Last/ Current/ Future work

//// LAST WORK ////

1.What? Why? How?

-It’s a 3 m 30 s short film called <Unattributed Stimulations of Objects> for the “happiness project” ,”the eye museum project”.

[Irma: Maybe you could describe more why you made his, why is it important for you to show this to the audience, what would you like to achieve with this work?]

[Steve: Yes, please describe what it is , how yu made it and why]

I wanted to challenge myself by making this work since it’s the first camera film for me. Meanwhile, I’d like to share my sensibility to objects or daily scene to audience, to create an interaction or resonance, maybe it could be a weird resonance, but it’s also nice and interesting.

-I might say,”You make me happy.” Or I might be moved by something, in such a way that when I think of happiness I think of that thing.

-I filmed several selected objects from daily life (like bananas, shaving cream, balloon, etc.) and the procedures of how those objects are changed by human’s intervene.

[Irma: Maybe you could give a short distribution of some examples of what I'll be seeing, what is the style of filming? What do I hear and see?]

I selected 6 objects and scenes: 1. Dripping wax to an elephant figured toy. 2. Pushing out cream to a coffee cup and let it leak out. 3. Squeeze shaving cream. 4. Pull down toilet towel and wait till it rolls up. 5. Melting ice cream on a heater. 6. An inflatable monkey balloon got released air and slowly shrinked.

Audience would see the procedures of those objects’ changing, also hear the sounds or noises they made.

[Steve: what do you want them to feel or think?]

2.What issues did the wok address? Metaphors of those objects. Firstly , it was only satisfying moments, but what’s behind the happiness? It might be the very personal desire of a person for achieving his/her goals, could be sexual, violent, controlling. Objects are no more objects simply, they reflect human’s desires.

3.Relationship with my previous work?

My happiness film seems very different with my previous works. Both in content and technique. It’s my first camera film. But there’re some subtle related points between, which are the looping moments.

[Irma: And conceptual? Is there a relationship in previous work? For example your interest in a fetish?]

Maybe a little bit conceptually, some gifs and animation I made before also had metaphors of sexuality and soft violent.

4.Relations to a larger context?

I watched a Youtube video during the make of the film, a guy stabbed a spongebob balloon with a stab. I realized from then that what people do to objects might reflect their potential behaviors to other people / society. It in a way describes people’s very personal and hiding desires, could be dark and twisted.

[Irma: Could be interesting to see if your work could relate to an artist who works within the theme of The uncanny. Mike Kelley (artist) wrote an interesting essay about this. http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/exhibition/mike-kelley-uncanny/mike-kelley-uncanny-room-guide-uncanny]

Thanks. =)

5.<Happy Objects> by Sara Ahmed, Youtube videos.

//// CURRENT WORK ////

1.What? Why? How?

-It’s a 7 mins looping film about my whatsapp chat history visualization. The whole film is made of 8 different films which are generated film 8 different chat histories. Moreover, it’s an abstract film. -The initial motivation that drove me to this work is the gaps between different conversations with people from different cultures. Online chats in digital age is like fast food culture (McDonald), one time gloves, you use, you ditch with no cares. You lose a chat connection, you find a new connection. However, later on, I explored more about myself, since all the whatsapp friends are my gay friends. It then somehow reflects how I enjoy , get frustrated , and put efforts to the local gay community. -I mainly use processing , writing codes to generate texts to motion graphics. In addition, I made a timetable for different chats from Jan 1st to March 11th . 70 days in total, and the length of the film is 7 mins, 420 seconds, so in the film, 6s = 1 day chat.

[Irma: Very interesting, it made me curious, but for the text, I would like it if you would describe a bit more what I would see and hear, you don't have to describe the whole film, but maybe a scene could be enough? Just a thought]

The whole film is made by 8 different independent films generated from 8 different whatsapp chats. For instance, you would see the timetable that I started to chat with different in different time and ended the chats in different time.

2.Relationship with happiness project?

It seems totally different. But similar conceptually , I’d say desire, and those desires are mainly from daily life, which are easy to be ignored but influence me everyday.

[ Irma: Yes, I think you are right]

3.Difference?

a.Content: It’s more personal, more private. More like a reflection of digital culture. b.Technically: It’s a digitalized, generative and abstract film.

4.Any help?

What I still need to work on is to deep deeper meanings, find more layers. I questioned myself few questions like: Why I’m doing this? Why I’m using abstract visual? Is it necessary for viewers to understand the abstract visual represents my conversations? I’d say I would need help for the conceptual part.

5.Timetable?

Finish the complete 1st version in the middle of Aprial. What has been done: the 1st version of visual part. What still need to be done: soundtrack , and tests for more visual possibilities (different colors, speeds, rhythms, emotions).

6.Literally, it’s a changing point for myself for critical thinking, diggning deeper meanings. This work brought me struggles of critical and self doubts, self identify issues. Technically, I learned a new method of making animation, moving images.

//// FUTURE WORK ////

1.What it could be?

I’d like to work more on digital and abstract works.

[Irma: And what are the concepts that you would like to research? How does the technique add to the message you want to communicate?]

Conceptually, I would like to research more about digital culture, social media culture, the influences to me and maybe also expand it to the audience.

Technically, I would like to like to do more with 3D characters and generative art forms.

2.What form?

Time-based work.

[ Irma: What do you mean with this? And on how much time could the work be based on?]

Time-based media is a term that we use to summarize those artworks that have duration as a dimension, e.g. “four minutes and 33 seconds.” Time-based media art is like video or sound artworks, film or slide-based installations, software-based art and other forms of technology-based artworks.

3.Specific forms? The basic form could be film or film installation. Additionally, I would very much like to try real performance since different forms provide different narratives and influences. [Irma: Interesting!]

//// NEW NEIGHBORS ////

-Students from Sonology , sound artists.

-Art festivals.

-Abstract films. Vertical cinema.

[Irma : Are there any artist who work in a similar way as you?]

Rainer kolhberger, Tine Frank, Oskar Fischinger, etc. They're also parts of my inspirations. =)