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SELF POOL

Carlie Yutong Zhang

Which one is the real self? Body? Voice? Face? Or others’ judgements? How can audience’s body be used as a readymade material for the art piece and perform the role of “others”?

https://

Description

SELF POOL is an interactive collection of sculptures that invites the audiences to make a choice from two fishes in the same pool under the confusion of identifying the real ego.

In this surviving game, a fishing rod is standing in the middle of the two fish sculptures and each fish only owns part of the self. One is speaking with the absence of a face, asking viewers to come in help and not look at the other side, while a face shown on a screen is embedded in another’s head, silently moving its mouth. The power is open to the audiences. They need to reflect on which side them believe more in representing ego, the face or the voice.  

In order to save one side, audiences have to put their head into the fish head and lend a part of their own body. For the face-side, audiences need to accurately read the English scripts on the hidden screen in fish head and be judged by speech recognition. For the voice-side, audiences’ faces are asked to be put at the right position and fill the hole. Fishes get power based on how fast people finish the line or how long they keep their face still. This power is shown by the spinning fishing rod which will fish the less powerful side.

SELF POOL explores the complexity of self and the eternal confusion of it with misexpression and misunderstanding, where languages, faces, tones are just different mediums. Here self is demonstrated as a pool and moreover as a container of both the mobile “others” and the immobile anima. Shown as two fishes, different personae contained in one self are completed by the presence of “others”. At the same time, audiences become performers and a part of a collective body alongside the fish sculptures.

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Metron Busker

Wenqi Li

Metron Busker is my strategy for intervening in the urban space as a street performer, using a networked toolkit. Metron Busker is a street performance enabled by tools, and it is also the toolkit that enables the performance.

https://www.wenqi.li/portfolio/metron-busker

Description

It was in the streets that the demonstrations took place. It was in the streets that spontaneity expressed itself. —Harriet Hawkins

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The public arena of the street is where performers can insert new, dynamic, stirring, living experiences into a highly commercialized context. It is where moments of sociality and conviviality are created in everyday life.

In contrast to the absence of authorship that often defines graffiti or public art installations, street performance—especially busking—puts the spotlight directly on the author. A busker’s performance is shaped by their mood, their stories and their connection to the site of performance. Busking is a robust form of self-expression.

Stemming from my interest in this potential for self-expression and in acts of intervention to the public space, my thesis Metron Busker is an exploration of my creative approach toward busking. I use it to reposition myself as a busker delivering a performance as an escape from the burden of conflicting emotions.

The toolkit backpack equips me with a web application and networked electronics. The web application takes input parameters for algorithmic remixing, and the networked electronics boost the musical expression through street-ready speakers and screens. Together they broadcast the generative audio and video, live streaming straight to the audiences' smartphones.

The metal, black-framed backpack with its array of functional electronics serves as a metaphor of burden, connecting the stress of living in a tech-driven age with the physical feeling of carrying a heavy load. This toolkit can be used for all kinds of audio-visual performance seeking to utilize such a concrete expression of burden. It is the conflicting eagerness and fear, expectation and forbiddance from where my burden of anxiety arises.

To expose eagerness and fear to the public and harness them for listening pleasure is the busking way to overcome these feelings. The audiences will be subjected to an arc of intensity, experiencing the vulnerable, the overwhelming and the vital.

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the Crossings 渡

Siman Li

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The Crossings 渡 is a multidimensional installation that uses visual, aural and olfactory interpretation of the buddhist concept relief. Using projection, sound and human body to stimulates the audience’s imagination that is abstract, ancient, futuristic and poetic.

https://www.siman.li/#/-the-crossings/

Description

The Crossings 渡 is a sculpture that in the shape of both mountain and artist's own body, with projection of seasons changes animation that represents the changes happen in life. While the animation changes, the sculpture itself seems to change in form, and provoking the audience's different emotions.

Inspired by the ancient Chinese landscape painting style, this work is a visual, aural and olfactory interpretation of the Buddhist concept —relief. Using the technique of 3D scanning, the body of the artist was captured, broke down and deformed into the shape of landscape. The 3D model was used to generate physical simulation animation to represent four seasons, using different color, form and dynamic to stimulates the audience’s imagination that is abstract, ancient, futuristic and poetic.

This work is a continuation of the artist’s exploration into the examination of traditional Chinese aesthetic and philosophy, by extracting, exploring and extending the core elements within a contemporary discourse without being bound by the formal restraints of tradition.

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Expressive Tactile Controls

Hayeon Hwang

What if physical controls such as buttons, dials and sliders had more expressive personalities? How could this inform and deepen our interaction with them? ‘Expressive Tactile Controls’ is a series of reactive tactile controls designed to react to their user in a variety of ways. This is a playful investigation into pushing the limits of our controls.

http://hhayeon.com/Expressive-Tactile-Controls

Description

Push buttons, sliders, switches and dials—we use such controls everyday, and yet we barely notice them. ‘Expressive Tactile Controls’ is a series of playful research experiments that ask: how could our relationship to tactile controls be augmented by giving these controls more personality? How would buttons that have a stronger, more evocative personality affect and improve our relationship with the applications they are built into? How would people react to buttons that ‘talk back?’

This question was approached by constructing and testing a series of experimental pushbutton prototypes able to express themselves with various tactile and kinesthetic feedback (vibration, tension, and movement), according to the user’s touch or environment.

The first series included controls designed to feel Stubborn, Sensitive/Impatient, Lazy, Timid, Spontaneous, Resolute, and Excited. These ‘personality-enriched’ buttons were then used to provide users with a more intuitive tactile feedback, in accordance with the application they were serving.

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