Keywords in this section with contexts:
1. Inviting the audience to activate the static image
Everything Is Everything (2006), Koki Tanaka
One Minute Sculptures(1990s-ongoing series), Erwin Wurm
2. The interactive devices and the image
3. The extension of the image
Possibilities of the interaction
When I created the work Releasing the fleeing mouse and the tape measure and Bending the toes and the dropped paper, which are part of Rhyme series (2018), I found that the most appropriate way to grasp these works is to operate the objects while the projections is being played: pulling away and releasing the tape measure at the same time aware the little mouse fleeing and suddenly disappears from the scene. Or observing a woman swinging her toes when the two corners of the paper that is not firmly attached drop and tremble slightly.
Participants rather than the viewers are invited to activate the artworks by manipulating them(the objects).
When my work Floating balloons (2019) was showing in the exhibition, I found that mobile spectators sometimes block the projections, throwing shadows onto the wall, because the two projectors were placed face to face on both sides of the space. Then, the balloon suddenly appeared from behind the shadow. It is difficult for the audience to see the complete trajectory of the balloon at a glance in the space, and it is necessary to gradually track the image where it is in the unobstructed part of the space.
This resulted in an interesting interaction that I did not expect, which made me think about using the interactive method as a possible factor to match my artistic practice.
I also tried to invite the audience to look at the static image through an interactive way to complete the kinetic connection between the medium and the image.
In my work Stretching toes by opening the fan(2019), I printed an image of the toe that just stretched slightly out from the quilt on a fan and then superimposed the structure of the fan on the inkjet printer with the same image through nylon tie and double-sided tape on the paper. When the fan is opening and closing under the audience’s manipulation, my way of understanding the gesture of opening a fan and stretching the toes appears.
"The idea is for you to exist in this dimension -- as an art object yourself -- only at this one time," he explained. "I am giving 'sculpture' a participatory, temporal factor -- one that I guide.”
In Erwin Wurm’s ongoing series One Minute Sculptures, the artist directs volunteers - anonymous participants, performers, curators, artists and even the artist himself – to interact in unconventional and sometimes physically challenging ways with random everyday objects -- a ball, doorframes, a chair, pencils, fresh fruit -- for around one minute depends on his instruction both written and pictorial.
The traditional canon of the medium of sculpture is re-examined and undermined through Wurm’s performance-based process. The audience becomes performers, interacting with the artworks, while still sculptures transform into the stage property. As Wurm said “When you go from watching art to becoming art and being watched, your entire notion of it -- and of yourself -- changes. It's a way of pushing boundaries.”
In the Scrolling the iPod and lipstick (2019), I exported the video about applying the lipstick as the continuous still frames, and then synced it to the iPod player. The iPod's wheel button design allows the audience to switch pictures while rotating the wheel button. Therefore, the gesture of the audience rotating the button and the gesture of applying the lipstick in the image are coordinated.
Scrolling the iPod and lipstick(2019)
Scrolling the iPod and lipstick(2019)
Stretching toes by opening the fan (2019)
Stretching toes by opening the fan (2019)
A pair of rain shoes, hangers, a mop, an inflatable bed, umbrellas, cups, towels, a welding mask, an air mattress, and toilet paper… … a mess group of everyday objects conquered the whole space in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
It seems like nothing happens, as they are just the mass-produced materials that can be easily found in cities. Only when the viewers walk through the set-up and find the monitor in between, the artworks are activated.
Eight monitors which displayed videos that recorded abrupt gestures performed with ordinary items—a knife cutting vegetables, beer poured into a glass, the opening of an umbrella—were placed between these everyday items on the floor in the space. This is Everything Is Everything (2006) by Koki Tanaka.
Koki Tanaka’s works explore the relationship between objects and actions. Many of the objects he selects are sourced from 100-yen shops in Japan. They are carefully arranged in the space, which seems to be random. The artist then started a continuous series of "nonsense style" spontaneous interventions on these everyday objects. At this time, the works began to appear.
Then I experimented with some sensing devices and visual programming to explore more interactive methods.
The code part of Walking the dog online (2020) is another attempt based on the browser space after I initially learned the programming language.
I use the javascript to make a GIF moving image of a puppy moving closer to his/her owner and happily shake his/her tail, to track the movement of the cursor in the browser. I make the puppy image track the owner's movements, transform and reinterpret it on the web-based space, and the user's cursor becomes a tool for reaching interaction.
😭Troubles and doubts encountered:
Due to the difficulties encountered in recording the work The wandering cat (2019), I started to explore other ways of recording my works, and then I started to learn the code knowledge of p5.js and learned how to introduce a three-dimensional coordinate system in the 2D display space.
🔧Solutions and strategies:
Learning web programming knowledge is a new way to deconstruct and re-understand the composition of images and the way of their presentation. Moreover, it makes me question the physical extension of the image.
❓Reflection:
The most inspiring part for me is the multiple transforms that happened through the entire rendering process: Three-dimensional-based data keeps being transformed into 2D display space,e.g. on the LCD monitor. However, even if there is a three-dimensional coordinate system in the computer graphics system, whose the z-coordinates determines the depth of the element, but the element with depth still cannot get rid of the ending of being a flat graphic at the moment when it is displayed on the display terminal.
In my work Walking the dog online (2020), the three-dimensional motion existing in the three-dimensional world into planarization through the recording of photography and displayed on the screen. If the images displayed are visually ending in flatness, then is it possible to render this planarized digital image to obtain a three-dimensional extension (z dimension) again through other interference and manipulation? I used multiple screens to extend the browser to several screens and placed them corresponding to space, which brings the flatten back again to the physical space. And I also let this work adapt to the backyard site in my degree show project. 👈
👉Go to Critical Analysis: The Trompe-l’œil of Space-time: Notes about Emmanuelle Lainé’s Site-specific Installations
Move the cursor to start thr eye-tracking!
In my work Eyes tracking eyes(2020), since I learned p5.js when making records of The wandering cat (2019), I tried to make my eyes correspond to the position of the cursor in the web-based space.
Then, I used the Tobii eye tracker 4c to control the cursor. The viewer's gaze tracks the mouse, and at the same time corresponds to the image of the moving eyeball on the webpage.
