Yiyang Cao

Show-A-Thing was fun! I did the same presentation and asked the same question, and it was super helpful to hear responses from different perspectives. I came up with an alternative way of implementing audiovisual last minute (when I was making the slides) and it seems like everyone was more interested in the new form. 

Enrique

We talked about lots of technical things like audio+video signal pipeline, Ableton connection kit, TDAbleton in TouchDesigner, OSC, and setting up a local network router for live performance. 

Pierre

In the multi-screen setup:

-Think about real-time vs rendered

-Are the screens showing all perspectives or collectively making one clear statement?

(All perspectives as in people’s different relationships with their bodies reflected in different ways of burial and activities)

-Position of the screens, can the viewers see all of them at once (triptych) or one at a time(space to explore)?

-Is it an elaborate moodboard or am I making a strong point?

-It would be more impactful if I could make the audience engage in ways they usually don’t. 

-Need something unexpected 

Reference: https://ichiehtsai.tumblr.com/

Tiri

We talked about composing and choreography in a multi-screen setup. How long will the performance be? There needs to be clear transitions and cues to direct the audience’s attention and make them not confused. Also talked about a real body in performance vs. a sculptural replica. Tiri also showed me the artist Korakrit Arunanondchai who I found very relevant to my project.

Reference: https://www.carlosishikawa.com/artists/korakritarunanondchai/

Chris

Chris also found a multi-screen setup more intriguing. A suggestion: think about burials in non-literal ways. Try being more abstract. 

Reference: https://rui-sasaki.com/section/445550-Corners-Home-Toyama-Japan.html

Moon

Think about the use of sound and lighting. They need to be tightly linked to the images on screen for the audience to navigate & focus. Avoid becoming an ambient background. Expectations need to be broken. 

We then talked a lot about all the possibilities of executing this project in Shanghai. Different spaces on campus(gallery, courtyard, rooftop) and how they can be conceptualized and added to the narrative. There are abandoned spaces in the outskirts of Shanghai that resemble my sketch. Maybe I can use certain materials and create a site-specific installation. Be ambitious. 

Moon also showed me some works he had done in Shanghai, which was very inspiring! 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HIpfLrQ9ZKmFbzQkVW1coE8_DN6iulrswC995ByGuYo/edit

https://nimble-hyena-06d.notion.site/THESIS-BLOG-3751e783e4de485087e4b74679631080

First peer group meeting for me. Showed everyone the sketches I had been making and asked about thoughts on how to be personal in an art project. It seems like people thought the sketches already felt personal lol. But yeah in theory whatever I make, it would be personal in a sense. Perhaps I should rethink my question as: how do I show vulnerability and how do I feel about showing it. I guess this is a question that can only be answered by myself.

Why am I inclined to make dark, intense and brutal things? I know my “style” is not unique to me. There are many artists out there who share similar aesthetics. Jason had a good point on that. Generations of artists and musicians use certain motifs specific to their time as a way to deal with the trauma(or fear?) caused by the technological and social development in that era.

Who is the person behind the style?

Met with Sarah the other day and got some feedbacks on my proposal. She agreed that focusing on the “personal” and how I as an individual relate to these big topics is a good way to cut into the project.

A question for form 1 (game engine based world) is that how is this form personal? Just by inserting the image of myself in it doesn’t feel enough. It’s almost a lazy way of making it personal and still feels distant. Reflecting on that, I realized I was mostly just excited about this technology & world building and didn’t consider much about the nature of game engines as a medium, the system it exists in, and my personal relationship with it.

Sarah said that she found form 2 (audiovisual performance) to be a more compelling one. And suggested that I could broaden my thinking of “performance” and perhaps make it site specific, with curation in mind. What would an excavation site of my future tomb look like? How does it reflect my desire, my anxiety? How does making it shift my current life? How do I feel about exposing intimate things about myself? How do I feel about someone else getting hold of my relics (including my 3d scan)?

The topic still seems to broad and not related tightly to one another. It’s probably best to pick one and dive deeper.

More notes on being personal: talk to people who know me well, write journals, find out why I care about my topic and why is it relevant to how I live my life.

Second 1-1 with Sarah today. We talked about my proposal, updated ideas/aspects I want to incorporate in my thesis, and a little sketch I made. Sarah offered a ton of great theoretical materials, technical resources, and relevant art references. 

We also talked about things in my proposal that needed clarification and elaboration. Feeling good about completing the final(for now) version. 

Links:

Hayles_N_Katherine_How_We_Became_Posthuman_Virtual_Bodies_in_Cybernetics_Literature_and_Informatics.pdf (monoskop.org)

Immortal Plastics / Necrocracy :: IDEAS CITY (newmuseum.org)

Works – Studio Drift

WORK_Ziyang Wu

Skawennati

https://matt-romein.com/info

Talked with Sarah 1-1 today for the first time. I showed some of my past installation works(very conceptual), live visual clips (purely aesthetic), and projects I did in LOWRES. We talked about how I want to bridge conceptual and aesthetic, getting back to installations/sculptures, bringing strong concepts/research/narrative into audiovisual performances. 

 

I have envisioned my thesis taking these possible forms:

-immersive cinematic audiovisual 

-explorable world (videogame)

-sculpture/interactive installation

(Having forms in mind might constrain research and possibilities. I will keep an open mind while doing research and be open to change forms.)

Sarah pointed out some common threads in the works I’ve been doing in this program: body parts, cybernetics, mortality, graveyards, mysticism, esoteric & technology. For my thesis I’d like to keep exploring these topics. 

 

Assignments:

-Use a project I recently did (Unity game Adam Diggler’s Grave) and translate it into 2 of the possible forms I envisioned. As an interactive installation and as an audiovisual performance.

-Read reviews written about other artists’ projects and performances and write a dream review for my project.

 

References: 

Matt Romein | Home page (matt-romein.com)

HOLLY HERNDON

David Altmejd

Zerospace

Inside Mixed-Reality Rave “Diskokina” at ZeroSpace – PAPER (papermag.com)