User:Nan Wang/ thesis03-12

“…For the microscopic debris that covers our clothes and bodies are the mute witnesses, sure and faithful, of all our movements and of all our encounters.”

---Locard, Edmond, The Analysis of Dust Traces, American Journal of Police Science, 1(3), 1930, 279-298.

Abstract

The research object included in this text is dust.
My works mainly focusing on abstraction video and sound, using both digital and analogue media,
researching how micro-perceptions and fragmented memories, construct individual past reality.
Since I attract by dust, gradually it become instrument for sound, elements for images, object to sort,
grammar of my works. I am taking the position of sound and image-maker, interpreted dust under
interdisciplinary context, and then intergrade into my works conceptually materially and visually.

Introduction:

I have a strong obsession towards dust, this research topic keep coming to me and dives me to create works related to.
There are two main elements of dust that I found deeply related to image making: Narrative nature and time elements.
In chapter one, I will state in detail what is dust. And look at it in a forensic perspective; consider dust as a trace of evident
indicates pass events. Following with the research of house dust material, especially in air-borne fine dust, which contains
80% of our dead body cells. In this case, dust becoming the abandoned waste from old version of us. We leave trance of
dust wherever we go. I consider dust is the evident of existence however in an absurd way.
Dust always has contradictory meanings: beautiful also deadly; everywhere, yet always been ignored; detached from its original
body forming as compound of impure and complex material however meaningless and nihilistic.

In chapter two, I will keep research dust in details. Following the two themes underlying narrative and time element from
chapter one, I will state the extension elements under those two themes and how they related to my hand on research and
conceptual building from all my dust series works.

Dust and sound- the noisy and impure nature of dust.

The noisy nature of dust, both visually and sound wise, which I discover with my experiment by using dust put on 16 mm
film optical soundtrack to generate audio noise. And my experiment on displaying the dust video on LCD screen; take the
changing luminant intensity and interval from the screen generate sound using a hack analog synthesizer with light sensor.
I will intergrade and compare my hands on research above with the forensic and cultural research of impurity and the
complexity nature of dust material.

Put dust on film- compress time in the past tense.
Film always consider as time base media. When I start to stick dust on 16mm black and white film play it in 24 frames per
second or I scanned the dust digitally and play back as 25 frames animated film. The time and narrative elements of dust
have been compressed. The condense narrative and time behind dust images becoming an overloaded audiovisual
experience.

Archiving the dust—sorting, manipulating, transmitting and erasing.

Sorting the dust with archiving it in both digital and analog. Compare these two media and the means of reservation of
materials. And manipulate the dust by editing in filmmaking and translating the dust from physical material to scanned
digital files then recapture the image from digital display. I also consider dust as signals keep transmitting from one media
to anther until it loses its recognisable shape. Compare this hands-on practice with waste memories been remediated
reinterpreted again and again by re-picture it. Every time we re-picture from the past, part of memory will re-interpreted
re-mediated re-remembered. Until the memory gets completely false or distorted blurred alienated from its own source.

Follow this methodology above; I also will look into the air-borne nature of house dust, and the new definition of human
interaction under this context. State the notion of micro level of martial exchange by inhaling each other in the same space
without any physical touch. This concept related to the spacial setting of my work. How to distribute my dust at the exhibition
area, being everywhere without present myself.

Chapter three, I will describe and document the making of my graduation project in details. Concentrate on the relation
between light, dust, images, and sound in technical level. Including description of the settings and final layout of the project,
also my expectation of overall audio-visual special experience for audience.

---

CHAPTER 1

Dust pilling up in our life. Quietly appearing on the surface of our shelves; floor; table, every corner inside our room.

They always flowing and spreading around us and been considered as Abandoned unwanted, annoying or unpleasant waste of our life.

One day, I take a close look at the dust in my room, before they end up inside vacuum cleaner.

I saw cookie crumbs, sweater fluff, cat fur, my hair, and tobacco debris…

I smoke a cigarette after I comb my hair during the morning; guess visit my living room sit together with my cat drank a cup of coffee with

cookies; my friend wearing grey sweeter lying against my cushion…

All the narrative fragments happened in my life start to unfold in front of my eyes…

1. what is dust

-The evidence of being.

I will state in detail what is dust. And look at it in a forensic perspective; consider dust as a trace of evident indicates pass events. Following with the research of house dust material, especially in air-borne fine dust, which contains 80% of our dead body cells. In this case, dust becoming the abandoned waste from old version of us. We leave trance of dust wherever we go. I consider dust is the evident of existence however in an absurd way. Dust always has contradictory meanings: beautiful also deadly; everywhere, yet always been ignored; detached from its original body forming as compound of impure and complex material however meaningless and nihilistic.

2 Dust and trace

-The underlying narrative

First I will look at dust from a forensic perspective, how forensic expert Locard, Edmond solving a crime by investigating dust and trace. Deduction use for investigating a crime by looking at trace, putting clues together and deduct what happened to a crime scene.

This approach by looking at micro-material and generate images of pass. Imaginary and Imagery both are key elements of crime investigation.

This forensic research and cases study from < The Analysis of Dust Traces > written by Locard Edmond 1930, inspired my of a material based abstraction filmmaking.

What will happens if I only display micro-material as abstraction visual elements. Can I use dust as clues and intervals of flicker images and sound as simulation. Let audience generate self-directed imaginative images and narrative?

3, The time element

-Consider dust as past tense of grammar

In the field of literature, dust has been conceptualized as matter-in-waiting and decay. Georges Bataille: “a stealth-like incursion from the future that slowly disavows the vitalism of all that it touches.”

Pre-existent realities. Prior events. Older and abandon vision of ourselves. As sound and image-maker, I use dust as past tense grammar for narrative telling. Waste. Abandon.

Dust makes me look at how human interaction and communication in different angle. The air-borne nature allows micro-material exchange between us without physical contact.

The metabolism process of our bodies keeps sloughed waste and dead skin cells. We leave trace of material base evidence through space and time. As air-borne micro –material, dust spread distribute and diffuse in space. When we encounter with others. There always Micro Material exchange, without physical touch. We are constantly inhaling others around us. Others take small part of our metabolism process, we inhaling others and exhaling, sloughing excess waste back to the air again.

4, The noisy and redundancy nature:

Dust takes form of particles, yet big enough to identify its origin visually. A mixture of micro-compounds. Noisy, Impure and complex nature visually and material wise. consider dust as Data packets.

5, Air or surface?

dust all about air or surface. whether it will flowing in the air or just landed on our table.

different weight and air circulation .

CHAPTER 2

Capture and sorting the dust:

In chapter two, I will keep research dust in details. Following the two themes underlying narrative and time element from chapter one, I will state the extension elements under those two themes and how they related to my hand on research and conceptual building from all my dust series works. Concentrate on Image and sound making process Steps and compare to theory.

9see section three; dust as a cultural object]

1,Dust and sound

- the noisy and impure nature of dust.

The noisy nature of dust, both visually and sound wise, which I discover with my experiment by using dust put on 16 mm film optical sound track to generate audio noise. And my experiment on displaying the dust video on LCD screen; take the changing luminant intensity and interval from the screen generate sound using a hack analog synthesizer with light sensor. I will intergrade and compare my hands on research above with the forensic and cultural research of impurity and the complexity nature of dust material.

http://vimeo.com/72536017

Dust Synthesizer is an interactive audiovisual intallation. The visual part of this work is made of 10000 frames
of dust which have been collected manually from artist's daily life, then achieved, edited and used as sequence
of animation. The changing of the luminance of the dust moving image trigger and twist the sonification of the
analog synthesizer through LDRs (Light Dependent Resistors).
Dust always been consider as insignificant and annoying little particles. However, in this work, those physical dust
material not longer stays as still maters, but appears as flickering and moving image also part of the sonic instrument.
Dust Synthesizer tries to examine relations between physical materials and audiovisual work and forming a material
based noise aesthetic.
Dust Synthesizer has one big one small two screens, two sets of Hacked mini analog synthesizers and two sets of stereo
systems. The big screen plays low luminance dust video in order to generate continuous low frequency sound. Small
screen plays dust video with different luminance, which allows Audience place the light sensors and generated sound
live, so that audience could create sound integrate into the dust symphony. The audience will experience immersive
interactive visual music by surrounded with two sets of stereo system with four speakers.

2,Dust on film

-- compress time in the past tense.

Film always consider as time base media. When I start to stick dust on 16mm black and white film play it in 24 frames per second or I scanned the dust digitally and play back as 25 frames animated film. The time and narrative elements of dust have been compressed. The condense narrative and time behind dust images becoming an overloaded audiovisual experience. compare to construction film.

http://vimeo.com/64263931

Description of Dust Narrative

Dust narrative is a 10 minutes 47 seconds audiovisual work. The visual part of this work is made of 6593 frames of
dust which I have been collecting and scanning manually for two months. I use those dust images as sequence of
animation playing in 30 frames per second editing with some digital video footage in the background, in this case those
dust not longer stays as still images, but appears as flickering and moving particles. The Intensive visual elements and
visual information of this video allowed me to apply "Pulfrich Effects" to create 3D illusion. I made a special glasses which
has one darker filter over one eye in order to create 15 milliseconds delay of signal transmission for one eye. (visual system
latencies are generally shorter so that the visual system responds more quickly.) In this way, this 3D effect create an illusion
for the viewer that the flickery dust movement slowing down and flowing horizontally in space. The sound part of this
work including recorded sound and computer generated sound composed together in separated left and right stereo
sound channel. I use environment noise and combined with electronic noise and minimal style melody. To create the
atmosphere of ambiguous aesthetic. The feeling of lost and immerse into dust, however, at the same time have the feeling
of seeing something (moving traffic, crowd, street lights), but lose it again after few seconds.. Everything is in between:
lost between 2d and 3d; analog and digital; real and fake; virtual and actual. Don't know where you are what are you looking
at, but there is no way to escape. Ideally this work should be presented as three separated screen audiovisual work with
independent sound channel. however as a draft version and prototype. it temporarily stay as video format with stereo sound track.
The soundtrack for dust narrative. I use environment noise and combined with electronic noise and minimal style melody.
To create the atmosphere of ambiguous aesthetic. The feeling of lost and immerse into dust, however, at the same time have
the feeling of seeing something (moving traffic, crowd, street lights), but lose it again after few seconds.. Everything is in
between: lost between 2d and 3d; analog and digital; real and fake; virtual and actual. Don't know where you are what are you
looking at, but there is no way to escape.

http://vimeo.com/77894056

Description of Dust Poetry

Small dust is used to produce intense visuals and sound. The beauty of materiality is revealed by overlaying both digital and analogue media.
Full digital version of Dust poetry which originally a digital and 16mm projector video performance.
Dust Poetry is a 9 minutes film combined with 7000 frames of dust I have been collecting in my room, and 6 minutes long
black and white analog 16mm film of small plants and insects I picked up from the garden. I aways fascinated by the beauty
of small abandoned physical materials, like dust, plants and insects, and try to imagine their memories and emotions. The
recorded sounds of insect sing and wind blows among the plants used to simulate their language and poetry. The aim of this
work is to use dust and sound as elements to construct another reality which beyond, however, reflects on our mediated
fragmented noisy world.

3,Archiving the dust

—sorting, manipulating, transmitting and erasing.

Sorting the dust with archiving it in both digital and analog. Compare these two media and the means of reservation of materials. And manipulate the dust by editing in filmmaking and translating the dust from physical material to scanned digital files then recapture the image from digital display. I also consider dust as signals keep transmitting from one media to anther until it loses its recognizable shape. Compare this hands-on practice with waste memories been remediated reinterpreted again and again by re-picture it. Every time we re-picture from the pass, part of memory will re-interpreted re mediated re-remembered. Until the memory gets completely false or distorted blurred alienated from its own source.

notes:The archaeology nature of dust(The discipline of things) The discipline of things chapter5 Documents and imagery Digital analog memories The discipline of things chapter6 Futures for things: Memory Practices and digital translation.

- The alienation of dust images.

4, Distribute my dust

-martial exchange by inhaling each other

Follow this methodology above; I also will look into the air-borne nature of house dust, and the new definition of human interaction under this context. State the notion of micro level of martial exchange by inhaling each other in the same space without any physical touch. This concept related to the special setting of my work. How to distribute my dust at the exhibition area, being everywhere without present myself.

CHAPTER 3:

The construction of Dust room:

In chapter 3, I will describe and document the making of my graduation project in details. Concentrate on the relation between light,

dust, images, and sound in technical level. Including description of the settings and final layout of the project, also my expectation

of overall audio-visual special experience for audience.

---

Bibliography

Dust - A Study in Sociological Miniaturism

-Gary Alan Fine and Tim Hallett

Archaeology: The Discipline of Things

The Analysis of Dust Traces.

-Edmond Locard

Theory and Definition of Structural/ Materialist Film

Liveness and the Machine - Improvisation in Live Audio-Visual Performance

-Grayson Cooke

IMPURE MATTER:
A Forensics of WTC Dust

-Susan Schuppli

FORUM: NEW MATERIALISM New Materialism as Media Theory: Medianatures and Dirty Matter

－Jussi Parikka

The Hidden Sense Synesthesia in Art and Science

The Spirit inside Each Object: John Cage, Oskar Fischinger, and “The Future of Music”

－Richard_Brown

Visual Music

－ Maura McDonnell, 2007

Today’s and Tomorrow’s Retrieval Practice in the Audiovisual Archive

Sounding Images and Imaging Sounds - Audiovisual Interactivity in Performance

-Kathleen Maloney

The ear of the voice of the eye

-Yannis Kyriakides

Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

WEB VIDEO AND THE SCREEN AS A MEDIATOR AND GENERATOR OF REALITY

-ROBRECHT VANDERBEEKEN

Articles： BBC-SKIN Pulverulence
-Steven Connor