Further process on phase 4

There's only a few days left until the final deadline of phase 4, and I haven't completed it yet! I am still in the phase of waiting for my image file to be sent around by e-mail from one participant to another.

I forgot if I had previously mentioned that I forgot to document one of the steps for the physical transformation section of my phase 4, but I have decided to go along with it and do one more documented phase to make up for it at the end myself. I plan to make a pdf document that presents each transformation and write a little blurb beside it documenting what has been changed. The rationale for the whole project would be included at the beginning to give a sense of what I am trying to accomplish.

As of now, I am happy with my phase 4 because the changes are becoming more interesting as it goes through the next step. It was the right decision to allow any changes possible because if I had restricted what they can do to the image, then it wouldn't be able to showcase so much fun and diverse ideas.

Phase 4 Process

Okay, I have decided to do the exquisite corpse (image based) for my phase 4. The image that I chose to work with is an image of the Hong Kong Disney Land that is lighted at night. I chose this image because it is the classical example of Jean Baudrillard's term simulacra, which is defined as follows: the key piece is that where images used to refer to something outside themselves, we have now moved into an era in which images seem to refer to things outside themselves but are in fact devoid of any reference — that is, they are simulacra, things which bear no relation to reality, so that there is no “re-presentation” because there is nothing which is “present” in the first place to be presented again (”re-”) in the second. “Simulacra” (plural of simulacrum) seems to refer to individual instances of the phenomenon, whereas “simulation” seems to refer to the whole system.

Disney land is a perfect example of simulacra because it refers to itself, which does not have a solid foundation. It is a completely made up thing with thoughts and ideas.

What I did for my phase 4 so far is that I have printed the image on a piece of paper and passed it around to my classmates not just in the facs class to make any changes to it providing them with a box full of materials such as paint, pastels, pencil crayons, and magazine/scissors. I want to complete the first 5 transformations in hard copy, then transfer the image digitally and ask people to make changes to it there. This allows for a wide range of changes that can be made. This process relates to how art can exist between the boundary of physicality and technology. At the end, although the image would be transformed, it in itself remains the same because it refers to only itself and nothing else.

Source: http://thebookman.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/postmodern-terms-saccade-to-typological-study/

A little about copy art

Last week we had a presentation about copy art. I didn't understand some of the information that was presented so I decided to research a little bit about this topic.

What is Copy Art?

Well, I had originally thought that copy art refers to anything the artist copies based on an existing piece and calls it his own, kind of like appropriation. Apparently I had misunderstood this concept...Copy Art is apparently something that is made using a photocopier as the main medium. The artist makes use of the light and distance of the original piece along with other modifications to create a 'new' image when photocopied.

What I think about it...

I remember in class, Carol posed the question whether the artist or the machine is the main creator of Copy Art. I would say that the artist remains as the main creator of the piece although it is the machine that does the physical manipulation. This is because the decisions made in the process are by the artist. Without these decisions and instructions, the machine wouldn't be capable of producing a meaningful piece (takes us back to the question of meaning).

Another question that was posed by Carol is whether Copy Art would live on in the future. My answer to this is definitely because its method is interchangeable with many types of technology that are present today, providing artists with new ways to experiment. In addition, all art is Copy Art in a way because art itself is a copy of our experience of the physical (and sometimes virtual nowadays) of the world. Copying something that is already copied is right in every way as it expresses our experience of the copied object. However, my ideas about cloning remain reserved as it is too complicated to discuss it right now.

Phase 4

Last tutorial, we have gone through some questions regarding the first suggestion of what you can do for phase 4, I want to take this opportunity to address some questions for the two suggestions we haven't looked at yet.

Google Image Trawl/Small World/Rhizomes/Digital Trails

- do we have to focus on all of the key words or just one? Or are they just suggestions
- do we have to use google or can we use yahoo and other search engines as well?
- are we restricted to using just one search engine?
- how many possibilities do we have to come up with?
- what format do we need to present the information in?
- can we crop/edit the image ourselves are does it have to be found? (can we ask a friend to edit it?)

Revisiting key works involving technology using contemporary technologies

- how would we do a written documentation of a cell phone conversation?
- do we record our thoughts too?
- does the person on the other end have to know about the purpose of the call?
- can it be scripted?
- what happens if we miss information because of delay or overlap?
- how many times do we have to perform this?
- do we perform this with the same individual?


Based on the suggestions so far, I'm leaning more towards the e-mail art and the google image trawl. I think that all of these have to do with the degrade of information through communication technology (a lot like the telephone game I used to play when I was a child). The result is always interesting and completely different from the original message. I have never did anything similar to this with imagery, so I am more inclined to focus on that area. Another question is: Does the original image for the e-mail art have to be found or can you produce it yourself?

Yep...and I glad that we finally have a break from lecture this week. Work is really cramming up at this time of the year.

Another Monday...

Today we watched a video that was aired live in 1994 that shows us the communication between different broadcast locations. This video is a comment on how we communicate to each other in the same electronic space. Compared to the quality and level of communication now, this video can be described as something very chaotic.
This leads me to think about the level of electronic communication now. It is true that television shows are organized in different genres and are grouped by different stations, but the idea of hundreds of television programs running at the same time in different places is chaotic itself. The internet is parallel with this as there are millions of websites that exist within the same space. Someone could be messaging their friend on facebook the same time 300 other individuals are looking at photos, researching, watching videos, or uploading files. We may think that we have developed to a more organized system, but in fact the level of communication we have now is not much different from the electronic communications in 1994.

Early Monday Morning...

Nothing like to start your day watching a man breaking out of the television...Today in class, we were shown a video by the artist Douglaus Davis where he created an illusory space
by preforming a piece where he tries to find the audience and breaks out of the television to reach them. This comments on the televisual culture today where what we see is considered as a world separate from ours. The artist here brings the world of television back to our world and tries to break the boundary between us (the screen).

Aside from that, I have to get my presentation ready for this week on the fluxus experience...I find that this topic is pretty obscure as there are many ways of interpreting it. I think that I will present this topic by guiding the class through my step to step process of defining this topic through looking at different works and relating it back to what we are doing in this class.

It is Easter Monday today, but I still have to go to school *sigh*

More thoughts about lecture...

Christian Marclay's "Telephones" features footage of phones ringing, people answering phones, waiting on the phone, talking, and hanging up. What sounds like a continuous sound piece but when you look at the image, it is discontinuous. The purpose is to show how repetitive films are and show how standard actions are preformed similarly. This piece emphasizes and frames the differences between sound and image. We hear these sounds in a daily basis, but we are so focused on the visual culture, we begin to block out certain sounds and choose what we want to hear. I think it is for this reason, the phase 3 project tries to shift the focus back to sound.

Another aspect to sound is the tension between the performer and the audience, in the example by Max Neuhaus (in the previous blog) the performer is the audience too. At first, it is a solo performance, but then as more people called in to the radio station whose voice is remixed, it becomes a collaborative performance and the performer is forced to take the role of the audience as well.