User:Nan Wang/ thesis03-12

Introduction:

“…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.

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…

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.

Chapter 1 evidence of being.

1. what is dust

2, the ambivalent aesthetic and cultural interpretation:

3, The underlying narrative

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.

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.

How a crime happened. And  compare this deductive process with film maker image making 

Material base film making.

Signal transmitting. Data packets.

Chapter 2 Capture and sorting the dust:

Image and sound making process Steps and compare to theory.

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.

Dust and sound

The noise nature of dust Optical sound Acoustic dust

Dust on film

compare to construction film

Scan Dust

Digital noise

Sorting the dust

archiving

Dairy—audio filed recording.

Editing

Visual music

Manipulate the dust.

Chapter 3: The construction of Dust room:

The montage of the work final layout, overall experience. Montage of fragmented memories