ADAD1002

Michael Pham

[emilyadad1002-blog]

Planning and Progress

Most of our planning and progress was done in the following google doc. There is a lot to transfer to tumblr so it is simpler to just leave the document link here.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EWk-z1IIea69i69Wo4eFbzx5rG5TDLj_EWqC6sBNHYk/edit

[kismetkoromhaz02]

FINAL IDEA

SYNOPSIS:

An individual is given a battery, which will be a currency for value/their value. In front of them will be 5 photos representing a stage in life where your values will determine which path you will take. 

THE SELECTED VALUES: 

Creating an event for your birthday - Family vs Friends (Do you value your family more? Or your friends more?

Going wide for a party - Time vs health (do you value in enjoying the moment or value your health more?, as going hardcore for a party may cause problems later on in life)

Choosing a Uni degree - Money vs love/happiness ( Do you want to study what you love, placing value in doing what makes you happy or studying what you can make money, placing values in financial support.)

Starting a family - Settling down Kids vs career (Do you want to slow down and raise a child, family values or continue to climb the ladder at your workplace, career values)

In a long term relationship - Marriage vs independence (Do you want to get marry, traditional values of having to get marry, or just happy with not getting marry, modern values of not needing to get marry to be considered successful in life.

FURTHER INSTRUCTION: 

Grabbing the photo, the machine will randomly choose a value for them and the path they have taken as a result of the value (via showing a video of the path they have taken as a result of the value that is given/stated in the voice over) . Based upon what the individuals received, they will choose a corresponding paper circuit with a drawing of the value. They will insert the battery in and press it, lighting the LED lights, showing that value is now given to it. If the individual agrees with the value then they will be allowed to leave the battery in. If not, they must return their battery. Individuals must explain why they agrees and disagree with the value before deciding to keep it or return the battery.

CONCEPTUAL IDEA: 

Our actions are influenced by our values. We make decision based on our values and uses our values as a way to explain our action. This work serves to show how strong values plays in a person’s action and identify and is present throughout a person’s entire life time. As a value is given to the individual and they are asked to either agree with it or not, it makes them question and think about their own values as well as show them how their values influences why they make certain decisions

DRAWINGS: 

Values of Family

Values of Friendship

Values of enjoying the present

Values of watching your health and thinking long term

Values of being financially stable

Values of achieving your dreams/doing what makes you happy

Values of following old traditions

Values of your career

Values of independences

@justotherpham

@claresadad

@emilyadad1002

@kyl-zhg2

[kismetkoromhaz02]

circuit experiment (video form) 

@justotherpham

@claresadad

@emilyadad1002

@kyl-zhg2

[kismetkoromhaz02]

EXPERIMENTS

COPPER AND TAPE EXPERIMENTS (19.10.18)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZGWkCR7T6E 

We undertook a couple of experiments of constructing our own D.I.Y circuit. The pictures below demonstrate our efforts of making it and experimenting with different layout ideas: 

@justotherpham

@claresadad

@emilyadad1002

@kyl-zhg2

[kismetkoromhaz02]

TOPIC: VALUES

WHAT ARE VALUES?

-          Values are ideas that can influence and guide our actions. Thus, they are similar to goals, fears, intentions, policies to a degree. As they all can influence and guide our actions.

-          There is a no clear way to divide up types of values as it is different from people to people

-          However, a simple way to divide them up is:

o   how we aim to treat people (honestly, openly, generously, without mercy);

o   how we aim to act more generally (boldly, thoughtfully, carefully);

o   how we aim to approach things (with reverence, with levity);

o    how we aim to keep things (simple, sensual, rocking, full of surprise).

WHY ARE VALUES IMPORTANT?

-          Values are there to help us avoid taking infinite calculations when we want to act

-          For example, instead of calculating in each conversation, at each moment, what to reveal and what to conceal, a person who adopts the general value of being honest, by default would tell the truth and not conceal anything.

-          So, values are a form of knowledge about what works in general, optimized for the improvisation of living.

-          Values guide as not just in action but also in how we plan and set goals. Thus, values underlie all acts where we feel that we have a choice in.

-          Our goals, plans and policies are all justified in terms of our values.

INFLUENCES ON VALUES 

-          Values are updated due to new information, like when we are exposed to previously unknown consequences of choice. Experiencing new emotions can change or add to your values.

-          A person explains most of their actions by their values. This allows people to explain their actions in a way in a way that can be understood (for them to understand).

-          Human beings are so attached to being rational that they won’t do things for which they can anticipate not being able to give a reason.

-          Us humans are always subconsciously talking about or expressing our values

-           Humans try to make sense of their own behaviour, and others’ behaviour, over time, and the main way in which we do that is by collecting our own and other people’s reasons and assembling these sets of reasons into an “identity”. Thus, our values make up our identity.

-           Values can be divided into 4 different sections with certain values overlapping.

@justotherpham

@claresadad

@emilyadad1002

@kyl-zhg2

[kismetkoromhaz02]

RESEARCH

WHAT IS COPPER

Copper, also known as ‘the red metal’, is one of the most electrically conductive of all the metal elements

- It’s also ductility and malleability

- The red colour comes from the fact that it’s easily oxidised

Physical properties:

Copper is quite weak (not much strength), and explains how it can be easily formed by hand. However, is not as easy to break due to its high toughness

Copper is very ductile and malleable (this is suitable for the electrical and jewelry industries)

Second only to silver, copper is both an excellent conductor of electricity and heat.

SOURCE: https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-copper-2340037 (15.10.18)

WHAT IS L.E.D LIGHTING

LED stands for light emitting diode

It produces light approx. 90% more efficiently than incandescent light bulbs

They work by an electrical current passing through a microchip, which illuminates the tiny light sources we call LEDs (the result is visible light)

SOURCE: https://www.energystar.gov/products/lighting_fans/light_bulbs/learn_about_led_bulbs (15.10.18)

@justotherpham

@claresadad

@emilyadad1002

@kyl-zhg2

[kismetkoromhaz02]

RESEARCH

HOW CIRCUITS WORK

The wires in a circuit carry the electric current to various parts of an electrical or electronic system

A battery or generator produces voltage, this is the force that drives current through the circuit (powering it)

Electric light works by using two wires to connect to the light. For electrons to do their job in producing light, there must be a complete circuit so they can flow through the light bulb and then back out.

Circuits can be huge power systems transmitting megawatts of power over a thousand miles

SOURCE: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/circuit.htmv(12.10.18)

DIAGRAM OF A STANDARD CIRCUIT 

SOURCE: https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/circuits/Lesson-4/Circuit-Symbols-and-Circuit-Diagrams (15.10.18)

@justotherpham 

@claresadad

@emilyadad1002

@kyl-zhg2

[kismetkoromhaz02]

This week we experimented with simple circuits and electricity, in relation to our group project. We decided to use this form of material in relation to our theme of value. Here is a video of Michael using arduino equipment to power the function of his laptop.

[justotherpham]

Concept Statement | Bibliography  

For my first assessment, I explored how conflict is good and is a necessity for the development of a strong community.  For my second assessment, I continue to explore the conflict aspect within my question. This time, however, I wanted to directly challenge the question, as the question implies that collaboration in arts always brings communities together and that there is always a solution to the conflict. My final work conveys the idea that collaboration may not always bring communities together because sometimes conflicts within collaborations cannot be resolved regardless of how much effort is put in.

When I think of conflicts I think of opposing forces between two or more individuals. This led to me exploring and experimenting with materials that display signs of opposing forces such as magnetic forces, oil and water and opposite flavours.  During these experiments, I was able to relate the interactions between the opposing forces within the object that I was experimenting with to how we behave in a collaborative environment where conflict is present. Realising this link and observing the objects gave me a better understanding of conflicts and why sometimes it can’t be resolved. The objects capture different aspects of conflict rather than one homogenous idea of two parties fighting. I really like this idea of exploring different aspects of conflict rather than looking at it as a whole and felt that it is something that I want to incorporate in my final work to help show how conflict may not always be resolved and why collaboration may not always work.

To help me develop an idea for my final work where I can achieve this, I researched how other artists have captured different aspects of conflicts in their work. I discovered artist Mona Hatoum who uses internal conflicts in her design to challenge our expectation and perception of every day. To an extent, I am using conflict to challenge our expectation and perception of conflicts. Hatoum’s aim to challenge our expectation and perception and her method of adding a design conflict to an everyday item to achieve this is a method that I plan to use in my own work. I felt it was an effective way to get the audience to challenge their expectations.

The expectation and perception aspects reminded me of commercial products. As commercial products, especially “As seen on TV” products often challenge your expectation and perception of a product. Due to the often-disappointing nature of the products after purchase. This too can relate to conflicts in collaboration. As consumers have an expectation of products to be good but sometimes they are disappointed by the products as their expectations are not met. Similar to how expects the collaboration to run smoothly but sometimes we are disappointed by how this is not always possible. They both desire an expectation for something but sometimes they are faced with the reality that their expectation cannot be met.

I decided to incorporated my experiments into commercial products that could be interacted with, adding a conflicting design element to it that represent different human behavioural aspects of conflicts. The use of commercial products represents how a good collaboration is something that we desire but may not always be possible. Each product has 2 labels on top of each other. The labelling of the products as “Community Brand” represents how the idea and aspect that is being represented is present in communities. The top labels have an instruction claiming that doing so would allow for achieving a successful aspect of collaboration. The instruction cannot be achieved due to the conflicting element design. The top label has an obvious tab, signalling the viewer that the top label should be removed, reviewing the bottom label that showing the true intent of the product as an aspect of conflict of collaboration and that the conflicting element reflects it.

Smell of great/bad chemistry | The conflicting element here is water and oil. Water and oil cannot mix due to its different chemistry. Representing how we desire to get along with everyone, however, sometimes regardless of how hard we try we just cannot get along with them.

Cube of Great Minds/Single Mindedness | The conflicting element here is opposing magnetic forces. The opposing magnetic forces show the magnet from aligning with each other. Representing how we desire for everyone to agree with each and to share the same idea, however, sometimes regardless of how hard we try not everyone will agree with each other.

Elixir of Sweetness/Sourness | The conflicting element here is the expectation of sweetness but receiving sourness instead. Representing how we want to work with people who are kind and supportive, however, sometimes we will have to work with people who are nasty.

Bibliography

“Capturing conflict through art”, Khan Academy, 2015, viewed on 13September 2018, https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/tate/conflict-contradiction/art-and-conflict/a/what-about-internal-conflict-in-art

“What about Internal conflict in art?”, Khan Academy, 2015, viewed on 13September 2018, https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/tate/conflict-contradiction/art-and-conflict/a/what-about-internal-conflict-in-art

Arteffusion, “Untitled (Wheelchair) by Mona Hatoum”, Arteffusion, August 2017, viewed on the 14 September 2018, https://arteffusion.wordpress.com/2017/08/26/untitled-wheelchair-by-mona-hatoum/

B. Geiger, “Sweet and Sour Opposing Forces”, Fine Cooking, [No Date], viewed on the 8 September 2018, https://www.finecooking.com/article/sweet-and-sour-opposing-forces

C. Davies, “Eyewitness: a war artist in Afghanistan”, The Guardian, March 2010, viewed on the 13 September 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/mar/18/jules-george-war-artist-afghanistan

J. Georges, “The art of war artists: Capturing the 'organised chaos' of conflict in Afghanistan”, Independent, March 2016, viewed on the 13September 2018, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/the-art-of-war-artists-capturing-the-organised-chaos-of-conflict-in-afghanistan-a6946601.html

[justotherpham]

New Idea Generation

Following the success of the 5th experiment, I wanted to include all of the opposing forces objects that I experimented. This phrase “challenge the expectation and perception of conflicts in collaboration” continued to serve as my main inspiration source/base. The expectation and perception aspects reminded me of commercial products. As commercial products especially “As seen on TV Products” often challenges your expectation and perception of a product because it looks really cool when you purchase it but find out afterwards that is sucks and is practically a scam.

Due to the link to commercial products, I decided to look back at my week 8 topic and activity. The topic for that week for “Value” and for one of the activities we had to make a product and sell it in an auction and convince people of the value of the product. I made an instant coffee cup where the lid and the cup were glued together so it would be really hard to take off, contradicting the original intention of an install coffee cup, which was to make it some that were easy to drink and access. This design conflict to an everyday item is very similar to what Hatoum did for her work “Untitled”. This resulted in the instant coffee cup having two opposing intentions. As this was similar to what I am trying to achieve as it uses objects that have opposing forces so it can be related to human behaviour in social/collaborative environments and situations. I decided that I should turn these opposing objects into products that represent different human behavioural aspects of conflicts. As commercial products can present an aspect of conflicts in collaboration too. As commercials produce preys on the consumers’ desire for products only to be disappointed later one. Similar to how we desire a smooth collaboration between but sometimes we are disappointed by how this is not always possible.  

[justotherpham]

Experiment 5 | Opposing Flavours Revisit

Following my research, I really liked the phrase “challenge the expectation and perception of conflicts in collaboration”. With this mindset, I went back to my 3rd experiment which I felt didn’t show opposing forces and thus it didn’t relate to my idea of making a comparison to human behaviour in a social and collaborative environment.  I want to challenge the expectation and perception of the audiences when they are about to taste a flavour. Even though in my 3rd experiment I discovered that flavours don’t oppose each other but maybe I can use a person’s expectation and perception of the flavour to create an opposing force of flavours in their head. I took inspiration from desserts that look like savoury food, as the eater would expect a savoury flavour but would be surprised by a flavour they would not expect. I took some coffee and squeeze a lemon in it and gave it to someone to drink. Their reactions were more of shock and surprised rather disgusted, most likely due to the confusion of opposing expectations of perception the coffee. They expected it to be bitter but it was sour. Creating an opposition of flavour in their own head as they expected something bitter but experience something sour instead.

This could be compared to how at first glance the collaboration between individuals may appear that it will go well but soon after we learn that our teammates are not who we expect they are to be (expects them to be hardworking but later finds out that they are lazy) or that we may simply just not get along with them.

[justotherpham]

Research | New Idea Generation

While I was looking around for ceramic magnets for my artwork, I soon discovered some issues behind this. Unfortunately, I could not find any sellers that would sell ceramic magnets of the size that I want. So, I planned to buy smaller ones and stack them together but they were ridiculously expensive, ranging from 40 to 60 dollars per block (not inducing shipping). Not only that but one of my plans was to have a ceramic corner cut off and then viewers can reconnect it back to the main piece. However, she is not possible as demonstrated in my experiment 4 which I forgot to consider. Due to all of these reasons, I cannot do my intended idea so I will have to come up with a new idea.

To help me come up with an idea based upon the experiments and research that I have already done I begin researching on how other artists have captured conflicts in their own works.

I stumble upon an article that about war artists, artists who capture the most commonly depicted conflict in art, war. Jules George is an artist who travels to many war zones to capture the conflict first hand. George uses his paintings to portray the experiences of the frontlines, the elements of fear and energy as well as the camaraderie and the determination of the troops that a result of conflict (War). I really like how George didn’t just capture the visual obvious conflict but also the emotions and feelings that conflict causes.

Majority of artworks and articles that I found afterwards was mainly about depicting more visual and obvious conflicts like war. However, I wanted to find works that delve deeper into conflicts than just what the eye can see, similar to how George captured the feelings and emotions of conflict. I eventually found an article on internal conflicts in arts which I hope would explore the internal aspects of conflicts. It talks about how the artist would deliberately create elements within their artwork that contradict each other. Using this juxtaposition, they challenge our expectation and perception of every day.

Mona Hatoum’s “Untitled”, is a sculpture that is a wheelchair. At first glance, it appears to be a normal innocent wheelchair, but on closer inspection, the handles are actually knives. This design conflict contradicts the meaning of a wheelchair as a wheelchair is often seen as a safe object that helps people but with the alteration of the handles to knives changed the meaning behind the object from safe and helpful to dangerous and unnecessary.

I really like the praised “challenge our expectation and perception of every day” and it got me thinking that it would be really cool if I could challenge the expectation and perception of conflicts in collaboration. I also found Hatoum’s method of adding conflict to a very normal everyday item very interesting and maybe something that I can use in my final work.

[justotherpham]

Experiment 4 | Accidental Experiment

As I was moving things around my desk, I accidentally knock the ceramic magnet from experiment off my desk. Since it is ceramic it broke quite easily, I picked both pieces up to fix it but when I align the broken pieces together, it didn’t connect.  I found this really interesting as the two pieces obviously before were connected but now they resisted each other.

It reminded me of how in group work, collaboration could be amazing at first but can go sour really fast after a certain event and could be impossible to repair.

This accident made me realise how cool magnets are and how it reflects some really important aspects of conflicts in collaborations that were discovered in this accident and in experiment 1.

From this accident and experiment, I conducted that I wanted to create a large-scale version of this but combine elements from experiment 1. So, it would be a large magnet cube with a corner broken off to show how amazing collaboration can sour, other corner cut off cleanly with a mark corresponding to the corner that it came from to show how similar people stick together its collaborations and another piece of the magnet will be cut off and replaced with a metal magnet to show how sometimes you just can’t get along with people regards of how hard you try. I also want to make this interactive so the viewers can try and move the smaller magnets with the large magnet. Thus, I am no longer going to do a digital media interactive work but rather a more practical one as I am happier with this idea.

[justotherpham]

Experiment 3 - Opposing Flavours

For my third experiment, since I now know I want to do something with objects that display opposing forces I wanted to experiment with my third dot point which was about opposing flavours. As I went shopping for different flavours I notice that there were a lot of food items that were consisting of opposing flavours. As I explore more of the store, I noticed a large variety of weird combination of flavours. Most of these flavours I have tried before and tasted really good. I went home and google different flavour combinations and there was a food item for every opposing flavour combination.

Sweet and Salty -Salted Cameral, Sea Salt Ice cream

Sweet and Sour – Honey Lemon Tea, Sweet and Sour Sauce and Chips

Sweet and Bitter – Sweet Coffee

Sweet and Chili – Sweet Chili Sauce and Chips

Salty and Sour – Salty Lemon Tea, Preserved Lemons

Salty and Chili – Chili Lime salt

Salty and Bitter – Sea salt Coffee

Sour and Chili – Chili Bean with sour cream

Bitter and Chili – Bitter Enchilada Sauce

I got confused on why these opposing flavours compliment each other so well. From my research, I learnt that each of the five flavours that we humans process complements each other and if they are opposing flavours, they cancel each other out rather than fight for dominants. Brian Geiger from Fine Cooking states that:

“There is some subtlety in this complementing business because these flavours interact in different ways to make the others better. Sweet flavours will mellow out sour flavours to make them more palatable, which is why they might be considered opposites. Similarly, salt and sweet will suppress bitter flavours, which is why I prefer my bad coffee to be sweet and why you can add a bit of salt to bad coffee to make it taste better.”

I was kind of disappointed that opposing flavours doesn’t really oppose each other similarity to experiment 1 and 2 but rather it either complimented each other or just neutralise each other out. There wasn’t anything that I could relate to conflict, unfortunately.

[justotherpham]

Week 8 | Value

During this week I created a coffee cup that prevents the user from burning themselves as it takes quite some time for the user to open the cup due to the glue tack and tape, thus the coffee would have cooled down by the time. The coffee up also corrects/help with patience as it forces the user to be patient since they can’t drink the coffee till they get all of the tape and glue tack off. 

I bought the glasses gadget due to the technological capability. This made be a reflection of how in an era of growing technology, more value is placed upon it as people always want the latest gadget.  

[justotherpham]

Experiment 2 | Oil and Water

For my second experiment, I experiment with the second opposing forces on my idea generation/brainstorm, oil and water.

I started by pouring water first into a glass and then the oil and the first thing I noticed was that the oil would form bubbles as it sunk to the bottom of the glass due to the momentum of the pouring. As soon as it sunk it would rise back up and separate itself from the water just as fast.

After a few seconds, there was a clear separation between the water and the oil, an obvious sign that they were two incredibility incomparable substances. I began to mix them together and on first glance, it appears that the two substances are combing well together, however as soon as I stop mixing it, within a few seconds, it began to separate once more. Destroying the illusion of the two substances combing together.

I kept on mixing it to see if anything would happen. Nothing major happened but on a closer look, I notice that the water was not as clear as it was in the beginning and that there were clear bubbles along the separation line and over time it moved further down the water. I’m not sure what this means but it seems to be that some of the oil and water may have mixed together to a small degree.

In conjunction with my first experiment, I tried to relate this to a human’s behaviour in a collaborative/social environment. The oil and water not being able to be combined and only appeared to be so only for a small period of time may reflects how we made only be able to get along with someone only to an extent as the bottom line is that they are a person that we can not get along with and thus regards of how hard we try, we may never get along with them.

The slight combination of both substances of the oil and water (I’m assuming that the bubbles in the second photo are a result of this) may reflect how even if we get don’t get along with anyone, we can still find a common ground and be respectful to each other.

This experiment and the last one really made me want to do something with objects and how they reflect human conflicts in collaboration.

[justotherpham]

Experiment 1 | Magnets 

For my first experiment, I decided to follow my idea generation/brainstorm and experiment with magnets. I got three different kinds of magnets to see how the interacted with each other. One was a metal magnet, the other was a rubber/ceramic hybrid magnet and the last one was a pure ceramic magnet.

When I tried to connect/align them together the interaction between the magnets were depending upon the side that was being used. As when I place the metal magnet to the positive side of the ceramic magnet, it done perfectly right in the centre, the same was for the rubber/ceramic magnet to the metal magnet. However, when I flip the ceramic magnet around, the ceramic and metal magnets started opposing each other. What was interesting was the fact that even though the magnets were resisting each other, they still stuck together. But this time they stuck to the side and regards of how hard I tried I can not get it to stick in the centre like previously. The same applied to the rubber/ceramic magnet. However, when I put the ceramic and rubber/ceramic magnet, they struck to get in the centre regards of what side I used. There were almost no opposing forces at all.

I thought it was cool how the way the magnets behaviour kinda of reflecting how humans behave in a social/collaborative situation. For the metal to ceramic magnet reflects how sometimes regards of how hard you try, you will never fully agree or align with the other person even if you guys are sharing the same goal. The ceramic and rubber ceramic magnet struck together may be due to the fact that they are both ceramic, reflecting how we tend to stick to/get along with people who are similar to us.

This experiment makes me want to explore how the other opposing forces example connects to human behaviour in a collaborative/social environment.