Abstract

The production and exhibition of Resonance, Self, is a manifestation of a reality-bending, mentally jarring spiritual and personal journey I underwent through the course of the two years I spent at ITP. Resonance, Self is a personal motif I've developed for myself, which I will continue to cherish and share with as many people as possible beyond the timeline of this thesis. It serves as a means of grounding within oneself, and as an effort to conceptualize, validate and define both identity and consciousness and their relationship with subjective and objective experience. The exhibition was born out of an extremely intense spiritual dive into meditation, which led me to lose touch with reality and my own identity, resulting in a diagnosis of complex PTSD and Pure-OCD. Apparently meditation can be an extremely dangerous tool for those who have survived trauma. I'm one of those survivors. Through my healing, I became obsessed with a construct of thought: what is consciousness, what is identity, what is the self, the ego, subjective experience, and then what in the absolute fuck am I? My obsession became intertwined with the thought of what I would produce for my thesis; I told myself I had to create the most ground-breaking, eye-opening thesis that would completely revolutionize myself and the community around me, in order to prove to myself and the world around me that I've found an answer to the human experience. This is the OCD. It's life or death. I thought I would die if I didn't solve my self-constructed mystery. Through my darkest days, ASMR served as a lifeline, helping me reconnect with my sense of self. The audio generated in Resonance, Self embodies this healing aspect, serving as both a grounding mechanism and a reminder that we are more than just our thoughts, feelings and emotions. It made me feel safe. It made me feel sane. The physical experience of Resonance, Self expresses my obsession with transforming reality, augmenting the self, and exploring existence across dimensions. Yet, it also emphasizes the importance of resonating with oneself, which was crucial in saving my life. I cannot articulate further what Resonance, Self is. It simply is an experience showcasing what humans are supposed to do. Express and experience ourselves. Pure resonance.

Research

THEME ––– The research for the thematic element centering my thesis was the culmination of my hyper-obsession with awareness, consciousness, ego, reality and the self that I endured for almost two years. The paralysis from my OCD and trauma blossomed into the ability, opportunity, and honor to express and cultivate sacred experience with myself, the self, and others. AESTHETIC ––– Regarding the aesthetics of Resonance, Self, I was doom scrolling on Instagram in August of 2022, mindlessly escaping my daily dosage of hyper-vigilance. I came across a hashtag #oscilloscopeart in my discover feed and witnessed a 3D geometry rendered as a waveform on an oscilloscope, with the waveform's audio playing in the background. Immediate ASMR. I fell in love with the art space. There was immediate epiphany that I would use oscilloscopes as a medium for my thesis, and would leverage them to serve as interactive mirrors, as my art practice focuses on augmentation and re-representation of the self. Oscilloscopes analogize myself, the self. Chaotic sound, raw visuals, entropic, distorted and rough. Kind of like me. My experience. Here we are. PUBLIC EXHIBITION ––– I moved to New York to attend ITP in efforts to facilitate my goal of becoming a professional artist and educator, thus I wanted my thesis to be my first, legitimized public art exhibition that is done all in my own name and fully constructed from my bare hands. Resonance, Self was publicly exhibited at Center for Performance Research on April 15th and 16th of 2023. The final effort of my thesis was to learn how to, as a rising artist in NYC, find a space to exhibit my work, sell my work to be exhibited, allocate funding, gather all materials necessary, find transportation, and lastly fabricate it and man it for public-facing viewing.

Technical Details

The installation invites visitors to approach a series of oscilloscopes where their image is transformed into an audio waveform. This waveform is played back through a surround-sound speaker system and visualized on all oscilloscopes, creating a dynamic relationship between sound and sight. At the heart of this installation is an audio-visual feedback loop, where the visuals influence the audio and the audio informs the visuals. The viewer becomes both listener and audio, while the audio reflects the viewer's presence. Everything converges in a unified experience. Imagine your reflection as a combination of sound and light that continuously interacts. As you listen to your image as audio, the sound waves directly impact the visual representation on the oscilloscope. This creates a constant loop where your presence, your physical existence modifies and informs the display and the sounds produced. The viewer's engagement is essential to shape this evolving experience.