User:Stonestone/RWRM-08

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I work with still and moving images since 2010, including 3d, 2d, photography, short films and documentaries. In this thesis, I will discuss the style and techniques I have been using and the things which motivate me to make work. I now make 3D images with Blender and photography to make images of female bodies in soft, bright colours. This process began with a series of works called ‘space out’, in which I aimed to make people feel more relaxed, from then on, I became interested in how my art could change the way people feel. As part of this process I researched the Gysin, Burroughs Dreammachine. In this thesis, I will also discuss my current project [Human Bonsai] in relation to previous work and to work by others that has influenced me.

I started explore my style since the end of 2015. I took photos of a girl in a photo studio when I was traveling back to Beijing China where my home is. Few months later, I started to making similar images in software. My photos and 3D works are mainly in pasty soft colors. From my perspective, these colors can make people feel melty inside because of its extreme softness, they are not very dramatic will never give people strong 'shock'. I can not explein what the softness is, it is more like a feeling The communication between me and my audience should be gentle, gentle also can be powerful in someways. For example, this is a photo I took by accident, I was trying the lights which were orange and pink. Turned out, it is quite pretty and peaceful, also interesting, that in this picture, the gesture is ambigueous only the colorful shadows on her body.

Plastic Photo Serise are printed in different sizes, mostly A3. I had an small exhibition along with some of my similar 3d prints at Stroop Rotterdam during December 2016. It was a really small one but it was my first solo exhibition, my friend Funda gave me this chance to show my work. Basicly, most of the people just told me they liked the colors, that's already good to hear.

Touchless is my first 3d project. I started it in May 2016. Through this work I want to show a status of the moment before two people touching each other. I used transparent texture on human bodies and an ambigueous space to create the feeling of void and a bit danger.

I use Makehuman software for generating human body and Manuelbastioni Lab which is a plugin of Blender by Makehuman, which makes my workflow becomes faster when I only need simple pose and details of human.

For the figure of my 3D charactors, I just want people to get the feeling or a concept of the human instead of a specific human. I also did that in my photo work, I took photos with asian girls but basicly I don't want them to be recognizable. Those bodies are more presenting the bodies not themselves as the specific person.

I built 3D spaces in different ways, and always put it in the last few steps of the images. For example, my first 3d work touchless, when I was done posing, I started thinking why they have troubles of touching each other or why they are trying to touch each other. Although, it is not a fictional project, I want to put them in an interesting and probably narrative space.

One of my works in Touchless, there are 2 people, one is inside the other one is outside. One person tying to catch the other person by making its hand going through a window, the other person also trying to hold the hand, but under the window there is a whole. The space is totally chaotic and dangerous , I am trying to mess up with people, and expressing the feeling of touchless or let's say a bit hopeless.

This is the idea of ppl can't touch or connect, and also the sense of ppl disappearing either because they are all the same color, they are transparent, that's the idea of noise will take over, visual noise. That's like all the information, all the noise is going on. So if you think about it, at one point we want to make ourselves distinct from the noise, i am here, I am not easy, on the other side, we want to give up the noise, give ourselves over to the noise so with the flikr machine, you give yourself over to the noise. It is also what my previous project [Space Out] is about. It is so weird that two extrme things can bring similiar fact. In Buddhism, they say :"The form is nonexistence, and nonexistence is the form." （色即是空，空即是色）. I guess that is it.

I grew up in a kind of special time of China Beijing. All the "good" things suddenly rush into our life. People start catching all the trends and are afraid of being out of time. There are way more IT companies, more people using Iphones, people are always on their phones because news are in there, friends, food ,music, cleaner, massager are all in the small things. We are connected physically, disconnected mentally, but we are human, shouldn't we have more connections? It happens in some big cities of China. People get more lonely by communicating with people by click a useless heart. Also I thought maybe because of that asian people get to know west world more than west world knows us. But basicly people doesn't care about what is happening in this world. People care about what they are familiar with, and don't want to explore the world more.

I am using technologies to fight with technologies. Everything has its two sides, it depenses on how you use it. For me software is the tool for me to communicate with the world, the others hear from me through the images I made in software, they receive them through their screens. I love technology, it is so great that we are becoming more and more advanced. It is really hard to say how the caveman will react if he can see this current world. The fact I don't like is actually people don't know how to use them, as a result people are the ones being used by them.

I think NL or Europe is way better than Beijing from my perspective as an artist or just for myself. I actually started doing my art project after I got here. In here, art seems like a normal thing, which is a part of people's life, and people can accept more ideas even though they might not like them. When I was in Beijing, I got presure from life a lot, everything was around making money, I never thought about doing something to make myself happy because I thought (just like most of the people), money can bring me all the things I want. My mind now is going 'crazier and crazier' and I can't stop learning new things. It is something I never have had before. I feel like I am making things which have been in my mind for a long time but I did not see it, now they are keeping coming out.

Interview 01

My thesis is about my work. I work with still and moving images. I will discuss the style and techniques I use and what motivates me to make work. I now make 3D images (using blender and [name other software]) and photography to make images of female bodies in soft, bright colours. This process began with a series of works called ‘space out’, in which I aimed to make people feel more relaxed. I became interested in how my art could change the way people feel. As part of this process I researched the Gysin, Burroughs Dreammachine. I will also discuss my current project [bonsai] in relation to previous work and to work by others that has influenced me. I use Photos and 3d images to create space out feelings.

Q:When did you start work on 3d images and photography which creat space out feelings?

A:I started since the end of 2015. I took photos of a girl in a photo studio when I was traveling back to Beijing. My photos and 3d works are mainly in pasty soft colors. I started from taking photos with this style, then I also brought it to my 3d Works. For me these kinds of colors can make ppl feel soft and melt inside, they are not very dramatic will never give ppl strong 'shock'. I don't like that. The communication between me and my audience should be gentle, gentle also can be powerful in someways. For example, this is a photo I took by accident, I was trying the lights which were orange and pink. Turned out, it is quite pretty and peaceful, also interesting..

Q: Why interesting?

A: In this picture, you don't know what she is doing [Steve:so the gesture is ambigueous huh?] Yes, also you can see the shape of the girl and see the colorful shadows on her body.

Q: Is it on screen or ?

A: They are printed. I printed them out and had an small exhibition along with some of my similar 3d prints at Stroop Rotterdam during December 2016. It was a really small one but it was my first solo exhibition, my friend Funda gave me this chance to show my work. I got some good feedback. Basicly, most of the people just told me they liked the colors, that's already good to hear.

Q: How big are they?

A: They are in different sizes, mostly A3.

Q: Did you also tried different format?

A: No I didn't do that. I only printed them out. Prints are mostly more lively than all the other formats for images. I printed out my works(photo and 3d) Life is on print, not on screen. Print gives works life. For these works I wanted to creat the sense of plastic, so I used gloss photo paper, to make them shinney and more plastic.

Q: What software I use to creat figues? (software question)

A: Makehuman software for generating human body and Manuelbastioni Lab which is a plugin of Blender by Makehuman, which makes my workflow became faster when I only need simple pose and details of human.

Q:Do you think it is not important that the figue is not particular people?

A: I just want the feeling of the human not a specific human, just a concept of a human. I also did that in my photo work, I took photos with asian girls but basicly I don't want them to be recognizable. Those bodies are more presenting the bodies not themselves as the specific person. Th

Q: How did you built the evernment(3d) and what did you want it to be like?

A: I built them in different ways, and always put the everinment in the last few steps of the images. For example my first few 3d work touchless, when I was done posing I started thinking why they have troubles of touching each other or why they are trying to touch each other. Although it is not a fictional project, I want to put them in an interesting and probably narrative space. One of my works in Touchless, there are 2 people, one is inside the other one is outside. One person tying to catch the other person by making its hand going through a window, the other person also trying to hold the hand, but under the window there is a whole. The space is totally chaotic and dangerous , I am trying to mess up with people, and expressing the feeling of touchless or let's say a bit hopeless.

Q:More about Touchless

A: Touchless is my first 3d project. I started it in May 2016. Through this work I want to show a status of the moment before two people touching each other.I used transparent texture on human bodies and an ambigueous space to create the feeling of void and a bit danger.

Q: this is the idea of ppl can't touch or connect, and also the sense of ppl disappearing either because they are all the same color, they are transparent, that's the idea of noise will take over, visual noise.that's like all the information, all the noise is going on. So if you think about it, at one point we want to make ourselves distinct from the noise , i am here, I am not easy, on the other side, we want to give up the noise, give ourselves over to the noise so with the flikr machine, you give yourself over to the noise. Is that the SpaceOut is.

A: It is so weird that two extrme things can bring similiar fact. In Buddhism, they say :"The form is nonexistence, and nonexistence is the form." （色即是空，空即是色）. I guess that is it.

Q: You are telling that people are losing touch, tell me about that.

A: I grew up in a kind of special time of China Beijing. All the "good" things suddenly rush into our life. People start catching all the trends and are afraid of being out of time. There are way more IT companies, more people using Iphones, people are always on their phones because news are in there, friends, food ,music, cleaner, massager are all in the small things. We are connected physically, disconnected mentally, but we are human, shouldn't we have more connections? It happens in some big cities of China. People get more lonely by communicating with people by click a useless heart. Also I thought maybe because of that asian people get to know west world more than west world knows us. But basicly people doesn't care about what is happening in this world. People care about what they are familiar with, and don't want to explore the world more.

Q: The work that you make is kind of paradox, very technilogical. you use a lot of softwares , the photos maybe the base of it. It is automaticly a bit critical of technology, the problem of the technology. This would be a great dream isn't it, that knowlege distribute evenly accross the planet, ppl actually believe this. You are using technology, why you are talking about technology?

A:Everything has its two sides, depense on how you use it. For me software is the tool for me to communicate with the world, the others hear from me through the images I made in software, they receive them through their screens. I love technology, it is so great that we are becoming more and more advanced. It is really hard to say how the caveman will react if he can see this current world. The fact I don't like is actually people don't know how to use them, as a result people are the ones being used by them.

Q:Different between NL and Beijing.

A:I think NL or Europe is way better than Beijing from my perspective as an artist or just for myself. I actually started doing my art project after I got here. In here, art seems like a normal thing, which is a part of people's life, and people can accept more ideas even though they might not like them. When I was in Beijing, I got presure from life a lot, everything was around making money, I never thought about doing something to make myself happy because I thought (just like most of the people), money can bring me all the things I want. My mind now is going 'crazier and crazier' and I can't stop learning new things. It is something I never have had before. I feel like I am making things which have been in my mind for a long time but I did not see it, now they are keeping coming out.

Q: Do you think the ppl in your 3d images want to stay there or come out (if you are the person what's your choice)

A: I want to come out. It is a really bad world, no inside no outside, you can't touch although it seems like you might can touch. It is too bad. I have been watching West World, Meave the smartest first woken-up host wants to go out of the world. She is just a robot, have been living in some narrative loops for her whole "life", knows nothing about world outside. Even though, when she finds out her life is just pieces of scripts, she wants to leave, she needs something real. There is always the spirit of finding the truth in all kinds of life forms, not only human ,maybe also a little flower. I saw a youtube show about a man locked himself in a purely white little space for 3 days, he went a bit crazy in the end. He told audience that not talking to people doesn't make him go crazy, it is there is no reaction no feedback from people makes him crazy. The touch or let's say the original simple way of communication by which you can really got feed back from people, maybe just a touch, maybe a nod, maybe a little smile you get from each other , is the thing makes people not being alone.

Q: You have been interested in the idea of outside stimulus and how that affects us for a while now, since your projects Nosebleed and Spaceout in 2016

Previous Works

Dream machine

Intro

On October 27th 2016 in South Korea, the first ever Space-Out Competition was held, which would be one of the most peaceful competition in the world. Candidates must maintain a certain and stable heart rate while being in a status of space-out. Finally, a nine-year-old elementary school student Miss Yang won the big prize. This “competition” gives me an initial idea of doing a research/project about space-out experience. During the competition, hundreds of candidates sat in the same piece of grass, going to different "spaces". Space-out, as one of the most commonest experience for everyone has its special attraction for me, because people all experience it, however, I will never know exactly what is the experience for others.

Space-out is a feeling that people can never tell exactly what is by themselves which can be seen as the soul leaving the body. The views that people see in front of them when their minds escape from their bodies, are diverse and different from the others and difficult to tell clearly. However, the trigger points of space-out are quite similar, drugs, alcohol even some specific visuals, for example. Dreamachine, as one of the most critical patent of triggering space-out, also known as a piece of art work, is a good example to explore the phenomenon of space-out. In this essay, I will give my research on how dreamachine make efforts on people and why people get the feeling of space-out.

History

“Flicker” is a long-standing term of art in experimental psychology, referring to visual effects induced by flickering lights.
The first record of inducing hallucinations by flickering light emmerged can be traced back to 1564.Nostradamus conducted Flicker experiments, he was inspired by the legends of Lucrezia Borgia and the subtle magic of 'photic-entrainment' by flames she employed to access visionary divinations, and predict future events.
The first stroboscope was invented in 1832 by Belgian scientist Joseph Plateau. He used slotted disks turning at turning at high speeds to provide an image with an illusion of movement. Then the invention of the Electroencephalograph was made in 1924. German psychiatrist Hans Berger worked on human EEG, his main topic was to search for " the correlation between objective activity of the brain and subjective psychic phenomena and to understand the mysterious relation ship between mind and matter." Then he found Alpha wave."A rhythmic oscillation of potential at a afrequency of 10 cycles pre second .. detected in the human subject by electrodes applied to the head .. present when the subject lies quietly with eyes closed and disappearing when attention is fully occupied."
In 1945, Dr. W. Grey Walter applied flicker into his EEG research, in the end an electronic stroboscope was invented. After an experiment in a big range of people, Dr Walt got the feedbacks (strange feelings) from samples he chose, which were:" faintness or swimming in the head"; "unresponsive or unconscious for a few moments"; "the limbs jerked in rhythm with the flashes of light."

Most of the feedback pointed into epileptic symptoms.A feedback apparatus was built in order to figure out how the flicker trigger works on our brain.

As shown in the diagram on the right, eyes receive the lights from the strobes (lamp) as an subjective experienced signal which is transmitted to our brain, then, the signal (brainwave) goes through the recorder make efforts on the trigger.This loop can be seen as the basic prototype of how the visual flicker we look at works on our brain.

" We all noticed a peculiar effect . . . a vivid illusion of moving patterns whenever one closed one’s eyes and allowed the flicker to shine through the eyelids. The illusion . . . takes a variety of forms. Usually it is a sort of pulsating check or mosaic, often in bright colours. At certain frequencies—around 10 per second—some subjects see whirling spirals, whirlpools, explosions, Catherine wheels. "
Dr Walter noted after experimented with strobes on himself.

Dreamachine

Spaceout: https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/User:Stonestone/secondessayfort2stone

In the post-World War II era, the Beat Generation rediscovered the drug-like strobe-machine by reading Dr Walt's book The Living Brain. It starts with an experience of Brion Gysin, a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire. In his dairy he wrote:

" Had a transcendental storm of colour visions today in the bus going to Marseilles. We ran through a long avenue of trees and I closed my eyes against the setting sun. An overwhelming flood of intensely bright colors exploded behind my eyelids: a multidimensional kaleidoscope whirling out through space. I was swept out of time. I was out in a world of infinite number. The vision stopped abruptly as we left the trees. Was that a vision? What happened to me? "
After reading Dr Walt's book The Living Brain which was lent by William S. Burroughs, Gysin had found the answer. That is also the critical point of the relationship establishing between Flicker and Dreamachine; Walt and Gysin. Afterwards, Gysin built the Dreamachine in the early 1960's by putting a cylinder with holes onto a record player turn tablewith a 100 watt lightbulb in the middle. When the record player being set to spin at 78 round per minute, the strobes turns into the visual of sitting in a bus and passing shades of leaves under the sun, which makes the light flickers at a frequency of about 20Hz Alpha brainwaves which are associated with subconsciousness. With bringing the changes of brainwaves to people, dreamachine is displayed as an art piece in by Brion.

Brainwaves

Brainwaves has been mentioned earlier, which plays an important role in space-out experience. The blinky lights made by dreamachine produce about 20 hz brainwaves in our brain, in a way, it is within or close to the range of alpha wave( in a range around 8 -13 Hz ), which will bring people the feeling of deep relaxation, vice versa. Besides alpha wave, there is also Beta wave, Theta wave and Gamma wave which show or make different efforts on our brain. .

Background Story of Nosebleed:

This is a normal morning or a normal afternoon, however, it is a normally normal moment, you step out of your door, grabbing two bags of rubbish in your hands. From the door to the dustbin, there are 100 steps in total. After 57 steps, you feel your nose bleeding, suddenly. "What the fuck?!" You think to yourself. You have to raise your head in order to stop nosebleed. Oh, there is nothing on above at all, tops of tall trees, tops of some tall buildings and, of course, the sky. I have to say, it is a random view indeed. Unfortunately, you have to look at this view for a few minutes, and waiting for your nose to stop bleeding. Damn it! You feel you are wasting your life, although, you also spend more time on doing other useless stuff everyday. At first, you just look at the view in front of your eyes, and cannot wait to leave this situation. But lately, you just notice that there is something in the sky, such as some clouds, some birds, some plastic bags. Then you would not see them anymore. You stop thinking anything else at all. In the end, after your nose stops bleed, before you go on your way to the dustbin, you get a specific feeling of the very specific position.

Nosebleed is a video work which shows the views that people might see when they get nosebleed suddenly (skies and the top part of the building) when they are walking on the street. In order to bring the space-out feeling for the people who might see the work, the most efficient way is to create alpha wave as a key to bring people the similar experience of Flicker and Dreamachine in it with the strobe effects like Dreamachine.

For the first attempt, I downloaded an alpha wave meditation video on youtube, and put the sound into a program I made (http://pzwart1.wdka.hro.nl/~ying/404/thatwave.html) using Web Audio API. This program is able to calculate the data of the sound and then, visualize the data into different colours in order to bring the blinks by colour fast changing.
It did results in something blinky, but the question is: if it is the real alpha wave frequency. As a matter of fact, people can only actually hear the sound between the range of 20Hz to 20000Hz frequency by ears, so there is no one can hear an alpha wave sound. When I thought I should give up the idea of creating alpha wave blink because the alpha wave audio is a fraud, I found the origin of the special sound in the youtube clip - "Binaural Beats".
Binaural beat is an auditory illusion perceived when two different pure-tone sine waves. Both of these two waves have frequencies which are lower than 1500 Hz, and the difference between them are less than a 40 Hz, are presented to a listener at the same time, one goes to left ear and the other one goes to right. For instance, if the left channel is 500Hz pure tone, the right channel is 510 Hz pure tone, as a result, the listener will get the auditory illusion of a third tone (a frequency of 10Hz which being the difference between the 500Hz and 510Hz), in addition to the pure tones played to ears. Binaural beat is the third sound.
It gives me a new perspective of grabbing alpha wave data -- creating video works based on thedreamachine's principle of producing alpha wave (flicker) and using the data of Binaural Beats which would produce alpha wave frequency.

For experiment, I upload a piece of sound [1] which produces Binaural beats third tone pitch frequency (from 7 Hz to 12.9 Hz which is right in the range of alpha wave).

Dreamachine, as the most important reference of my project "Nosebleed" gives me a chance to create the space-out experience in my work.
I built up one dreamachine and tried to figure out wh/howy it work s(or if it works or not).

http://vimeo.com/165968701

After really tried it, from my perspective, I saw a lot of different shapes, and did had the feeling of relaxation. All the templates I found online are cut in the same shapes. However, in my point of view, the shapes matter less than the flickery. Then, based on this observation on my own, I created the prototype of Nosebleed (website -> http://stonestone.nl/0510/NorthernSky.html). Users can upload the Binaural Beats and then watch the flickery sky.

Conclusion

To sum up, the illusion from dreamachine is created by the alpha wave, which is one of the brainwaves which could bring relaxation status to people. To create a space-out experience is (kind of) equal to finding a way to create alpha wave. The filkery light which I would like to apply on my own work can be come true by using third tune(Binaural Beats). Binaural beats could be a trigger of alpha wave which has a certain frequency the same as alpha wave.