imaboi3000

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Blog Post 3, Ass 3

The subject of one’s connection towards nature has a significant influence on humanity, and is a powerful motivator.

In ‘CONNECTEDNESS TO NATURE, LIFE SATISFACTION, AND PERSONALITY: HUMANS, NATURE, AND THERAPY’ by Angel M. Mangino, it acknowledges how that “there has been increased focus in the literature on how the natural environment can provide health benefits such as improved well-being and reduce mental health problems.”

The conducted study reported revealed that from a sample size of 220 participants, “connectedness to nature was the single best predictor of willingness to consider Ecotherapy as a mental health intervention, followed by life satisfaction,” in regards to improving mental health and therapy. Health improvements that have been observed included decreased mental fatigue, anger, depression, anxiety, stress and increased positive emotions.

In addition. ‘Connectedness to Nature and to Humanity: their association and personality correlates’ by Kibeom Lee, Micheal C. Ashton, Julie Cho and Kayla Zachariassen, suggest that one’s connectedness to nature to b “one of the most important constructs in shaping individual’s attitudes and behaviours related to environmentalism.”

Due to this, human would naturally try to strengthen one’s connection towards nature. One of such methods is ironically using technology.

 ‘Dark Learning’ by Jacobus Capone, is a video work that is separated in seven channels. In each channel, acts in various landscapes, from fire, snow, rain and artic. Later on, each of the channels then depict a running waterfall, with the artist Capone standing in front of it, in awe of its beauty, each channel showing a different perspective. Two of the channels depict him prostrating towards the waterfall, as if he is submitting or worshipping the running cascade.

Through these acts, he responds to these landscapes, as well as exploring his relationship to the natural world, strengthening his connection towards nature, and more than likely achieving enlightenment and happiness.

Another work that parallels Capone is ‘Hart to Heart’ by artist, photographer and filmmaker Marten Berkman.

‘Hart to Heart’ is featured in the middle of an empty, hollowed gallery space. While wearing 3D glasses, a blank wall plays a three-minute video that displays images of melting snow, a flowing river, and smooth stones, with sounds of trickling water. The video then finishes with a transition of fields of blooming flowers under the shadow of mountains.

The audience is standing in nature, juxtaposed by simultaneously also standing in the middle of a manmade concrete room.

Berkman explains that the main force behind this work is his belief that while humanity’s desire to create and build is a natural instinct carved into us, it has had the side effect of disconnecting from nature. He hopes to rekindle the old memory of connection between humanity and nature.

When questioned about his biggest inspiration for his works, Berkman responded that his love of outdoors that motivates him, and wishes to spread his love towards other people through his art, hoping that his work would inspire others to experience it for real.

Another artist who captures the connection between humans and nature is 21-year-old self-taught artist Annija Veldre, through the use of phots and Photoshop manipulations. Veldre has created a series of works depicting the bond between humans and nature.

When interviewed about what are her motivations, she answered quite similarly to Berkman.

“I love nature and the wonders of it, so I try to incorporate animals and nature in every photo, exploring a simple beauty of life.”

 The connection between humans and nature is a topic that has been explored for many years. It is a simple, yet complex thought that has the power to spark inspiration and ideas in the minds of aspiring artists everywhere. It is mainly the utter beauty that nature radiates, from blooming fields to running waterfalls that inspires humans towards strengthening their connection, whether it be towards the goal of something as significant as improving mental and spiritual health, or something as simple as convincing others to experience nature first-hand for themselves.

 References

-          Lee, K., Ashton, M., Choi, J. and Zachariassen, K. (2017). Connectedness to Nature and to Humanity: their association and personality correlates.

-          Search.proquest.com. (2017). Connectedness to Nature, Life Satisfaction, and Personality: Humans, Nature, and Therapy - ProQuest. [online] Available at: - https://search.proquest.com/docview/1897017162/ [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

-          Banffcentre.ca. (2017). How This Artist Is Using 3D Video to Connect You to Nature. [online] Available at: https://www.banffcentre.ca/articles/how-artist-using-3d-video-connect-you-nature [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

-          Anon, (2017). [online] Available at: https://www.boredpanda.com/young-artist-captures-the-connections-between-youtubehuman-and-nature-in-self-portraits/ [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

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Blog Post 2, Ass 3

The way people perceive objects and events, is that they gather stimuli that are assigned to a specific sensory modality. The intensity that is generated via the stimuli is usually dependent on visual activity. However, they can be influenced by more than one sensory modality, specifically sound.

Several scholarly articles have shown that sound have the ability to enhance visual perception.

  In ‘Sound enhances visual perception” Cross-modal effects of auditory organization on vision’ by Vroomen, Jean, Gelder and Beatric de, conducted six experiments that have demonstrated that influencing the auditory modality have a boosting effect of visual perception at an early level.

For the first experiment, the results proved that a “a high tone embedded in a sequence of low tones improved detection of a synchronously presented visual target.”

A follow-up experiment had also proved that “the effect [of improved detection] disappeared when the high tone was presented before the target.”  

  In ‘Enhancement of Perceived Visual Intensity by Auditory Stimuli: A Psychophysical Analysis” by Barry E. Stein, Nancy London, Lee K. Wilkinson and Donald D. Prince, theorise, as well as showcased the results of a present study that “if these multisensory neurons participate in such fundamental function as perceived intensity, the presence of a nonvisual (auditory, for instance) cue may have significant effect on perceived intensity”.

  In ‘Auditory emotional cues enhance visual perception’ by Rene Zeelenberg and Bruno R. Bocanegra, also report that their studies reveal that “emotional stimuli impair performance to subsequently presented neutral stimuli. And results suggest emotional stimuli have a twofold effect on perception.”

  Probably the most common form of sound everyone would say is music. Specifically, music that is generated by vocals and instruments, and even electronically. 

Music is a major influence towards how people perceive an object or event, like the how the music in a movie can set the tone for the audience. Music has an immense power to completely change the mood you feel when listening to it, regardless of your previous emotions, like listening to a sombre song.

Take, for example, ‘Mettamathics 1 & 2’ by Geroge Khutman. The artwork features two interactive sound designs that are mixed by changes in heart rate that can be evoked gentle breathing, as well as being combined with feelings of benevolence and compassion.

It shows us a new way that people experience music through our own bodies as well as a summon to explore new applications for electronic music and sound design.

This is a device that has the potential to evoke new discoveries and understanding of the human heart. It could be applied to allow a participating audience to gain and create a new visual perception of their own heartbeat, think of a blank canvas, with the heartbeat as the brush.

As stated before, Mettamathics also involves the audience to evoke intentional feelings of positivity, serenity and even patience, as the work essentially forces the audience continuous interaction and engagement in order to gain a satisfying experience.

These induced positive feelings would could aid an audience achieve happiness or even enlightenment of some kind.  

  Another form of this kind of sound design born from naturally occurring phenomena is ‘Seismic Sense’, or ‘Waiting for Earthquakes’ by Spanish avant-garde contemporary artist Moon Ribas.

‘Seismic Sense’ is a piece performed by Moon Ribas who wore attached sensors all over her body. These sensors then allow her to sense earthquakes of any intensity at any given location of the planet. Moon Ribas then waits with the audience for the earth to shift. The performance is essentially dictated though the earth’s movements, the more intense an earthquake is on the planet, the more intense and energic Ribas would perform, and vice versa.

“I want to perceive movement in a deeper way” Ribas said.

Ribas herself has stated that she thinks it’s “unfair that our perception of earthquakes is all bad. The bad thing is that humans haven’t adapted to this natural phenomenon.

Through this utilisation of sound, Ribas is able to extend her perception, and natural ability by allowing herself to bring herself and her audience closer to the earth, allowing them to experience new perceptions, with Ribas being the bridge and guide.

When interviewed, Ribas comments; “I feel connect to the people who suffer through an earthquake. It’s like a heartbeat, so I feel like now I have two heartbeats: my own heartbeat and the Earth’s”.

This could even have an application of predicting future earthquakes, and even other natural disasters.

  ‘Data Erasure’ is a computer-generated sound and video by Kynan Tan. The video features a simulation of a conveyor belt of computer hard drives being slowly crushed. Alongside the simulation, two other screens display mappings of data through analysis of different data sources.

While the visual portion of seeming infinite amount of data does an adequate job of conveying its message about the fears of the destruction of data, the sound of the video is just as important. The intense volume emitting from the data is often overwhelming to the audience.

Just like how music is able to set the tone for a movie, the sound from ‘Data Erasure’ is able to evoke a sense of overload and intimidation, which increases perception of the audience, and in turn, creates a stronger message.

Without the sound, ‘Data Erasure’ wouldn’t be anywhere near as effective as it is.

This is why sound is able to enhance the visual perception of others. Several experiments have proven that this is true. Sound has many applications such as developing a closer connection towards nature and our own bodies, as well as being the unknown essential key to a work conveying its message successfully.

  References

McDonald, J., Teder-Sälejärvi, W. and Hillyard, S. (2017). Cite a Website - Cite This For Me.

Psycnet.apa.org. (2017). PsycNET. [online] Available at: http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0096-1523.26.5.1583 [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

Mitpressjournals.org.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au. (2017). Database Access - UNSW Library. [online] Available at: http://www.mitpressjournals.org.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/doi/10.1162/jocn.1996.8.6.497 [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

Quito, A. (2017). This woman, a self-described cyborg, can sense every earthquake in real time. [online] Quartz. Available at: https://qz.com/677218/this-woman-a-self-described-cyborg-can-sense-every-earthquake-in-real-time/ [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

Zeelenberg, R. and Bocanegra, B. (2017). Auditory emotional cues enhance visual perception.

Anon, (2017). [online] Available at: http://file:///E:/UMA%20Blogs/SoundingtheFuture_catalogue.pdf [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

Kynan Tan. (2017). Data Erasure | Kynan Tan. [online] Available at: https://kynantan.com/data-erasure/ [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

[imaboi3000]

Blog Post 1, Ass 3

From Runescape to World of Warcraft, the ability to explore a virtual world through the use of a personal avatar, participate in its activities, communicate with others, while simultaneously blurring the line between reality and fiction is astonishing.

However, this form of technology is majority used in medicine, entertainment and military. There are much more applications for this form of technology, particularly in education.

  In ‘Virtual Worlds’ produced by Real Life Productions, Assistant Head Mike Adams talks about how he wanted to investigate the potential of using the virtual worlds in education and soon discovered the potential of Second Life; an online virtual world developed in June 2003, where users are able to build, create, shop, and trade virtual property and services with one another.

Pupils at John Hanson Community School in Andover use this software to build in the virtual world, particularly for virtual engineering, and architecture.

Head of maths Helen Perkins describes the educational benefits of using virtual worlds with pupils in the classroom.

“We found that our students are very eager to take on information we give them but they’re less eager to actually go out to research things themselves and promote themselves. So, it’s a really good opportunity to say ‘This is some individual learning. You need to learn the skills.’”

Perkins also described the benefits in regards to collaborative learning between students.  

“We have students who are very confident working themselves but they’re not so good working in a group, and I’ve seen a change in the classroom situation of group work. One student tends to hide his work, whereas now he’s taken more of a sharing and teaching role.

In Mike Adams words; “I don’t see that they’ll be any subject in the end that could not make use of this in some way.”

  We are currently living in the digital age. Virtual worlds are emerging as a common ground among universities and academic institutions. For instance, the introduction of virtual campuses, virtual classrooms and even virtual field trips.

Take, for instance, the work of Josh Harle; a multidisciplinary researcher and new media artist.

One of his recent projects involves a 3D reconstruction of the Museum of Contemporary Art, in an attempt to create a game environment where you could walk through the museum, and see all of the artworks. It was designed to be as close as possible to the real thing, from the sculptures, to the video art.

This exact replica of the MCA has a lot of applications to education, rather than just being a game environment, and this isn’t limited towards the MCA.

Students can go on excursions or field trips, from the comfort of their own home, through the use of a virtual world. Through their avatar, a student would be able to visit places around the world that appear real and talk to other avatars. For example, students could visit the Louvre where they are free to observe the Mona Lisa or NASA where they can examine a rocket up-close. Virtual worlds are also excellent for distant education when students are unable to be in the same space as the educator, for various reasons such as distance, cost, or time factors.

  People today are more technological dependent than ever before, as well as their attention span being literal seconds until they are disinterested. A virtual world is more likely to grab their attention and keep them interested longer than reading from a textbook or watching a video. This is mostly due to the level of interactivity and active engagement that is required from the audience. Subjects that aren’t generally interesting like political issues, such as the case with Escape from Woomera.

Escape from Woomera is an unfinished first person, action-adventure game released as a Half-Life mod in 2004. Players play as Mufasta, an asylum seeker who speaks with other detainees and attempts to plot an escape plan, and they can listen to various experiences of asylum seeker NPCs, even escape through methods based upon the experiences of real detainees.

Another subject that regular people aren’t generally interested in are the possible futures mankind is heading to. Due to the endless possibilities, it Is frequently difficult to visualise. With the aid of virtual reality, the common person might be able to completely understand one’s vision of the future. Such as the case with Sounding the Future.

Users sit in a chair that is positioned in the middle of a projection, using a trackpad on the chair, users are able to point and play a recorded message that proposes a particular pathway for mankind.

Virtual reality can be incorporated into the simulators to enhance learning. As advanced human-computer interaction, the ability to simulate experiences is not to be overlooked. It creates a layer of engagement and understanding of the subject.

  Virtual worlds would be a perfect fit to be implemented in mainstream education. The advantages of virtual worlds are immense; from convenience, interactivity, and engagement. Many subjects in the curriculum are able to benefit from it, such as field trips, excursions, history, and even politics.

  References

Search.alexanderstreet.com.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au. (2017). Database Access - UNSW Library. [online] Available at: http://search.alexanderstreet.com.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cvideo_work%7C1783775 [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

Virtual Reality Society. (2017). Education and virtual worlds - Virtual Reality Society. [online] Available at: https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality-education/virtual-worlds.html [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

TeachThought. (2017). 20 Uses For Virtual Worlds In The Classroom. [online] Available at: https://www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/20-uses-for-virtual-worlds-in-the-classroom/ [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

EduResearch Matters. (2017). Why teachers should use virtual worlds. [online] Available at: https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=1104 [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

Al-Elq, A. (2017). Simulation-based medical teaching and learning.

En.wikipedia.org. (2017). Instructional simulation. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructional_simulation [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

Joshharle.com. (2017). About / Contact | Josh Harle | Australian Media Artist. [online] Available at: http://joshharle.com/about/ [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].

[imaboi3000]

Primavera 2017, Data Erasure

For this week’s class, we went to the MCA to see an exhibition called ‘Primavera’. 

“Primavera 2017: Young Australian Artists brings together artworks by eight artists that question natural and human-made archives, from the physical to the digital.” - MCA website 

The exhibition was honestly great, much more interesting than ‘Sounding the Future’ at the UTS gallery. 

My favourite artworks were called ‘Surface Bare 1 & 2′ a Lambda print by Nicole Foreshew, an expertly done painting of a rockside. I was actually convinced at least that it was real until I went for a closer look. 

The other artwork that I liked was one called ‘Data Erasure’ by Kyann Tan. The artwork consisted of a computer-generated video and sound that lasted for about 15 minutes. 

According to the plaque just outside the room;

‘All the media we generate and consume - a social media post, a Word document, a JPEG - is constructed of data. Kyann Tan simulates, analyses and re=presents the world of information.

The hard drives on which we store vast amounts of data are often impossible to completely erase. Data Erasure includes a 30 simulation that depicts the destruction of an endless conveyor belt of hard drives. The work plays on our fears of data’s ever-present trace, as well as emphasising the infinite volume of data that exists in the world. 

Alongside the simulation, the artist has created visual mappings of data through analysis of different data sources. The type and size of the original data files inform the different patterns, movement and density represented in Tan’s work.’

And according to Tan’s website:

https://kynantan.com/data-erasure/

“Data Erasure is a computer-generated simulation of a conveyor belt of computer hard drives being slowly crushed. The work investigates the dual materiality and ephemerality of data — the feeling around contemporary computation that our data is at once fleeting and could be lost in an instant as well as permanently archived and maintained by corporations and governments. This simulation works within an aesthetic of in-betweeness, alternating between pseudo-photorealism and virtual hyper-reality.”

I have looked for artists that work in similar, using data and visualising it in a way that makes an artwork.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G0MzlfMPuM

In a TED podcast, ‘Golan Levin makes art that looks back at you’, Golan Levin, a half - performance artist and half - software engineer, uses modern technology, such as robotics, projection, microphones in order to allow participating audience to create live artworks that interact per say to the audience. 

For example, an artwork of Levin that makes an audience speak into a microphone, and in response, those sound create and move shapes that appear on a projection in front.

Another artwork of Levin�� which allows the audience to use their shadows to create shapes on a projection. 

Another artist that I looked up is Aaron Koblin, who is an artist that speicalises in data and digital technologies. He believes that data can make us more human. He is most famous for his artwork project ‘Flight Patterns’ which visualizes every airline flight over North America in a 24-hour period.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ystkKXzt9Wk

http://www.aaronkoblin.com/work/flightpatterns/

[imaboi3000]

Proposal

Background to the work

The name of my artwork is called ‘Procrastination Eradication’ and what the work deals with is the concept of “made-up leisure through gaming”, as well as “procrastination”.

The work is an interactive artwork that composes of a headset, and wrist device that is displayed in a dirty room with a broom. 

Audience members are allowed to wear the headset and wrist device. A heads-up-displayed shows a timer, medal earned, accuracy and final score.

Audience members then clean up the room, after which, they are given a time, medal, accuracy and overall final score of their performance. 

These statistics are then put on a leaderboard, similarly to an arcade game, for other audience members to try and beat.

A lot of the activities that we are required to do, we really, really, do not want to do.

I, for example, honestly didn’t want to do the presentation for Assessment one. My partner and I, have both confessed to each other that neither of us, really didn’t enjoy doing the assessment.

This mentality ultimately made us put off the presentation until we finally finished midnight on the due date, and then only started practicing thirty minutes before class. This massive amount of procrastination is due to us normally not having the mental discipline to actually do the work and get it over with.

This work aims to add a layer of interaction and create a set of goals that can be implemented into boring and grueling tasks in order to hopefully motivate and prevent high levels of procrastination.

Theoretical framework

This particular artwork connects with an unfinished 2004 video game called ‘Escape from Woomera’, which through the use of gaming attempted to criticise the treatment of detained asylum seekers in Australia. While this work isn’t aiming to criticise political issues of Australia, the way they connect are through the fact that both works attempt to indulge people who wouldn’t normally engage with it willfully or with enthusiasm through interactivity and leisure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZwNm_ru6Kc 

So why focus on video games? There are several scholarly articles that detail how video games have a positive effect on a leisure activity.

‘THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEISURE SATISFACTION AND LIFE SATISFACTION OF ADOLESCENTS CONCERNING ONLINE GAMES’ discovers that “significant positive relationships between physiological and aesthetic dimensions of leisure and life satisfaction” in regards to adolescents and online gaming.

‘The Gendering of Computer Gaming: Experience and Space’ acknowledge computer gaming “as an activity which forms an important part of many people’s leisure lifestyles.”

‘The Sociality of Gaming’ outlines “Games certainly… belong to the leisure sphere of life, as something not done as work but rather for fun… the means and the goal are generally the same; gaming as a leisure activity is pursued mostly for the activity itself.”

 Description of the work

The name of the artwork is called ‘Procrastination Eradication’.

It consists of an electronic device that is worn on the wrist, as well as a virtual headset to be worn.

Using this device, you are able to select between a variety of tasks; doing homework, mopping, moving etc. Depending on the task selected, you are then given a set of objectives such as a time limit.  

After the task is completed, the screen gives you a time taken, a medal of bronze, silver or gold, and an overall score based on your performance which is then added to a scoreboard, similar to an arcade game.

 Mockups

The work itself will look very similar to a virtual reality setup and will need to be shown into a dirty room occupied with a mop.

It is an interactive piece where members of the audience will be able to put on the headpiece, and then after selecting the mop activity, they are able to perform the task and then be graded on that performance, which will be displayed on a leaderboard for other audience members to try and beat.  In addition, there will need to be a bag of dirt in order to re-dirty the room for new trials.  

[imaboi3000]

Concept & Research

The concept that my artwork focuses on is ‘procrastination’ and ‘made-up leisure through gaming’.

So why focus on video gaming? Why this particular form of gaming? Why even focus on gaming in the first place?

There are several scholarly articles that show a positive effect of video gaming.

‘THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEISURE SATISFACTION AND LIFE SATISFACTION OF ADOLESCENTS CONCERNING ONLINE GAMES’ conducted an experiment that investigated the relationship between adolescent volunteers and the satisfaction of leisure they acquire when gaming online and discover that “significant positive relationships between physiological and aesthetic dimensions of leisure and life satisfaction”

https://search.proquest.com/docview/195942658/fulltextPDF/93A394DDC77E4FD7PQ/1?accountid=12763

 ‘The Gendering of Computer Gaming: Experience and Space’ acknowledges “the increasing popularity of computer gaming as a contemporary leisure activity, ...as leisure technologies are evidence of the increasing convergence of new technology and leisure practice.” 

In addition, computer gaming “as an activity forms an important part of many people’s leisure lifestyles”, as well as “the transformation of gaming into a technology of mass, popular entertainment” as a contemporary leisure activity.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/890f/411a6ebd260c02b7ec9acf66ba7cf745c49d.pdf

‘The Sociality of Gaming’ outlines that “still, games certainly, for most people, belong to the leisure sphere of life, as something not done as work but rather for fun. We work mainly for instrumental reasons, the goal of work outside of the activity, for example in the salary we are paid. With gaming, on the other hand, the means and the goal are generally the same; gaming as a leisure activity is pursued mostly for the activity itself,”

In other words, people do not game for an ulterior motive, compared to working a job, but rather due to the fact they legitimately wish to participate in the activity.

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:574218/FULLTEXT02.pdf

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Sketches & Setup

One of the components of the art piece will be a wrist electronic device that will be used to select the task that you want to do. 

The wrist device was hugely inspired by the Pipboy from Fallout which functions as the database for the player’s stats, characteristics, inventory and heads-up-display (HUD). 

The second part of the artwork is a headset that will be similar to a VR headset.

Here is a close-up of the interface that the audience witnesses when wearing the headset, complete with timer, the accuracy of the performance,  medal earned, and final score.

Here is a bird’s eye view of the room that will occupy this artwork. With the majority of the room being covered in dirt, with a bag full of dirt on the corner., due to the task here is sweeping a room.

A broom, (missing in the diagram) will be supplied, as well as a table that has the wrist device and headset on it for anyone to participate. 

Finally, there is a leaderboard that keeps track of the highest score, medals and time record of each person who has participated.  

[imaboi3000]

Inspiration

This work was inspired by games like ‘Phoenix Wright’, ‘Trauma Centre’ or ‘Papers, Please’. In ‘Phoenix Wright’, you play as a lawyer who defends his clients from murder charges, in ‘Trauma Centre’, you play as a surgeon performing various operations on patients, and in ‘Papers, Please’, you play as a border crossing immigration officer reviewing passports and paperwork to approve or decline people entry.

Despite the dull exterior, these games are some of the most fun games that I have ever played, and this is what I aim for in my artwork; to take extremely boring tasks and chores, and attempting to create interactive and entertaining leisure out of them.

Another source of inspiration stems from a childhood trick of turning chores into a game. For example; pretending the floor is lava, or don’t step on the cracks. 

[imaboi3000]

Manifesto for Assessment 2

- For this assessment, I plan to create a proposal for an art piece that will primarily be focused on video gaming. 

- The concept that I have been recommended was ‘leisure;. I do plan on expanding on this concept, as I feel that it is too vague. 

- I also plan on relating this art piece back to assessment 1, as I enjoyed talking about Josh Harle’s work and Escape from Woomera

- There will be several quick sketches that will outline the artwork, as well as the component that makes it up. 

[imaboi3000]

Critical Review

Virtual world into the class

Visit to the MCA

Learn about Woomera 

Learn about the possible futures of mankind

http://search.alexanderstreet.com.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cvideo_work%7C1783775

All these artworks talk about mixed realities and virtual worlds. 

The first artwork that I have chosen is Sounding the Future by Gail Priest. The artworks itself consists of a metal rotating chair, with a track pad on the side. The viewer sits on the chair, and uses the track pad to maneuver a mouse to click on icons that are holographic displayed surrounding the viewer. 

Each icon plays a speech that discusses a possible future for humankind and asks where mankind is heading towards, literally sounding the future. 

 The next artwork that I’ll cover is Josh Harle’s MCA artwork that Phoebe and I covered in the presentation assessment. 

The artworks is very simple when compared to Sounding the Future, a virtual game sandbox that is an exact replica on the MCA. Later on, Harle added in the feature to allow the viewer to interact with the world, being able to pick up the artworks and even steal them as a goal for the viewer. 

Escape from Woomera is another artwork that Phoebe and I also covered during the presentation. Escape from Woomera is a unfinished Half-Life mod that puts the players as Mustufa who attempts to escape from a detention center. The game itself was intended to criticize the treatment of detained asylum seekers. 

This artwork itself isn’t all that interesting, however the backlash and negative reception is, claiming that the work is “promoting unlawful behaviour” and “using issues of detention as entertainment” by Minister Philip Ruddock and Dr. Sev Osdowski. 

Sounding the Future and Harle’s work are kind of similar due to out they essentially transport the viewer into another world, albeit with Josh Harle’s work it’s quite literally, whereas in Sounding the Future is more metaphorically. 

In addition, Sounding the Future literally surrounds us with the endless possibilities of humankind in the future, and Josh Harle’s work also gives you the possibilities of simply looking at the artworks, licking them up, or even stealing them.

Both Escape from Woomera and Harle’s work commentate on the assumed credibility towards video games and their reputation in the world of art.

Originally, in Harle’s work, you were only allowed to look at the artworks in the virtual world, even though that would mostly be satisfying enough. The reason as to why Harle later modded his work to allow viewers to interact with the world

Although, to be honest I’m really quite disappointed because I originally believed that the intention of the work was supposed to commentate on the assumption of video gaming, how they need to be interactivity, goals and objectives in order to be considered as a game. 

References

[imaboi3000]

Another similar Steve Mann artist

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/wearables/in-the-world-of-wearable-technology-melbourne-nails-shanghai-20150526-gh9wqv.html

Melbourne artist Kevin Lee, created a range of holographic stick-on fingernails. The designs are then scanned using a phone app, which make 3D animations on the screen.

This peculiar form of work reminds me of a lecture I saw back in first year. It talked about an app called Motherboard that created 3D animations from drawings.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvgz7/disneys-coloring-book-app-makes-it-look-like-youre-drawing-in-3d

I love work such as this. It blurs the line between reality and virtual reality, almost fusing them together. The main appeal of this work that I am most excited about is how this opens up a whole realm of possibilities for applications for this type of technology; from art to fashion, the potential is nearly limitless.

[imaboi3000]

Steve Mann is both an inventor, and an artist. His work of wearable eye technology has made him known as the Father of Wearable Computing, as well as the World’s First Cyborg, and even a modern Da Vinci. 

Essentially his work revolves around wearable art.

Not long ago,  Eight Australian designers made the finals at the World of WearableArt. Here are some of the designs that they made.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-26/wearable-art-australian-designers-dazzle-at-fashion-show/6806734

This work is very appealing to look at. The minimum use of colours and simple patterns don’t overwhelm the eyes, and make it a jumbled mess. The kaleidoscope motif of the art makes makes a very pretty shadow and gives many opportunites if struck by different lights. 

This work is a very less practical compared to the previous one. While I do like the colours complement each other better. However, I feel like geometric patterns of work are too excessive and the red scarf also looks out of place and feels like it doesn’t belong.

This is easily my least favourite work of the bunch. This many colours of the strings gives me the impression that a 5 year old designed this instead. Not to mention that I have no idea about the purpose of the ring-like hat (at least, I think it’s supposed to be a hat) 

[imaboi3000]

Visited Sounding the Future

For this week’s lesson, we went to the UTS gallery and toured an exhibition named Sounding the Future.

I thought that the exhibition was great with works such as Mettamathics; a work wear a heart sensor measures your pulse and creates sound based on your feelings and emotion, and Sounding the Future; an immersive audio-driven hypertext that considers what the future might hold. 

The amount of coding and work that must have been needed to go into this, as well as how well they immerse the audience with their interactivity. 

Another work I liked about the exhibition was Iron Star. The thing that I admired about the work was the sheer simplicity of the work, speakers, pictures from Goggle Images and a chain iron sheet. 

The last work was Spark Harvest, a work that I honestly didn’t like. Unlike the other works where I could appreciate something about the work, I could only see Spark Harvest as random sparks of light flickering on pieces of metal. The work did remind me about a sort of nuclear post-apocalypse, something from Fallout.

I will be joining the Artist Talk on Wednesday 9th to learn more about Sounding the Future.   

[imaboi3000]

New Blog

From this post onwards, this tumblr blog will post about Understanding Media Art SOMA 2480.

[imaboi3000]

Link to final project

https://youtu.be/omgHKYTsLw8

[imaboi3000]

Concept Statement

Introduction

Continuing from the last assessment, we were now tasked with conducting a series of experiments, based on a chosen weekly topic, to develop into a final project in any medium.

The weekly topic I choose was desire because it was the week we went to the First Draft Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of NSW and was the most memorable weekly topic.

 Experiments and Journey towards the Final Project

We were recommended to use our poster from the previous assessment as a base. The question that I did was on the relationship between the ‘human’ and the ‘environment’. The ‘environment’ part of the question was left to interpretation. In my previous poster, the ‘environment’ that I focused on was the relationship between the environment of reality and video game reality.

After a few moments of researching articles about reality vs. cyber reality, I found out that the whole ‘reality’ vs. ‘cyber reality’ was very limiting. I found it difficult to weave it around desire, so I decided to scrap the whole thing.

Eventually, I decided to switch it towards the classic ‘Humans vs. Nature’ because humans often harm the environment for their own desires such as creating new locations, producing goods and luxuries. The ‘Humans vs. Nature’ also allowed me to incorporate the weekly topics of value (because the humans are only concerned with profit) and also ecology (because of nature).

Apparently, this assessment is similar to the final assessment of Studio Gateway 1 from last semester. In that assessment, I made a video about vagueness. I decided that my medium format for this assessment would be video, because looking back doing the poster assessment, I felt that it was incredibly boring and I really didn’t enjoy myself doing it.

After some consideration, I had decided that for the final project, I would continue pursue the video game motif by creating a video game trailer where nature is a majestic environment (with singing birds and animals playing, and anything to essentially praise nature), that is being attacked and destroyed by human beings only for their selfish desires, pursuing their own happiness, comfort and convenience. Humans often follow their desires without thinking of the consequences or firmly believe that the end with justify the means and follow through anyway.

I made desire seem incredibly negative as I believed that anyone else doing the same topic as me would’ve most likely portray desire as a positive thing such as motivation.

During the making of the trailer, I soon realised that the result honestly didn’t feel like a video game trailer, but more like a movie trailer. So I decided that I’ll do just that.

 The trailer itself

My ultimate goal for the trailer was to make both serious and fun to make it memorable.

The start of the trailer is very peaceful, showing the clips of nature from ‘The Last Bastion’ and ‘Bambi’ and combining the relaxing piano music. Then the scene cuts to dark clouds from ‘The NeverEnding Story’ and the start of the ominous music, raising tension in the audience.

As the audience are waiting for this threat, the threat’s name is given by an over-the-top delivery by the Nostalgia Critic, combined with the over-the-top dramatic music makes for great tension relief for the audience.

I then shift the trailer’s tone back to serious when the ominous music coming back and the clips of humans destroying nature from ‘Avatar’.

I then shift the focus to humans being evil, money hungry and greedy using clips from ‘Wolf of Wall Street’.

Then I end the trailer telling that humans must be stopped before it’s too late.

My final project is similar to Hollywood Burn by Soda Jerk, as they are both trailers that use stock footage and sounds to create a not-so serious and entertaining trailer.

 Conclusion

In the end, the final project, which I have titled ‘Desires vs. Ecology’, explores and imagines nature’s abusive relationship between destructive humans, weaving in the weekly topics of ‘desire’ and ‘ecology’, and ‘value’.

[imaboi3000]

Biblography

Music used:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByHZ5Gh5CH8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v2L2UGZJAM

Footage used:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIpOnR7zpmg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo2EQvKxWBY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb2Dxqt1oag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to8yh83jlXg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgUGViWp3tg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_95PnZKlxok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQleT6BtCbE