The 3rd draft

BOREDOM

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 analytical, yet abstract, non-narrative film. In this film, boredom would be visualized by computer animation and moving images, accompanied with environmental sounds recorded in different scenes and spaces. This video installation explores What does boredom mean to me? What is my boredom? Is it a problem to me? When I was working on an illustration project on an approximately 3.5m x 1.6m canvas. The final procedure was simply to fill in black color in the graphics with a small marker pen. At that moment, I sensed boredom strongly and eventually a torture. I felt myself trapped in a repeating cycle. Another moment of my life was in a summer vacation, in contrast, I basically didn’t have many things to do, I felt myself been trapped in boredom again. So what is boredom to me? According to my “trapped” experience, an excerpt from the book < Philosophy of Mind and Phenomenology: Conceptual and Empirical Approaches > might could describe my boredom: While bored one wishes to be doing something else, often anything but what one is currently doing. Boredom is hence a state from which we seek to escape. Boredom involves a feeling of weariness. Particularly when I know exactly the work would be a repeating cycle. In contrast, simply when I have nothing to do also brings boredom, which in another way can be seen as being disconnected with an object, a community or the world.

Boredom seems to be negative in general. Nevertheless, what’s more attractive to me me from boredom is the contradiction side. To me, boredom is calm, tranquil. Boredom is a transfer station, which is possible to take to me anger, sorrow, excitement or happiness. Boredom is enriched of potential energies. I enjoy the moment when I do nothing but merely stare at my screen saver even though what my screen saver does is simply looping the same content, come and go and come again. I enjoy watching a long experimental film although it could be hard to understand, which leads the disconnection between me and the object. However, I would force myself to watch, and the reason why I would enjoy this boring moment is to try to get out of boredom. Slowly, a connection between me and boredom would appear, this connection can either be obvious or subtle. Therefore, to me boredom is also a way to understand the world better.

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.

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?