VISA 0120 Foundations Media: Computation + Art

Wish Forest (link to pdf file)

Through this project, I hope to change this rather isolated and quiet spot on campus into a place of hope, participation, and artistic value.

Unlike in previous exhibitions of ‘wish tree’ pieces such as one by Yoko Ono, participants are provided with an opportunity to choose to participate in the creation of the artwork rather than being invited to do so in a gallery setting.
Picture below shows how the public would be informed and invited to ‘wish forest’ by following the signs on the street.

Once in the space, participants make another choice whether to actually participate in the project. An instruction will ask one to write his wish on a piece of paper and attach it to one of the trees, at which moment another choice would have to be made.

By emphasizing the act of will and choice, I hope to encourage the participants to become more conscious of each step of the process of their participation. My ultimate goal is to make them conscious of the act of wish-making itself so that they are more prepared for the ritual, both emotionally and spiritually.

On Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 12-2 p.m., Jina, Rhianna and I had 50 surveys completed regarding Faunce Arch Day (FAD).

The questions were:

1. On average, how often do you pass through Faunce Arch in a week?

never rarely once a few times daily multiple times a day

2. Do you ever stop to think about the arch as you pass through it?

Yes No

3. Do you think of Faunce Arch as a public space?

Yes No

4. Do you think Faunce Arch is underappreciated?

Yes No

5. Do you like the idea of ‘Faunce Arch Day’ to celebrate the arch?

Love it Sounds Fun That’d Be Okay Erm, what? No That’s ridiculous I hate it

6. Would you come to ‘Faunce Arch Day’?

Yes No

The Results of our Survey

According to our experiment of doing a survey under and nearby Faunce arch, most of the people tended to pass by the arch at least few times a week, most of them passing through the arch daily or even multiple times a day. More people never stopped to think about the arch as they passed through it. (31 didn’t and 19 did) A pretty surprising result as we were not expecting any people at all to have thought about the arch. Approximately 4 out of 5 people thought of Faunce Arch as a public space, and thought that the Faunce Arch is underappreciated. According to some people, doing our experiment(the survey), actually helped them rethink about and appreciate Faunce Arch more. Most people were either excited for or confused about the idea of ‘Faunce Arch Day’ to celebrate the arch, but no one hated the idea. 70% of the people who filled out the survey said they would or might come to ‘Faunce Arch Day’.

Our Final Conclusions:

It is important to note that the blue bars are from the surveys taken under Faunce Arch, whilst the red bars are the ones taken on the Main Green. Conclusions drawn from this survey:
• The majority of students pass through Faunce Arch with some degree of frequency.
• Although most don’t stop to think about the arch as they pass through, more than a third of them do.
• There is general consensus that it is a public space, although interestingly the fraction of students asked under Faunce Arch who see it as private (~1/3) is significantly larger than that of those who were asked on the Main Green (~1/6).
• The majority of students (78%) think Faunce Arch is underappreciated.
• There were mixed reactions to the idea of Faunce Arch Day, but the two most frequent responses were ‘Sounds fun’ and ‘Erm, what?’, suggesting that most people saw it either as a good event or else were just confused by the idea. There were also a fair number of people who thought it would be ‘okay’.
• Nearly twice as many people said they’d come to Faunce Arch Day as those who said they wouldn’t.
• Those who took the survey under Faunce Arch were significantly more willing to attend Faunce Arch Day.

After making some correlations between two of the questions, further conclusions were drawn:
• The majority of people who think it is underappreciated would come to Faunce Arch Day (and vice versa). There is no correlation between those who don’t think it’s underappreciated and wouldn’t come to Faunce Arch Day.
• The majority of students asked under Faunce Arch who think that Faunce Arch Day ‘sounds fun’ pass through it multiple times a day.
• There is no relation between those who think of this as a public space and those who think it is underappreciated.
• All of the students asked under Faunce Arch who pass through it daily think that it is underappreciated.
• Except the points stated above, there was no clear correlation between the frequency with which students passed through the arch and there answers on any of the other questions.

Here are some photos from the experiment:

Make Your Own Soap Click for PDF

For my project I wanted to focus on the process of therapy or the feel-good-emotions of the audience while engaging in my art piece. Being a period of high stress and anxiety for everyone in Brown (exams, projects, graduation, post-graduation-no-job-in-bad-economy worries) I feel it would be an effective concept to soothe the mood of students here.

My initial experiment was a punching stand where people could vent out their frustrations. The surface was drawable and people could write or draw whatever is causing them so much stress and be the focus of attack. It would be placed in the Science Library where people would be cooped up for hours frantically studying and worrying, hence an apt location to stress relieve.

However, it wasn’t practical to build such a huge structure (due to fire safety reasons) and my lack of skills in building a stable and strong enough stand to withstand the force. Here was a mock-up I did which actually functioned pretty well as a knock-around punching bag on a bed, made of bubble wrap, a gallon of water and some tape.

My other experiment was a projection of a message to the seniors to reflect their time remaining in Brown and to cherish the last few weeks in college. A projector would be mounted on a window facing Thayer Street from the Science Library. It would be hooked up to a laptop would be able to customize a projected message. However, some of the messages could be misinterpreted as bomb threats or some similar security scare, hence it may not be the most wise of public art experiment.

My final experiment for the week was portable therapeutic art pieces. This was a take on the stress ball, where the comforting squishy feeling of kneading the object helps to relieve stress. I used the glove as the object, as the shape of the hand is familiar and act as a literal source of support through the tough exam period.
The objects used:
And the extremely satisfying and tactile outcome:

A big thanks to Jeff and Cati for contributing their time and expertise today and congratulations to all students on a productive Wiimote/Processing workshop. It was good to see you all creating coherent sketches by the end of our class.

I will send out a schedule for next week’s meetings in the next day or so. As for your assignment, please complete the following by Wed 4/29.

1. Assignment #8: See below for details
2. Continue working on your final project. (This is crucial!)
3. Upload an image, title, artists’ names and text to the blog, describing your Wiimote sketches and bring an applet folder to our next class using the convention “yourname_wii” as the folder and applet name.
4. Read Nicolas Bourriaud – Relational Aesthetics (excerpt) 1998
Although we will not have time to discuss this reading as a group, it will give you a good theoretical background of contemporary art practice that engages people in the public sphere.

Assignment #8 Make a PDF for your final project

Please prepare an one-page PDF for your project including the following elements by next class (Wed 4/29). Publish the PDF on the blog.

- your name
- title of the project
- abstract (1+ paragraph)
- visual representation that you have made (sketch, diagram, photo)
- a link to your work on the blog

This PDF will be given to our guest reviewer. These elements can be derived from work that you have done for your project so far, but must reflect what you will show in the Final review.

Wind Test

Bottles and Wind

I was not able to get the sound that I expected with this experiment. The wind was not flowing fast as usual and the bottles could not pick up any sound. I will keep testing to see if this will work at all.

As a plan B, I intend to continue using bottles but instead of using the wind I will install them and use them as percussion instruments.

Green space outside of List

I would like to install my piece here because many people visit List Building throughout they would easily notice my installation.

I intend to have an interactive installation using bottles to create sound.
Site Exploration

Alley Between List Art Building and Hay Library

Site view, looking from College St

I plan to use this site because I am trying to explore the wind as a tool to make sound or music. I am using bottles filled up with watter at different levels to create different frequencies of sound. I plan to hang the bottles high so that people can walk under them.

Close up

Looking up

North view, looking from Waterman St

This is a sketch of how the bottles would look hanging from both walls.

This is a sketch of how the installation would look from underneath.

This piece takes further my idea from last self-portrait assignment of the self as an ungraspable and mysterious entity. Searching for the concept of self within the framework of one’s own mind results in an endless chase, while taking a step outside of the search and changing one’s point of view (represented by the clicking of the mouse) might bring an unexpected moment of revelation (transition to a new background).

self portrait

Urban Play

This interactive piece focuses on the theme of urban play. It puts the user in a free form urban space where the paths in daily urban life are constantly tread. However, with a click and hold of a button, the very same paths are illuminated with wild and exciting variations and a whole new perspective of urban life can be discovered via freerunning. However, it is important to constantly reinvent one’s perspective in the urban environment or be stuck in the same cycle all over again.

The Tree of Knowledge

Thus far I have (re)investigated the space of the rock in which I will be working, finalized my locations, starting conceptualizing the piece, and recorded images (see below).

The piece will start by me handing out catalogue cards with a poem / cryptic message, ultimately leading readers to the rock lobby’s computers where they will type in “An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation” — and be lead to its location on Floor A. This first stretch of the ‘discovery’ will occur on the periphery of the rock (as in, near the top, in an area that is well lit, etc.):

this is the aisle:

the 1st book and it’s surroundings (the book will contain and OBVIOUSLY PLACED catalogue card with the next message/poem on it, leading participants to next piece). The page in which the poem will be placed has already been selected, and I will have photocopied it, pasted it over the actual page, and “edited it” to adhere to my personal vision of knowledge)

here’s the next placement (4th floor)–> the ascent to knowledge, an upward growth rooted in theory but branching upwards to tangible fact, “The Secret Life of Plants.”

this is the aisle, one that is far harder to reach/find, though not impossible. This struggle captures the final push for knowledge one must pursue:

the book:

the final location, where one will ‘find the knowledge’ ( a video of a tree, morphing and moving, a symbol of the tree of knowledge and the growth to understanding ) will be here, next to a book titled “The River of Life”. This book, a ‘river’, will lie next to my ‘tree’, a clear connection between an element that sustains another: water and nature.

I will have a card-catalogue- comment book placed next to the monitor: