ADAD1002 2018

[cassandraleeadad]

Final Work - Assessment 3

Final Video:

In class experiment video:

[siqichenadad1002]

ADAD Assesment 3 Final Work

@cassandraleeadad @shiyaoc

[shiyaoc]

Final work - Odd Meal 

Roles: 

Siqi - Sound editing, collecting sound sources

Cassandra - Filming, editing the video, searching for references

Shiyao - Acting, editing the video, searching for references

[shiyaoc]

Assessment 3 Bibliography

@cassandraleeadad  @siqichenadad1002

Artist Research:

Billie Jean: The Sound of Taste 

http://www.artnau.com/2014/04/the-sound-of-taste-feel-flavour/

Intro video: https://vimeo.com/97520674

Ben Houge: Food Opera

https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/food-opera-merging-taste-and-sound-in-real-time/

Relevant video: https://vimeo.com/73803258

Film advertisement created by Grey, United Kingdom for Schwartz: The Sound of Taste

video link: https://www.adsoftheworld.com/media/film/schwartz_the_sound_of_taste  

Emilie Baltz: Lickestra

http://emiliebaltz.com/experiments/lickestra/

video link: https://vimeo.com/92058796

the performance presents a series of conductive ice creams that trigger various baselines and tones when licked

G.W. Bot’s “Resurrection Glyph – Midday”

Link: https://soundslikenoise.org/2012/08/11/listening-to-g-w-bots-resurrection-glyphs-midday/

Jan Davis’ “First Sighting Near Flooding Creek”

Link: https://soundslikenoise.org/listening-to-art/

This sound composition interprets Davis’ work by imagining how the unfamiliar sounds of the Gippsland marshlands heightened a sense of trepidation in the early colonialists. The White Woman is out of sight, yet her presence in the mythology of the landscape is palpable.

Contextual Research: 

Sound bites: how sound can affect taste, 2011, https://blog.oup.com/2011/08/sound-bites/ [accessed 20 Oct 2018]

The Sounds of Food: Defamiliarization and the Blinding of Taste, Tara Brabazon, https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/369386/369387 [accessed 20 Oct 2018]

Does Sound Affect Taste? Try it yourself | Earth Lab, uploaded by BBC Earth Lab, Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CONe3iW-xww [accessed 22 Oct 2018]

Janice Wang: How sound affects our taste perception, uploaded by Design Indaba, Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O0p-NHaKTs [accessed 22 Oct 2018]

[cassandraleeadad]

Brainstorming Ideas for A3

Inspiration: [sounds/audio mixed with visuals]

The inspiration that sparked our event branched from an article that explored how sound can affect our tastes. An experiment Charles Spence and Heston Blumenthal conducted, asked the audience to taste two samples of ‘bacon & egg’ ice creams. They played two different tracks, one of bacon sizzling and the other of chickens. It resulted with the audience finding the ice cream that had the most bacon flavour was when they played the sizzle sounds. However, both ice cream samples were identical. This experiment lead us to our idea of challenging this hypothesis. 

Another article stated that “sound in whatever form has the harm to create balance and harmony or to create trauma and chaos” (Griffiths, 2017). One should be conscious of the sounds in their environment to see what kind of effects it will have on them. 

References

n.a, 2011, ‘Sound bites: how sound can affect taste’, Oxford University Press, https://blog.oup.com/2011/08/sound-bites/, last viewed 22 October 2018

Dean Griffiths, 2017, ‘How Sound Can Have a Powerful Effect on Your State of Mind’, Psychreg, https://www.psychreg.org/sound-effect-mind/, last viewed 22 October 2018

[cassandraleeadad]

Planning for making + editing video 

@shiyaoc + @siqichenadad1002

Affect & body politics

engaging the work with the audience = interactive engagement with the class after we play the video. They re-enact / try out some of the food with the sound

how to manipulate the audience = can we change their senses?

first impact = affect = strange/abnormal sounds with food 

following feelings = effect = did it work? 

After we play our video, we would like the class to participate in a short picnic. Tasting some foods while a backing track is played to see if they are affected in any way. 

[cassandraleeadad]

Group Project Update

with @shiyaoc & @siqichenadad1002

Week 10:

Initially we thought about using an existing event to further create and enhance the experience. The event we wanted to draw inspiration from was the Mid-Autumn festival that happened in late September. The festival celebrates the full moon in the lunar calendar and has many cultural representations. Our idea was to gather some of the Asian characteristics and Westernise it in some way. That was as far as we got. 

Week 11:

Shiyao had the idea to convey a specific emotion by touching a tangible object we make. This emotion was stemmed by a common phrase we all use in our daily conversations such as ‘I love you’ and ‘goodnight’. This is supported by having different textures and shapes that the user will feel to interpret what kind of emotion it was evoking. 

Week 12:

Receiving feedback from the class, we decided to change our event again. We have come to the conclusion to engage specifically with visuals and sounds that contradict one another. For example, the action is to drink water, but the viewer will hear the sounds of soda bubbles. We want to make a video that collates these examples and incorporate it into a storyline. 

[shiyaoc]

Artist Research - Ghada Amer

After the group discussion in week 10 and 11, our group decided to change our event to texting messages. We wanted to look into the emotions hiding behind simple words in messages like “good night”, “I love you” and reflect on the weekly concept affect in week 5 so we have been looking for artists that are creating their work with text and emotions. 

Ghada Amer, TEST #8 2013. Acrylic, embroidery and gel medium on canvas 20 x 20 inches / 50.8 x 50.8 centimeters

Ghada Amer, "NORAH", 2014. Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York.

Ghada Amer, “THE RAINBOW GIRL”, 2014. Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

Ghada Amer, “MANDY”, 2013. Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York.

Ghada Amer “SUNSET WITH WORDS – RFGA”, 2013. Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York.

"Barbie Loves Ken, Ken loves Barbie," 1995 embroidery on cotton fabric; edition 2/3, Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian, New York

Detail, "Barbie Loves Ken, Ken loves Barbie," 1995 embroidery on cotton fabric; edition 2/3, Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian, New York

Ghada Amer,  born in Cairo (Egypt) in 1963 and studied at the Villa Arson in Nice, France. Her embroidered canvases address cultural identity, religious fundamentalism, acts of sexual violence and confronts the language of hostility and finality with narratives of love and longing. Amer currently lives and works in New York and has exhibited at the Venice Biennale (Venice, Italy), the Sydney Biennale (Sydney, Australia), the Whitney Biennale (New York, NY) and the Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, NY).

Amer has been experimenting with text and words in most of her drawings, paintings and embroidered sculptures. She uses different material, colors and forms to express emotions, sexual violence and gender-relating themes. 

Artist page: https://www.ghadaamer.com/

Images from: 

http://info.kcai.edu/artspace/exhibitions/8140/ghada-amer-naughty-and-nice

https://artillerymag.com/ghada-amer/

https://artmap.com/cheimread/exhibition/ghada-amer-2014

Other referencing: 

http://www.elizabethleach.com/Exhibit_Detail.cfm?ShowsID=284

https://artmap.com/cheimread/exhibition/ghada-amer-2014

http://info.kcai.edu/artspace/exhibitions/8140/ghada-amer-naughty-and-nice

[siqichenadad1002]

Glitch

[cassandraleeadad]

Interrupting a signal 

[shiyaoc]

Assessment 2 - Final Project and Concept statement

My work is an interactive collage of A2 size based on the Mumbai beach cleanup event. The collage’s surface is completely covered by litters in our daily life such as plastic bag pieces, labels and torn-up receipts. These objects are pasted onto the work by masking tapes so it’s easy for viewers to take them off to see what’s behind them. Once the litters are cleaned up, the viewers will be able to see the picture beneath: a beach with baby turtles crawling towards the sea.

The inspiration of this work is the clean-up event on Versova beach by Afroz Shah and the volunteers all over the world. Versova beach used to be one of the breeding grounds for Olive Ridley turtles but in the past few decades, it had become a huge dumping ground of industrial and domestic garbage. These trash completely covered the surface of the beach and even mixed into the sand underground. For more than twenty years, people failed to spot any baby turtles on Versova beach. About two years ago, Afroz Shah started a cleaning project on Versova beach and his team gradually grew up with the participation of volunteers all over the world. They have been cleaning the beach for the past 90 weeks and have removed more than 5.7 million kg of waste and finally changed the beach back to the state when it hadn’t become a dumping ground and in March, 2018, they spotted Olive Ridley turtles hatching from the beach first time in decades.

However, the beach was dirty again quickly in less than 4 months. There is around 2 lakh kg of trash washing ashore every day. Even though this amount is slightly slower than it was before the cleanup, which is 5 to 6 lakh kg, it’s still too much for volunteers to deal with. According to the study of the source of the trash on the beach Afroz Shah found the source of 70% of the trash is the Malad creek — nine other small creeks (see box for names) empty into it. Another 20% of trash comes from 1,000 storm water drains whose opening are along the 2.5km Versova coastline — there’s more waste washing ashore during the monsoon. The remaining 10% came from the resident around the beach directly. It was a sad truth, but still, late is better than never.

I made this work to raise the awareness of the cleaning project. What I want to express through this work is not to blame human for dumping waste into the ocean, but to remind people of the success we once had against the pollution. For decades we are told that human are ruining our own planet and killing the animals, but it is also necessary to let people know that no matter how bad the situation is, it’s still possible for us to change it. Versova beach seemed that it could never return to its natural state again, but after the volunteers’ effort, even only for a moment, they made it. A lot of people around me are holding the opinion that human is destroying the planet and there is little hope that our individual effort could stand against the profitable factories and hunting activities. Should we just give up and gloomily wait for more species to die out? I really don’t think so. Together with another research I have posted about saving marmots, I believe that more people will become hopeful again and take part in these projects.

There’s several initial sketches about this work, I once thought of using glue to fix the litters onto the picture and also leaving a turtle-like-pattern on the surface of the picture, but the glue didn’t work well with the fabric surface in my former experiments. Then I tried the idea to use pins and poked out the turtle pattern but it could be difficult to carry without a solid backboard. So I simply cut the turtle shape and paste them onto the beach then used the masking tape to fix other litters. The final work turns out a little bit messy, but after all the litters are cleaned, it’s a rather simple and clean picture of the beach. 

Ref: Chatterjee. B. Mumbai’s Versova beach is dirty again. Here’s why, Updated: Jul 06, 2017 11:25 IST, https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/mumbai-s-versova-beach-is-dirty-again-here-s-why/story-fYBkgQXhnHTXnXdqRCQ01H.html

Safi. M. Mumbai beach goes from dump to turtle hatchery in two years, Last modified on Sat 1 Sep 2018 06.12 AEST, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/30/mumbai-beach-goes-from-dump-to-turtle-hatchery-in-two-years

[shiyaoc]

Topic Research: Success in saving Vancouver Island marmot

(Excerpt from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/vancouver-island-marmots-endangered-extinction-news/)

The Vancouver Island marmot (Marmota vancouverensis) is a branch of marmot species only have been  found on Vancouver isle in British Columbia. With their chocolate-brown coat, interrupted by white around their snouts and chests, the Vancouver Island marmots looks just like cute teddy bears. 

From 1980 to 2003, the population of this species had decreased from around 350 to 22 because of the climate change, predation and human activities. 

Following the population nadir of 2003, the Marmot Recovery Foundation resorted to several drastic measures to save the rodents.

For one, they organized a field crew to create a human shield, watching over the last of the marmots 24/7 to prevent them from being eaten by predators.

They also tweaked their efforts to captively breed the animals and reintroduce them to the wild. It was counterintuitive, especially with such a rare species, but the marmots essentially had to be starved in order to trigger hibernation, and if a male and female hibernated together, they would often produce offspring. (Related: "Marmots a “Wakeup Call” for Sex-Changing Chemicals.")

It seems that the wild marmots mentor the captive bred marmots, helping them pick up key skills such as how to interact with the colony or how to plug their hibernation burrow successfully.

In the Vancouver Island Marmot’s case, captive breeding and re-introduction have provided the tiny wild population with the numbers and genetic stock it needed to grow. Since that low point in 2003, the Marmot Recovery Foundation, together with their funding partners, private donors and partnering zoos, have slowly, steadily, improved the marmot’s lot.

The efforts have paid off. Today the wild population is up to 150 to 200 marmots and is producing up to 50 marmot pups a year. That bodes well for sustained population growth, but there’s still a way to go before the foundation’s goal of reaching annual pup production of 150 in the wild.

This research is a great example of human successfully saving an endangered species. As public are paying more attention to biodiversity conservation, most reports and advertisements mainly focused on warning people of endangered species or trying to let people realize the negative consequences of extinction without telling people what exactly they could do to help. Therefore, public impression of biodiversity topic is mostly negative. 

I think more positive news about saving species should be known to change people’s stereotypes of biodiversity. Instead of emphasizing the negative situation we are facing, it’s more important to let people know how they are able to help with species conservations and show them their efforts have made a difference. Once the method is pointed out, I believe that more people will join the events of species conservation. 

[shiyaoc]

Artist Research: Pattern Matters

Interactive calendars design by pattern matters

Pattern Matters is a graphic design-based project inquiring on possible ways to augment the role of pattern by looking into the design process and tactile exploration through pattern making. It demonstrates the way of how this design element of pattern can be adopted differently on various platforms in graphic design. The main objective of this project is to inspire designers to look at pattern in every possible angles. Pattern Matters also aims to demonstrate that pattern is a crucial form of design element in graphic design which eventually evident that pattern is not merely a decorating tool.

(images and introduction source: https://cargocollective.com/patternmatters/ABOUT-PATTERN-MATTERS)

[shiyaoc]

Assessment 1 - Final work

My work, inspired by question 1, mainly focus on human impacts on natural species, especially for the crops. So I chose three representative examples for my poster. 

The first one, banana, has been reported in danger of extinction because human are gradually reducing cultivation of different kinds of bananas and replacing them by one single species named Cavendish. However, Cavendish have nearly no genetic diversity -- the plants are all clones of one another. Now they are facing a deadly disease called "Tropical Race 4" and might become extinct soon if there’s no better solution. This is not the first crisis bananas have ever had. Before Cavendish,  Gros Michel was a better banana species but it was swiped out by Panama disease in 1965. 

As for the second example, I simply use the patterns of the wheat to represent all crops we have been growing. Scientists have proven the danger of the reduction of biodiversity in cultivation, which might result in severe yield losses. 

The third example turns to the problem occurs in forest planting. In early years, governments didn’t realize the importance of the biodiversity in artificial forests and now they are gradually becoming more aware of it. 

I made this poster interactive by adding color belts under the surface of the poster so people can pull the paper arrow tip out and change the color of these patterns from grey to different colors, which means, a little effort or concern from a single person may help with the problems we are now facing. Also, I use different bright colors trying to let people get the idea that different species are all precious and beautiful since they make up the natural world together. 

[shiyaoc]

Process: final work

Initial plan

I drew all the designed patterns onto both sides of a sheet of transparent paper and print them onto the poster by drawing the lines again on the other side. 

Carved out the patterns...

Preparing the color belts 

[shiyaoc]

Research of interactive posters

Adrianne Gutierrez - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York

Amber Jones - Frank Lloyd Wright - Fallingwater

Hannah Wilson - Seattle Space Needle

Victorio Marasigan - Willis Tower Chicago

Interactive poster design - LEGO Architecture Series Posters by Rose Newton and her students

Brief: In this project we will transform a two-dimensional poster into an informative and representative piece involving a third-dimension. Through the use of die cuts, perforations and folds our flat design piece will extrude and inform the viewer of the dimensionality of our product, the LEGO Architecture series.

(Artist blog: http://www.rosenewton.com/Student-Work-Interactive-Poster-Design)

[shiyaoc]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d95opxVXe-A) 

Interactive Bluetooth Drum Poster

(link: http://www.novalia.co.uk/product/interactive-bluetooth-drum-poster/)

[shiyaoc]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCAzEh6Wyj8) 

Interactive album cover of DJ Qbert’s Wave Twisters (2001). The cover can function as Bluetooth MIDI desk and DJ controller that connects to smart phones by rubbing their fingers along the surface. 

(via https://www.booooooom.com/2015/01/02/future-technology-dj-qberts-extraterrestria-worlds-first-interactive-album-packaging-video/)

[shiyaoc]

Final Work for Assessment Task 03: City Illusions

When thinking of modern cities, it’s normal to come up with skyscrapers, huge glass pieces, metal structures and concrete buildings and without some landmark buildings, these cities look really similar, giving people a fixed perception of modern cities. This work aims to enrich people’s perceptions of these modern cities, combining local symbolic plants and traditional art patterns of local culture together with the cities’ skylines. When these pictures are expected to give the viewers a really strong impact of the nature and cultural extent behind the cities, encouraging people to know these cities better beyond their modern appearances.

Therefore I chose four modern cities with strong characteristics: Moscow, New York, Beijing and London. The natural elements I chose for these cities are silver birch trees, bamboos, oak trees and roses respectively, most of them are well-known in local literatures or songs and have distinct regional characteristics. The addition of traditional patterns brings out the history of the city at some level.

At the beginning of all my experiments and researches, I just decided to simply apply the colors of local traditional buildings onto the city buildings so I carried out a series of experiments and practices related to colors and coloring buildings technically. I also tried coloring liquid, intending to create a final effect of splashing colors into city streets. However, after doing relative researches I began to rethink the relationship between colors and architectures more seriously. What kind of perception do I really want to present to other people?

Now this work, after reconsideration of my purpose, presents multiple visual angles towards the cities in one picture. I hope when people are looking at these pictures, they are able to not only see the physical appearance of the cities, but also feel the gentle breeze traveling through leaves and the time flowing in them.