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A collection of associations

A summary to accompany the video.

 In everyday language we are accustomed to a very narrow box-like view of words and lyrics. Through delving deeper there is a world that could be communicated from each noun, verb, adjective etc.  In this project I explore this idea through a collection of visual associations.

In the video we are presented with one picture for every lyric in the song ‘telephone’ by Lady gaga. The pictures are superimposed over the original music video in time to their respectful part. I have playfully stretched straightforward meanings, attempting to emulate what say an extraterrestrial would make out, if given the song and lyrics. This video aims to provoke thought surrounding what we as humans take for face value and to consider different associations. I’ve chosen a popular song for my project as I believed it would be widely recognized. There is a familiarity component which aids the work in effectively juxtaposing the music, words and images.

Fernando Restivo

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ctec501 completion of project.

My video is done, the collection is done. Tomorrow it will be exhibited and I am a little scared about that. As i type this, my video is being exported as a file which I’ll bring in to studio tomorrow morning and will be out of my hands. Ok. So I’ll take this moment to now talk about my project.

As I mentioned in my early posts I wanted this project to be a play block redemption. I think I’ve succeeded in this (well I hope).

Unlike last time the whole process was playful, treating the project as a game. This game was one of associations. What came from playing was a discovery of many things of interest.

1.Discovery of how expansive associations can be on words we would otherwise take for granted. In everyday language we are accustomed to a very narrow box-view of words and lyrics but on delving deeper there is a world that could be communicated from each noun, verb, adjective etc. 2. In breaking down the complete lyrics of a song my above discovery could be taken to an absolute extreme when ‘misheard’ word/lyrics were taken under consideration. lyrics aren’t usually enunciated perfectly for the listener to gather a complete and accurate reception of grammar and meaning a 100% of the time, and I took this idea and played with it to my fascination of the things that could be pulled out of a group of lyrics.

My collection of associations included lyrics that could be taken as acronyms, words that could potentially be describing movies/bands, references by the same name. It went as far as taking modern slang in it’s depths with words such as ‘me’ being interpreted as ‘meh’. Numbers and symbols were also played around with in this collection, such as ‘at’ being perceived as ‘@’. Pushing it even further I have an example of the word ‘gunna’ being interpreted as ‘iguana’.

The title of the song I chose sparked my concept of associations just from it’s simplicity and how much leeway I had to create my own vision. In my collection what I’d like to highlight is not my particular chosen of song or even the particular associations I’ve collected. I want my collection to make people think about expanse of information that exists and see how in something as short and simple as a music video so much can infiltrate through the medium.

On working on this I thought of an idea to expand this project in the future.

Getting peoples direct input through a survey to what they personally associate maybe a phrase or passage with. i’d be interested to see how different demographics interpret the same material.

This could then be visualized in say a data object

Ok so now I must write a brief artist summary I suppose to coincide with my video and then I should be able to drop this projects weight of my shoulders.

Here is a look at the collection video.

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Final project Post:5

The end is in reach.

An update: A complete 3:40 music video interlaced with images.

Deep breath. Wishing to never listen to this song again.

The bar on top showing the collected clips of association. many many clips.

my current problem however: I’m re-using some of the images on repeating verses and wonder whether this practice will weaken the quality of my project.

I’m leaning towards yes. Which has me going back to collect more associations and as a result bleeding from my ears from additional listening of this song.

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Final Project post:4

Ok. So I have downloaded the music video and opened it up in Premiere and have started to arrange some images over the video.

Within literally 5 minutes I was exhausted. My obstacles

Making sense of all the images I had saved ( So many images)

getting the images in time

Not getting sick of hearing the song over and over again ( especially since id have to listen to it in fragments)

Adobe premiere kept crashing inexplicably. Sigh.

what I was achieving however i was quite content with so I pushed on. I experimented with just having the images playing in time with the music and having none of the original visuals but it felt too bare and incomplete. This will take some time to get right, getting the collection in order and in place but I think it’ll all be worth it and stimulating to the viewer once together.

more progress soon. wish me luck.

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Final Project post : 3

So I’ve made it to round three which will consist of collecting all my images/associations ready to be prototyped into my ”something” which will then be exhibited.. let’s begin.

In retrospect I should have perhaps made a folder for the images instead of having approximately 200 collected images just saved on my desktop. you live and you learn :s

This alone was pretty cool I thought, one pop song sprouting this chaotic plethora of associations .

Ok so that’s my project. goodnight * drops mic* If only! I couldn’t possibly stop here.. After the photos were collected, using google search of course, I begun looking at possible ways to display my ‘art’.

I stumbled across an american sign language website (https://www.start-american-sign-language.com/songs-in-sign-language_html) On display were videos of people signing to popular songs. The likes of :

This sparked many thoughts of interpretation. The above song is being translated into the language and given all new associations. I begun to think my original idea from post 1 of making a music video would maybe be the best way forward with my project.

Other findings lead me to simple lyric music videos and the way they are presented: Typically just having the words come up at the appropriate time along with the music. Lastly, I watched the original music video for the song I am using.

At this point my thinking to use  the original video and overlaying the images in time with the lrycs . This would give the viewer the experience of re-interpreting the song in real life as they’d have the familiar music and video there to contrast.

So a little reflection I think may be in order. The direction this is headed in seems to be in a way connected to our collage project, although it’s not the same kind of digital collage arrangement we did, I can see similarities. I suppose also that it can connect to our data block, seeing each word in the lyrics as a catalyst to so much data connected to it. More reflection: I’m quite happy with my progress and Ive found the concept of re association more interesting than I initially thought. More on the project soon :)

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Final Project post:2

I begun looking at songs named after inanimate objects as this seemed like a good place to examine a meaning/idea that the musician has expressed and could be played with to obtain results. On mojo.com (http://www.watchmojo.com/suggest/Top+Ten+Songs+with+Inanimate+Objects+as+Titles) I found the following list:

A popular songs would work well for my project as they’d be easily recognizable to most; this I thought would be an essential part when it came to exhibiting the interpretation. A song we are confident we “know” re-interpreted to spark thinking. For some reason Telephone, the number one song on the list feels right to me so I think I’ll proceed with exploring that song..

A song named after a telephone

pictured above: Alexander graham Bell with his early telephone.. So here I’ve started....strange how one word can have envelop different forms. We are obviously meant to think of a modern cellphone, but as part of my project i’m pushing what’s to be expected. This word alone made me keen to continue exploring the lyrics. below are the lyrics in their entirety.

[Lady Gaga] Hello, hello, baby, you called? I can't hear a thing I have got no service In the club, you say? say? Wha-wha-what did you say, huh? You're breakin' up on me Sorry I cannot hear you I'm kinda busy Kinda busy Kinda busy Sorry I cannot hear you I'm kinda busy Just a second It's my favorite song they're gonna play And I cannot text you with a drink in my hand, eh? You should've made some plans with me You knew that I was free And now you won't stop calling me I'm kinda busy [Pre-Chorus:] Stop callin' Stop callin' I don't wanna think anymore I left my head and my heart on the dancefloor Stop callin' Stop callin' I don't wanna talk anymore I left my head and my heart on the dancefloor [Chorus:] Stop telephonin' me (Stop telephonin' me) I'm busy (I'm busy) Stop telephonin' me (Stop telephonin' me) Can call all you want but there's no one home And you're not gonna reach my telephone Out in the club And I'm sipping that bubb And you're not gonna reach my telephone Call all you want, but there's no one home And you're not gonna reach my telephone Out in the club And I'm sipping that bubb And you're not gonna reach my telephone [Beyonce] Boy, the way you blowing up my phone Won't make me leave no faster Put my coat on faster Leave my girls no faster I should've left my phone at home 'Cause this is a disaster Calling like a collector Sorry, I cannot answer [Lady Gaga] Not that I don't like you I'm just at a party And I am sick and tired of my phone r-ringing [Beyonce] Sometimes I feel like I live in grand central station Tonight I'm not takin' no calls 'Cause I'll be dancin' I'll be dancin' I'll be dancin' Tonight I'm not takin' no calls 'Cause I'll be dancin' [Pre-Chorus x2] [Chorus] [x3] My telephone Ma ma ma telephone 'Cause I'm out in the club And I'm sippin that bubb And you're not gonna reach my telephone (We're sorry, we're sorry The number you have reached Is not in service at this time Please check the number, or try your call again)

http://www.azlyrics.com/l/ladygaga.html

I begun  image-searching the lyrics either in words on phrases to see the types of results I could obtain.

Above are some of the top google searches for the first words of the song. I found it interesting how broad the results could be. These pictures above already are associating a single line in the song with 1. Adele 2. Some cartoony hello 3. A literal baby 4. Uncle Sam Wanting you 5. a corded office telephone All this from

Hello, hello, baby, you called?

I felt this is a similar sort of exploration an alien stumbling across lady gaga for the first time would take part in. scanning each word to find meaning.

I thought further on this and  thought I could push my boundaries more when I begin collecting my associations if I not only search up the word exactly as it is printed on the lyrics but using the vocal sounds of the words. So to bring it back to my alien connection, if the alien was hearing and going to google to search up what he had ‘heard’. So for instance we could have the line:

And you're not gonna reach my telephone

heard as

and your not Ghana reach my telephone

This I thought would produce  more playful and interesting results.

From here I will prototype an output.

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ctec501 Final project

Post 1:

I haven’t posted in a while and I think now is a good time to begin blogging about the final project.

Let’s get down to it. I will be doing a collection, similar to our play block. If all goes to plan it will be more playful than my prior attempt as I believe I didn’t have a solid idea and could have done much better. I think with all Ive learned from the summation of the sound/play/data blocks, I’ll have skills to achieve good results for our exhibited piece. So this is kind of a play block redemption.  I’ll be exploring word meaning and associations through looking at music lyrics  Let me explain this better.. The concept is finding a popular song which has lyrics which are clearly meant to be read in one particular way and kind of turning that understanding on it’s head.  I’ll be collecting images which can be compatible with lyrical sections of the song to playfully re-interpret a song and it’s connotations. I will find a suitable song, scan the lyrics, plan out how to reinterpret and prototype my output. My current idea is a music video output but this could change.

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screenshot of zoogs on my processing game. Due tomorrow :-O

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Data object blog 4

Blog post 4 (#ctec501, #dataobject): document the object in your blog, final thoughts

Sigh. My process throughout this project has been all over the place and my blogs probably don’t contain what they should as a result.. This is the final post in which I will hope to document my object and sum up my final thoughts.

My object is an installation piece, through the eyes of my target data group: the total population.  I am showing the time spent on education and training decreasing with age and mass-media and free time activities increasing. It contains 10 certificates, 5 on the subject of Education and training, 5 on mass-media and free time activity.

The certificates are displayed laid in what would be chronological order.

pre-primary

Primary school

NCQA

Scouts

bachelors degree

Certificate for watching an entire tv series (true blood)

certificate for best shopper (spending $5000 at H&m )

Most improved player ( WOW)

Karaoke team spirit certificate

Participation certificate for social media

I’ve framed two of the certificates to represent the two time spent activities. Choosing pre-primary as my education and training and Participation certificate for social media as my mass-media and free time.

There is a manila folder placed in the installation to suggest that the certificates were being kept in there. In the Data-object I wanted to portray the act of looking over time spent being alive and realizing what it’s actually been spent on.  I wanted to viewer to think about how we decrease learning with age and the kind of activities that replace our quest for knowledge ( mass-media and free time activities). Final thoughts. Now that it’s all materialized I’m questioning many things again.

Perhaps it could be shown better. Perhaps I should have included other data in the creation of certificate process ( maybe including increase in house hold work as that also rises with time). Perhaps all the certificates should be framed on the wall. and the biggest perhaps of all, have I gone and done what I should have avoided from the start, read too much into the statistics.

On the other hand I’m happy I managed to present something which is thought provoking (in my opinion at least).

exhales.

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A late data object blog 3..

Hello and welcome. reflection on prototype/test cycle and learning.

My prototyping began about a week ago with concepts which I’ve now  abandoned (details on those on my previous posts) but for my final concept I begun by.. Collecting/creating certificate templates.

For the education and training category of certificates I collected the following..

pre-primary certificate

Primary school certificate

NCQA certificate

Scouts certificate

bachelors degree

For Mass media and free-time certificates I collected the following..

Certificate for watching an entire tv series (true blood)

certificate for best shopper (spending $5000 at H&m )

Most improved player ( WOW)

Karaoke team spirit certificate

Participation certificate for social media

These were printed and cut out ready for the next stage..

Then I had to go out and buy the last element to the object which was the casings , I chose plastic sleeves and two frames to represent the two sides of my chosen statistics( training,massmedia) I laid out the object(s) on a table as someone might have if they were reminiscing over their past, educational and training achievements and  mass media/free-time, from left to right. Also I superimposed my two data columns on the wall for reference.

On Monday I guess I’ll present the object(s) in a similar fashion. Additional notes.. I chose the certificates as they were ones I thought would be relate-able to our the classes age group. I tried a few arrangements but was most happy with the above. I intentionally left the certificates without name to be applicable to the total population as that was my data group. Also pictured above is a manila folder, which I figured would be an appropriate place for someone to keep their achievements.

End of blog 3...

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Data object blog 2 .

Quite past the due date, but alas it is happening now.  My apologies for lateness.. Blog post 2 (#ctec501, #dataobject): reflection on physicalisation process of message from data.

In the moments before writing this blog entry I needed to go back and re-examine the tables in order to make more connections with my first finding as advised by Antonio. This startled me as I had done so much work around my first idea and didn’t want to go back to connect my first: Time spent on education and training declining with age with anything else.. It wasn’t so difficult once I actually got down to do it. But for whatever reason I struggled with the act of doing it and  all the tables were going over my head. My time spent stressing and struggling was increasing significantly to the point of missing a few classes to my detriment . but now i’ve recovered my sanity and.. I’ve decided to contrast education and training decreasing with mass media and freetime activities increasing. I can see how I could apply some on my previous Ideas with the new data and not have to throw away hours of work. The two data sets I’ll be looking at now are 2009/10 column for education in training and 2009/10 column for mass media and free time activities. This to me seemed to a strong finding of one decreasing while the other increases. It seemed solid. So that is what I wished to physicalize in my object. I think I will stay with my hourglass Idea, prototyping it with my key ideas within the glass.. more on that soon in the next section.. UPDATE: On trying a few different ideas with the hourglass concept I’ve decided to change it up again. I was experimenting with placing things like a diploma and a remote on opposite sides of an hourglass to represent education and training vs mass media and free time.

This looked quite good but I felt I could perhaps represent the data better in a new format. So I thought of the scroll and I thought of certificates we acquire throughout life and this kinda lead me to a new idea...

Certificate holders.. A stack of certificate holders.

The idea is simple but I think the most effective in my opinion. I will make fraudulent certificates .. but for educational  and data physicalizational purposes so it’s ok? Spanning early to late years to include the age groups in my data 12-65+. Awarding things from education to..you guessed it.. mass media and free time activities.. I was quite wary to go down another road in my physicalization process as I felt the hourglass had been my best bet, but on deliberation I believe this one would do it more justice.. It’s quite a playful approach and the certificates would look a little like this..

I believe it’s a clear message presented in a unique way. . and will move on to create the object.

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CTEC502 Reflective(10)

SUMMARY

In summary I would fail this assignment if it was marked solely on APA referencing.. I will definitely go back and take the proper precautions next time but with all my other workload at the moment and probably my less than exceptional time management, I did the best I could. with that out in the open: Let the show go on. Introduction to creative technologies has been a bit of a ride for me, many new concepts. wrapping my head around new ways of thinking. Not always knowing what all it was building up to. It’s been a bitter-sweet relationship to put it bluntly. Now that we aren’t too far from the end I think It’s all sinking in however , like I can now see the collection of lectures as a whole  and connect some dots; maybe not all the dots but about 98%. The lectures we’ve had made me realize how out of the loop I’ve been on new technologies and the directions we are heading as mankind. They’ve opened up many cans of worms which I feel good about exploring. I feel however I’ll need to put in much more effort and manage my time better in order to do better.  I’m still stuck in familiar territories which I’ll try harder to step out of in the future. That, I guess ,concludes my reflective blogs for now.

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CTEC502 Reflective(9)

creative event/experience : Awoiska van der Molen talk at the Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design.

I attended the Awoiska Van der Molen artist talk at Whitecliffe not long ago. I have an interest in photography, however landscapes rarely appeal to me  (which is the type of photographer Awoiska is) However,  this was not the case this evening. The images are dark,mysterious and unnerving, all holding a deep story which held my interest and had me looking for more after leaving the talk.

Awoiska talked about her process involving isolation in nature and a basic way of living. It seemed to me almost a spiritual experience for her. It was as if she had to spend time in the location in order to understand it and do it justice in capturing it. It was inspiring to see an artist so connected, so down to earth and passionate about her work. My understanding was themes such as nature versus the urban world, human interaction with the landscape and our spiritual connection with nature were core to her work. She also discussed the importance of collaboration and letting the right people into your practice. She was speaking about a photobook she recently had published with help from a graphic designer and how they both helped achieve a great work of collected art. I thought this part related well to creative technology and having fields intermingling to solve problems and create greatness.

From the experience I learnt how beautiful and spiritual an artist’s practice can be and found an appreciation for landscape photography.

http://www.awoiska.nl/

https://www.facebook.com/events/225434364479777/

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CTEC502 Reflective(8)

Workshop :VJ/DJ Kim Newell & Pete Rive.

So as part of our Spimes project we will be VJ/DJing (video jockey/disc jockey) Using vdmx5, which is a virtual software for that very purpose. We had a workshop in which Kim and Pete went a little in-depth with what’s possible within the software, giving us examples of what’s visually/sonic-ally available to us. Besides being helpful for the Spimes project I was quite interested in the the workshop for vmx5s potential to be used in live music. I hope to one day be able to perform music and think this would be right up my ally to help me in visuals. It’s also a great example of  joining disciplines, which is a core idea in creative technologies. On the vmx5 site I was quite impressed with CandyStations Visuals for Sufjan Stevens

Below is a excerpt video.

I’m looking forward to experimenting and seeing what I can come up with in the future.

https://vidvox.net/ http://www.candystations.com/

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CTEC502 Reflective(7)

Reading: Digital Subjectivities and Selfies

Warfield, K. (2015). Digital Subjectivities and Selfies: The Model, the Self-conscious Thespian, and the #realme. International Journal of the Image, 6(2), 1–16.

This was a very interesting read and made me realize how multifaceted the act of the selfie truly is. The author reveals some fascinating themes and rituals which go behind the camera.

The paper introduces us to the selfie practice and the history which cannot easily be traced to any period as it’s literally been found throughout man’s existence. It then outlines the scope of the research being carried out, within the subjects, which in this case are 18-26 yr old women. Through surveying the women, we begin to collect an insight into prevalent customs and themes around the selfie.

Theme 1:  Subject on stage The first of three themes is the awareness of the act, the public vs private aspect. The women surveyed are fully conscious of what’s seen as appropriate and how a selfie is judged by the public, they understand the connotations associated with say a private bedroom as opposed to a touristy shot. Theme 2: The Subject.(model) This second theme deals with the practical, the planning and producing the perfect selfie. The Results from the surveys present that the woman see themselves as the subjects and attempt to present themselves in the best possible light. This is a complex task as there is much to take into consideration, lighting, make-up, hair,  form, expression, and smile. The women took upon themselves the roles of model, make up artist, stylist,  and photographer. To get the best possible image at times the women would borrow looks from their role models and celebrities. Theme 3: Real me in the mirror. This I thought was the most significant theme , as the women wanted to create an authentic portrait of themselves through the selfie. Which would touch on points of self reflection and being self critical. It was seen as an overly emotional process at times, an act which would result in validation or shame. Additionally the concept of multi-subjectivity came up where the women had to balance of authentic and aesthetically pleasing too. A second part of this theme was also the finding that for some of women’s selfies were at times completely private, used to look back on and reflect on at a later date.

This was a very insightful read. The selfie is something we don’t think about thoroughly in the day to day, we just accept it being there. It is a very fundamental part of our technological age and it amazes me what can go on behind the camera.

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CTEC502 Reflective(6)

creative event/experience : Alfredo Jaar: The Politics of Images exhibition. Trisha Clark Gallery.

TheTrisha Clark Gallery is currently showing work from Alfredo Jaar. A name  I had not heard of before.

Alfreddo Is a chillean Artist who’s been around and done some pretty impressive things. He’s described as an artist, architect and film maker in his personal biography.

The gallery was small, but it held some quite thought provoking work by Jaar,

ALFREDO JAAR: THE POLITICS OF IMAGES presents works spanning Jaar’s practice, from the last work made in Chile in 1981 before leaving Chile under military rule for New York, to the recent work Other People Think that contextualises a life spent creating images from politically and culturally contested situations of exploitation, oppression and violence.

http://trishclark.co.nz/exhibitions/alfredo-jaar-the-politics-of-images/

One very provoking installation was the “In the aftermath of Trauma” which examined The infamous photo in which we have The president and his officials  watching the Osama Bin Landen raid.

At the time, and even to this day, this was the only bit of evidence we have been given of the event taking place. We are expected to believe an event took place solely from a photo of people watching it take place.. It also highlights how we are further not given light on secondary party of people on the supposed other side of the screen. This installation made me consider all the things we take at face value and do not critically evaluate. How much trust we put on our government to do the right things and be honest.

Another highlight for me was the “The Silence of Nduwayezu“

A piece consisting of a million slides of the same pair of eyes on a light table. Even before looking for meaning in the piece I was taken  back by the sheer scale.  At the gallery we only had a photo of the installation to consider but it was still a powerful experience. I found this interview for Art 21, a tv series focusing on contemporary visual art and artists.. where Jaar talks about the owner of the eyes.

ART:21:

Who is Nduwayezu? Can you tell us more about his situation? Why did you decide to represent only his eyes in this work?

JAAR:

I visited a refugee camp and Nduwayezu was seated on the stairs of a door. I discovered very quickly that all these kids were orphans that had witnessed how their parents were killed. Nduwayezu actually saw his mother and father killed with machetes. His reaction was to remain silent for approximately four weeks. He couldn’t speak. His eyes were the saddest eyes I had ever seen, so I wanted to represent that and speak about his silence—because his silence refers to the silence of the world community that let this happen. Excerpt from an interview between Art:21 and Alfredo Jaar: The Rwanda Project

I found the way of conceptualizing such an experience in a installation as a very strong way to get a message across. It made me think of our current CTEC501 project in a way although different it is still taking one thing and making you think about it through a new medium.. I look forward to checking out what other exhibitions will be on at the Trisha Gallery in the future.

http://www.alfredojaar.net/index1.html

http://trishclark.co.nz/exhibitions/alfredo-jaar-the-politics-of-images/

http://www.pbs.org/art21/images/alfredo-jaar/the-silence-of-nduwayezu-1997