The 1st draft

THE ENERGY OF BOREDOM ( temporary title )

WHY?

One late evening, I was sitting on my couch and basically doing nothing besides listening to music and the sounds from outside my window. At that moment, I felt boredom which led me to think more about “boredom”. What is boredom to me? Where could boredom lead me to? Is boredom only negative? What can I do with my boredom if I have a lot of it? I see human emotions as the data of our psychological bodies. In a way, I think boredom is a starting point for many other emotions. Boredom can lead me to different approaches, it isn't always a negative thing to me, sometimes I enjoy being bored and sometimes I force myself to be immersed within boredom although the intention might be to get out of boredom. For instance: when I’m watching an obscure experimental art work, it might be a process that is from boredom to non-boredom. Moreover, I am very curious about what my boredom would look like on screen and the stories or energy visual boredom would transfer to the viewers.

What is boredom to me? As Walter Benjamin wrote: "Boredom is a warm grey fabric lined on the inside with the most lustrous and colorful of silks. In this fabric we wrap ourselves when we dream." I would like to explore the subtle kinetic and potential energy in a relatively stable status since I mostly focus on the looping, repeating part of boredom. Additionally, I'd like to explore the following questions through this project: -What would boredom be like if it can be characterized? -Can boredom be poetic? -Is boredom chaotic or can it be minimalistic? -The relationship between time and boredom.

WHAT?

The energy of boredom is a video installation that shows the subtle feeling or emotion of boredom. It’s an abstract and non-narrative film visually, meanwhile analytical (<<<< m: It's an analytical, yet abstract, non-narrative film.). In this film, boredom would be visualized by computer animation and moving images, additionally (<<<< m: accompanied) with environmental sounds recorded in different scenes and spaces. This video installation explores What does boredom mean to me? What is my boredom? What boredom is like to me if it’s visible? Furthermore, to interact with viewers and question them, what do you feel from the film, what information do you get from it. The main elements of the work would be repeat and change, just like what I feel about boredom, doing the same thing repeatedly is boring, however, nothing is literally the same. Therefore, I would like to create changes (can be very subtle) in the repeating visuals. The energy of boredom is a soft energy to me, in that case, the visual would be rather soft than aggressive.

HOW?

In the very first step of the project, a lot of experiments would be taken. What’s important to me is to understand deeper what boredom is, thus, related readings about boredom both psychologically and artistically would be involved. Moreover, one very important and crucial process for this project is how I would translate boredom to moving image on the screen. In that case, two options or possibilities are open for me and for a further step, I would like to combine them for the project. 1. Create visual and images based on my very personal feeling and thoughts of boredom. Get inspired by those elements that cause my boredom. This method is quite subjective and abstract and controversial eventually. 2. This method is more analytical and mathematical. Collect those boredom elements and analyze them into mathematical data, thus, visualize the data into moving image.

As for the sound part, I would like to create “sounds of boredom” tracks while keeping the original sounds that are recorded from different environments. For me, the environmental sounds, for instance: cars, peoples’ talking, wind, birds, etc. would provide the abstract moving image more human characters, and I’m quite excited about this subtle contrast between computer generated moving image and human character. Furthermore, would lead me to another question, would the moving images be merely computer generated graphics or would those images also be characterized, thus would they be bored in the screen? Those experiments and explorations would be taken before Christmas, either still images, videos or short animations. After Christmas until the end of the final trimester, the final project would start and be finished with a more concrete and clearer concept.

RELATION TO A LARGER CONTEXT

The MIT Press & Whitechapel Gallery, [2017], <Boredom, Documents of Contemporary Art>. Various of boredom in politics, feminism, sociality, modernity. From the first defination of boredom in 1960s to the relationship between boredom and contemporary art.

Guggenheim Museum, [2014], <Wasted Time>, Interview of Peter Fischli. A discussion about boredom and its power to alter the experience of time. When one is bored, time slows down. Boredom against "inspired artist".

HELP

I mainly need to figure out how to make it happen to visualize the invisible boredom and translate it to screen both technically and conceptually. In addition, I would need the help of sound recording and compose.

RELATION TO PREVIOUS PRACTICE

The energy of boredom is both related to my previous works – “unattributed stimulations of objects” and “sent & read” conceptually. They all explore the subtle emotions from different stimulations either from physical world or the virtual digital world. My previous papers about “live cinema” and “generative art in video art” offer me bases more technically in abstract film and visual art.

Additionally, good questions for me to discover and research furtherly: is it necessary to make the work that bores the audience? And will the work fail if it does not bore the audience?

Max Edits

One late evening, I was sitting on my couch and basically doing nothing besides listening to music and the sounds from outside my window. At that moment, I felt boredom which led me to think more about “boredom”. What is boredom to me? Where would (m: could?) boredom lead me to? Is boredom only negative? What can I do with my boredom if I have a lot of it? I see human emotions as the data of our psychological bodies. In a way, I think boredom is a starting point for many other emotions. Boredom can lead me to different approaches, it isn't always a negative thing to me, sometimes I enjoy being bored and sometimes I force myself to be immersed within boredom (m: from here till the end of the sentence I'm not sure what you are trying to say) although the intention might be to get out of boredom of to understand something or somebody better. Moreover, I am very curious about what my boredom would look like on screen and the stories or energy visual boredom would transfer to the viewers.

The energy of boredom is a video installation that shows the subtle feeling or emotion of boredom. It’s an analytical yet abstract, non-narrative film. In this film, boredom would be visualized by computer animation and moving images, accompanied by environmental sounds recorded in different scenes and spaces. This video installation explores what boredom means to me? What is my boredom? What is boredom like to me if it’s visible? Furthermore, its interaction with viewers, asking them - what do you feel from the film? what information do you get from it? The main elements of the work would be repetition and change, just like my feelings of boredom, doing the same thing repeatedly, however, nothing is literally the same. Therefore, I would like to create changes (that can be very subtle) in the repeating visuals. The energy of boredom is a soft energy to me, in that case, the visuals would be rather soft than aggressive.

In the very first step of the project, a lot of experimentation would have to be taken. What’s important to me is a deeper understanding on what boredom is, thus, related readings about boredom both psychologically and artistically would be involved. Moreover, one very important and crucial process for this project is, how I would translate boredom to a moving image on a screen. In this case, two options or possibilities are open to me and as a further step, I would like to combine them for this project. 1. Create visuals and images based on my very personal feelings and thoughts of boredom. To get inspired by those elements that cause my boredom. This method is quite subjective and abstract and controversial eventually. 2. This method is more analytical and mathematical. Collect those boredom elements and analyze them into mathematical data, thus, visualize the data into moving image.

In regards to the sound, I would like to create “sounds of boredom”, tracks of the original sounds which are recorded from different environments during the moment of boredom. For me, the environmental sounds, for instance: cars, people talking, wind, birds, etc. would provide the abstract moving image a more human character. I’m quite excited about this subtle contrast between computer generated moving image and human character. Furthermore it would lead me to another question, (m: graphic feeling?) is this graphic feeling bored? Those experiments and explorations would be taken before Christmas, either still images, videos or short animations. After Christmas till the end of the final trimester, the final project would start and be finished with a more concrete and clearer concept.

I mainly need to figure out how to visualize boredom and translate it to screen both technically and conceptually. In addition, I would need help of sound recording and composing.

The energy of boredom is both conceptually related to my previous works – “unattributed stimulations of objects” and “sent & read”. They all explore the subtle emotions from different stimulations either from physical world or virtual digital world. My previous papers about “live cinema” and “generative art in video art” offer me (m: biases or bases?) biases more technically in abstract film and visual art.

Additionally, good questions for me to discover and research further: is it necessary to make work that bores the audience? And will the work fail if it does not bore the audience?

[Steve suggests: start to make experiments, this will make the project more focussed, make a small "boredom project" every day, a sketch, a tiny film, gifs, screensaver, that expresses your ideas of boredom. Post the results into your proposal.]