that formed on the screen, therefore “our” virtual image does not exactly belongs to us, but to the owner of the screen, but is that ethically correct? Just because that these pixels grouped together to look like me and I will go”This is me” while pointing on the screen, but are they really me? Human’s way of possession are too weird.

 

Back to the topic, I think that Hole-in-space was an amazing work which turns all the viewer into a participant and through it, the interaction between the first space and the third space became a part of the art as people not only talked to people 4800km away, they also talk to those who were beside them and formed a connection due to Hole in space. These participants enable Hole-in-space to transform into a platform for collaborative performance art where all viewer became the art work, without their participation, the Hole-in-space would just be a piece of work that film people walking past the street in a window.

Lastly, I think that Hole-in-space enable people to see the potential in technology which shrinks the distance between people when used appropriately. It filled people with hopes in the future’s technology.– Contented Participant. From the video A Hole in Space LA-NY, 1980 — the mother of all video chats (26:46)

 

Research Critique – Here Come the Videofreex

I started watching the video with intention of finding out what made them revolutionary in the field of broadcasting, then I notice the common theme that they had since the start of the video throughout – They were persistently breaking the laws and social rules while being driven by their passion to finish what they started.

like how they stole the tapes from CBS 29:34 to 30:50 –

I think its the spirit in them that they film everything regardless of being good or bad, they will document everything and they felt like they had the responsibility to do all of those for the people and the future generation like how they mentioned here –

“There was a Political Obligation that we had to these people, not to let CBS have them.”

and during 48:26

“It was Necessary for us to go to these place where history was being made and to say : Lets have that alternative record.”

The Videofreex were going out of their way to get the record for the people  (even committing mutiny against CBS and hijacking the show) and this sense of being a part of something bigger was an important factor for them to go on for such a long time even with measly wages. Because of these, they were doing things that weren’t done by others during that time especially during a period when America was relatively in chaos which many demonstration were happening and Videofreex were not shy in covering the events from within the demonstration and even getting beaten by the police. Plus, Videofreex were covering on topics like Abortion and Death, which none of the mainstream TV would do during that time.

All of these set them apart from the mainstream TV and I am sure that many individuals were inspired by them for the actions they’ve done. With the portability of the Sony Portapak, paired with the guerrilla way of filming which gave the insight of an event happening, anyone could potentially be someone important that document the history, this slowly grew into the need of having a smaller video recorder to make it more potable. Videofreex had revolutionized the way news were being reported from being an “third party observer” to “First party participant” which could be seen in the news where the news reporter traveled down to the place where the event were taking place (e.g. chinese new year, tsunami aftermath) and report straight from the place.

Lastly, keep playing and experimenting with these things like Videofreex and you will get somewhere. For me, I think that anyone could be a social broadcaster, but those who are willing to take the risk for the things that they have passion in will become a legend.