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Creative Response

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For the creative responses for Scott Massey, we made two parts. Part 1 will be presented in class later today and part 2 is a glass-sculptural piece. It was inspired by Scott’s works: Carbon Black Hole, The sun was born in darkness, to shine for a time, only to return to darkness, and Cloudmaking. 

The idea was to integrate Scott’s studies and fascination with science and the terrestrial as well as extract some inspiration from his own pieces to create our own response.

It consists of several glass slides with copper corners, each of which have a unique india ink stain. The slides sit in a wooden box (similar to our contribution to Scott’s wooden boxes at the CAG auction) with black felt at the bottom of the box. When the slides are layered and presented in light, the density of the layers creates a unified darkening effect, blotting out the light. However, when showed and displayed from its side, it plays and refracts light in interesting ways, allowing the piece to be maneuvered and displayed from different angles. The idea was to create a piece that would “absorb” light like a black hole, but also play with it and reflect it. Much of this project was about trying to “think like Scott would”.  Individually, each slide presents itself to look like macro micro-organisms on “lab slides”, because each ink layer has its own texture and has its own life-like movements. The construction of the numerous slides operates like the apparatus of a lens, in which is obstructs and skews the source of light and image through several layers before reaching the human eye.

This will be made as a gift for Scott.

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Layered:

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Creative Response

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For my partnership, my work was primarily conducted through e-mail. The bulk of communication is logistical and uninteresting by nature. I chose an e-mail at random from my tagged messages concerning my project and printed it out. I hoped to find some small point of interest or moment of unintended poetry within the text by isolating certain elements with black bars, in the way that sensitive documents are redacted before being made public. I wanted to find a readymade poem through an erasure technique. I selected the traditional English haiku form of a three-line mood poem, broken up into 17 syllables. I attempted to redact the document initially using a black marker but found the ink too thin to completely obscure the text, so I decided to use thick black duct tape, cut to thin strips and masked over every word and symbol save for three lines which met a (loose) haiku criteria. I don’t believe the poem “works” but I do feel that the collage aspects and redacting of this particular e-mail exchange are more interesting now than without my attempted intervention.

Thursday October 27th

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In this meeting, I got to learn more about Sarah and Duggan’s curatorial process in the New Media Gallery. Their approach is quite different from many other curators’ approach that I have seen in the past, such as Vancouver Art Gallery, where curators often pick a theme and try to select works that illustrate that theme. However, Sarah and Duggan would look at different works and try to see how they can come together, even when they are very different from each other. I think this is an organic approach, and can be very enriching to the gallery visitors since they can gain an insight into the different ways in which an art concept can be represented. Going back to my project, I believe learning more about different curating styles is very useful for me in deciding which steps to take next. I have come to finalized the fields in which the people in my iBeacons will be presented:

  1. An orthoptist- a certified allied health professional who works under the supervision of an ophthalmologist to evaluate and treat disorders of the visual system with an emphasis on binocular vision (using both eyes to see) and eye movement problems. This field is closely related to the work Surface Tension by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
  2. Artist Ai Weiwei talking about his work relating to Surveillance Camera, relating to the works Vision Machine #3 and The Agency at the End of Civilization 2014
  3. A government authority person talking about the importance of surveillance to the safety of the nation’s people – relating to The Agency at the End of Civilization 2014
  4. A psychologist talking about the theory of desire and ‘lack’ by Lacan, relating to the work Do Robotic Cats Dream of Electric Fish?

We also experimented more with the iBeacons to see how the devices work when a phone is near. We planned to talk to Judy- the founder of the startup Neartuit in order to learn more about how to use iBeacons. Unfortunately, she could not make it so we hope to see her the next time.

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Diagram of the content and interface for the iBeacons.

Thursday Oct 20th

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On October 20th, Sarah and I talked more about the final presentation of the iBeacon project. The factors that I will have to consider are:
– The arrangement of the iBeacons: where exactly outside the gallery space would they be located? Why are they following this order? What significance will this order have on the meaning of the project?
– What kind of content would be included in each iBeacon? Why so? From which source will those contents come from?
– How will the audience get introduced to each iBeacon and understand why they are there? Will there be a title on each?
– What will the layouts of the iBeacons look like? Do all of them have to follow a similar pattern?
– How can I set up this iBeacon project in such a way that the exhibitions after Witness can follow this model?
All of these factors have to be factored in each step of the project since the act of asking ‘why’ constantly throughout the project will help me understand what I am trying to achieve better. After some time brainstorming and discussing, I have come to decided that:
– The iBeacons would be placed underneath the chairs outside the gallery space, so that after people visit Witness, they can step out and see this, and be encouraged to take part in it. In order to encourage them, I’m planning to have posters set up, which include the details about the project. The content of this poster is to be discussed later, but will say something along the line of ‘Are you ready to see Witness from other perspectives?’
– Each iBeacon will contain a different theme that I pick from the exhibition. The point of them is to enhance people’s gallery viewing experience, so that they walk away from the exhibition with a more comprehensive understanding of what they’ve just seen, including from a psychoanalyst’s point of view, a scientific point of view, an artist’s’ point of view and another one that is to be decided. Originally, I planned to interview different groups of people, but due to time restraints, I will not be able to do so and hence will carefully select information from the Internet instead.
– The audience will get introduced to iBeacons through the information on the posters that I will design, and I will set up space in a way that makes it inviting There will be title on each iBeacon so that the viewer understands what they are about to see
– The layout of the iBeacons is to be designed and shown at the next meeting. However, as a rule of thumb, I would like to keep the design user-friendly to people of different ages and backgrounds, since the visitor demographic of New Media Gallery is very diverse. Also, for the sake of consistency, all the interfaces will follow one framework.
I will communicate clearly to Sarah the different stages of planning for this project so that she and Duggan can follow this model and apply it for later projects.

I found this meeting highly productive in terms of visioning the whole project’s direction and see which step comes next. I’m looking forward to drawing more diagrams and brainstorm more in the next meeting.