Kite

Tried to attach the kite to the back but it just didn’t look right either next to the window or the wall, and my flatmate just couldn’t hold still for long.

So we tried to attach it to the front.

Added paper to the stick but found it too long for this position.
Tried natural light but the sky got too white and the kite was too dark. There’s less shadow in the last photo so I decided to choose this one.

OFF

Inspired by my recent ongoing experience, I feel that I’m defined by the other in a relationship. I feel I’m worthwhile when I feel I’m liked and worthless when I don’t feel liked. The other makes me feel my existence in the world, builds me up, breaks me up, lights me up, takes me to heaven or leaves me to hell within a second. It’s also influenced by Lacan’s theory I mentioned before:

This sense of self, and its relation to others and to Other, sets you up to take up a position in the Symbolic order, in language.

HTTPS://WWW.WEBPAGES.UIDAHO.EDU/~SFLORES/KLAGESLACAN.HTML

In my situation, it’s because I’m powerless. I’m not the domination of my own body/existence. This idea of “domination” is inspired by the book The Fold I mentioned before:

But since monads are taken in clusters only under a vinculum, corporal or composite substances require a broader definition that includes the dominant monad, of the first species, insofar as its requirement of having a body is effectively filled by the monads that it dominates.

The Fold

It reminded me of a conversation with that person before when he said that he’s magnet for love, and I thought I was only iron powder. This passivity also reminded me of my previous project FUTILITY where I objectified my body. I started to list more objects that relied on another thing to turn dynamically alive:

  • You’re current. I’m a lamp.
  • You’re wind. I’m a kite.
  • You’re a hanger. I’m clothes.
  • You’re batteries. I’m a clock.
  • You’re air. I’m a ballon.
  • You’re a player. I’m a tape.
  • You’re a charger. I’m a battery.
  • You’re a remote. I’m a TV.
  • You’re music. I’m a speaker.

I chose lamp, kite, clothes, clock and TV because it’s more practical for body to be part of. I had my flatmate to be the model as it’s almost impossible to do all of them myself.

Lamp

It reminded me of an experiment shot I did for FUTILITY before:

As the model was big so it didn’t look like a lamp. I don’t want to use a cover this time because I’m not trying to become an object or indicating I’m mentally absent, and I’m just showing that I am those objects.
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/furniture/lamp/ikea-paper-lamp

Inspired by this lamp, I decided to use the metal wire panels I used for HOME to build a similar structure and put body inside to be a stand:

Couldn’t find rice paper rolls for the shade so I just used kitchen paper. And I wanted to put an unplugged cord to show it’s off because current was missing. Thought about whether the legs should be naked or in dark trousers. Decided them to be naked because the floor’s dark so dark trousers would not be very obvious.

Tried different flashlight setting, positions and angles.
Decided on a darker lighting, and portrait view in this position. Darker lighting feels more depressive. This position and angle looks better. I don’t have other lights so I couldn’t avoid the shadow.
Also tried living room setting. Still decided on the portrait view to emphasise the lamp.
Thought the body wouldn’t fit in this angle but it did.
Also tried bedroom setting but the living room looked better.

Clothes

Thinking of a photo I took for FUTILITY where I was buried in clothes with only my face shown. In this situation, I want to show parts of body to be mixed with other clothes. They’re lifeless without hangers to be hung up.

Tried different flashlight settings. Just found that the flashlight could turn left/right as well… There’s no room for tripod so it’s very difficult to get the right angle.

Clock

Was thinking about using numbers but saw a photo of just lines which looked nice and it’s easier to produce. And as I don’t want to show the model’s face to feel less human, her back would face the camera and it would make no difference to lines even if viewers would read the clock reversed. It can be interpreted reversed because it’s like I want the time to go back from 10:08pm which is the time when I got to know this relationship became different. I want to attach a movement to show there’s no battery.
Used a torch to get a circular light but it didn’t look good. Want to try the first two positions with/without feet.
Prefer the portrait view with the whole body captured. It’s very hard to get the lines level right somehow.

Kite

Tried the left dimension but was too small. And I think I could also stick the body to the kite to completely act as the bones. Plan to shoot it next to the window to show the contrast of the sky and the kite not flied.

TV

Want to borrow a 50” TV from school. Not sure if it can be held by hands though.

THAT’S JUST HOW IT GOES

Inspired by my recent ongoing experience, I’m thinking that in a relationship, the affection is always the strongest at the beginning and then it fades, which is irretrievable/unstoppable. It’s fresh/exciting/passionate at the beginning, then one gets used to/tired of it. It is consumed while the quality gets lost over use.

I Miss You

It reminded me of favourite songs. Repeating listening to them makes them not so appealing anymore. Thinking of “I Am Sitting in a Room” by Alvin Lucier, where repeating recording a word eventually makes the word unrecognisable, I recorded “I miss you” with my phone and use my laptop to record the recording of my phone, and then use my phone to record the recording of the laptop and repeat till I couldn’t hear “I miss you”:


The process is similar to the situation in a relationship:

Record “I miss you” – play the record – record it and play it – repeat.

Say “I miss you” – hear “I miss you” – think about the heard “I miss you” – repeat.

It’s nice to hear “I miss you” at the beginning of a relationship, then it fades and even becomes annoying while repeating in the memory.

It also reminded me of the seminar about poor image. I thought I could also apply the degradation to moving images. I tried it with the moving images I made before. I played the moving images on my laptop and recorded them with my phone, and then airdropped them to the laptop, and repeated till the voice/images got unbearable:

When I really decided to do it, I thought of the feedback in a group tutorial when I showed WHAT DO I FUCKING WANT (SPEAKING). I was asked why I didn’t film other parts of body instead of mouth. I thought that while listening to others, we usually looked at the eyes, and eyes were seen as the window of thoughts/desire/love, reminding me of my previous work IRRESISTIBLE. So I decided to film one eye while saying “I miss you”. I just found recently that if looking really close at someone, I could only look at one eye instead of both.

Took me hours to focus, center and make the phone light as even as possible.

I reduced the background noise and tried playing and recording on my laptop and found that the quality of the images didn’t get much worse, and the voice didn’t get so unbearable as the test:

Then I undid the noise reduction and tried doing it on my phone, and it’s similar:

Then I wanted to try laptop & phone again as the test. But it’s very difficult to keep the phone still without a tripod. So I finally tried laptop & camera instead. Tried video camera first but couldn’t get the angle right somehow. Also tried projection, but the projector was too noisy and the images were flashing. In the end, did it with a photography camera:

I like the effect of images fading to black, like the affection fades in a relationship.

Gum

Gum is tasteful till being chewed to become tasteless. I want to show the process of how a gumball machine full of colourful gumballs becomes unappealing with chewed gum sticked all over it.

I found that when flashlight’s on, I couldn’t adjust the brightness by the shutter speed somehow… I also found that when I imported CR2 to lightroom/photoshop/digital photo professional, the color changed but I liked the original color better. And I found I could export CR2 to tif with preview and I got the same color. The lighting of some photos are different, because the flashlight was dying while shooting some photos and I didn’t know about it, and I changed the angle of flashlight to focus more on the lower part of the machine for the last few photos. I decided to keep them this way because the gum didn’t have to be consumed at the same time. It could be more organic.

Tea

The color fades every time it’s steeped. Tried different containers and chose the one with less reflection. I didn’t have any light, but I found there’s least reflection on the clear bottle in the fridge.