Reminissions

A bit of a belated continuation of the activity from last week where we looked at What's and Idea? What's a Concept and where do I get one?, I interviewed my object the same way in which I was required to approach the objects which belonged to other people, that is, removing all assumptions and associations, letting the object speak through the qualities which I can perceive.

I found this a little bit easier and worked around adapting the questions I had asked for the other objects. I think some of my bias and familiarity did come through in the end but I tried to answer based purely on the visual aesthetics and their connotations. Interview can be found by clicking here.

Next step now is to look at the interviews conducted by other people with my objects and from there I found it interesting to look at the different styles and approaches other people had taken to this activity.

I liked that Jason made assumptions on weaving together almost a character for it, giving it a set name (pillyD) and experiences ("I came close to being lost while on school camp") I do not know if this was the case, but I am wondering whether he was relating it to a similar object he has or once had and basing his answers around that whilst still basing it on physical features of it ("Have you always had an image?; No, my owner gave me a transfer"). I thought it was daring to try guess at fairly specific details of the object which are in fact pretty open ended to guess at correctly but I enjoyed reading about it.

I felt that Lisa tried more to personify it, giving it more human characteristics and reactions to her questions (" I’m old enough now though i feel young as I’m in a good condition.") Though I feel like she kept some of her questions fairly obvious ("what colour are you?; Creamy white"), with a few of the questions she began to tap into some of the less obvious connotations behind the physical characteristic and letting the object speak for itself ("I’m a blanket i was used to keep warm, to comfort a child, to be an important object in the life of a child that is my use and will forever be my use for generations.")

Ryan seemed a midground between Lisa and Jason, trying not to stamp it with any fixed meaning or assumptions ("Does your owner like Donald Duck?; All kids like Donald Duck..."), but evidently also trying to find some meaning from the physical ("you're in a good condition, were you well looked after?; yush my owner loves me") and the connotations of what it was ("is the current owner the intended recipient of you?; "Probably it was made for the family.")

Overall, the related words arose repeatedly from all three interviews were faded, frayed, thinned, old, unstitched, delicate, repaired which related to the immediate physical appearance of it from which everyone could understand that it was an old object which had been in someones posession for an extended period of time. The other main idea came from the words precious, comfort, reassurance, emotionally, depressed, child, relationship, small, Donald Duck, and cartoon which began to read past the physical into the connotations of the object and letting it speak for itself and the sentimental value behind it. They were all able to understand it as a momento from childhood which had endured many experiences and emotions.

From these common ideas and words, I now have to develop a visual signifier to communicate these same qualities without directly representing my object, which I feel the purpose of which is to explore the symbols and triggers from which understand both established meaning and associated meaning from contextual factors.

Interview with the self

Today's activity was useful in exploring the creation of a concept. It was a good chance to revisit the meanings behind our instruments after having a week to disengage from it and reflect upon it refreshed. I will also take this opportunity to post my final video of my performance.




So I suppose what immediately stands out, why Coca Cola Bottles?
Several reasons, in terms of an instrument, the shape of them gives a really good sound when pressurized. In terms of concept, the Coca Cola contour bottle has become an icon, it is instantaneously recognisable and designed to be as such. You can look at my piece and even though the bottles have had their labels removed, there is no doubt what they are.

What sort of comment is this making on Coca Cola?
It is making a comment not specifically to Coca Cola but large scale companies and the marketing measures they put into place to enforce consumer branding and awareness. It is like instantaneous recognition young children make with the Golden Arches to get that branding in at a young age and imbed that loyalty into them.

In what other ways does your design reflect this?
The structure which houses the bottles is to allude to the shelf presence of Coca Cola, the monopoly if you will. You walk into any dairy or supermarket and there will be an entire shelf or fridge just top to bottom with the different sizes and ranges of Coke. You know with a supermarket that nothing is ever placed accidently, shelf space is like property, each shelf position has it's own value based on it's position relative to eye level and distance down the eye, all calculated in terms of studies of the psychology of shopping. It is all about marketing, consumerism and consumption, we are being manipulated to buy. My instrument takes the Coca Cola fridge out of context , it is taken in isolation to reflect this idea that you are manipulated to see only the Coca Cola and no other brand. Physically you are confronted with the presence of it, it fills your entire field of vision.

So was your use of the bottles initially for their sound or the concept?
I started with the concept, simply consumerism, that which I have been interested in for a long time. I worked through some ideas around this but none which I could really apply musically. I was thinking of using multiple of an object from looking at Andy Warhol's work, in particular his Soup Cans as these alluded to the same umbrella of ideas, so from there the Coca Cola bottles seemed the obvious direction with suggestion from Phil Dadson. His musical experience was a great help in applying my more visual idea.

Why are you so interested in this concept?
I have been working in retail for over three years now so have seen first hand some of the chaos of consumerism. Working in a large scale homewares store over Christmas one year I saw not just the mad rush, the inflated emphasis on buying, the sales, the stock going out as faster than it came in. It seemed unbelievable with the amount of stock we were selling that people still needed to buy more. It didn't seem possible that the supposed need for all these objects was never fulfilled. I am also quite environmentally conscious so when I began to look at the other end of the objects life-span, the mindless disposal into landfills is directly related to this mindless spending and buying which we are manipulated to do.

So who is the target audience of your work?
I don't make any bold positive or negative statements, this particular work is quite neutral, mostly stating the facts that we chose to ignore. I actually have a level of respect for those who come up with marketing tactics because they really are clever. It isn't necessarily a bad thing but I want to make the general consumer aware of why they consume the way they do. We all know excess consumption, such as that of Coca Cola, is bad for us but wonder why we do it. I like to understand things and like to create things that help people open up to something they may not have been aware of, think of something in a new way.

You've explained the visual aesthetic but how does it relate to the fact that it is an instrument?
Music and jingles also play an important part in marketing. The high pitched 'ping' noise alludes to the tone adopted by Coca Cola in their advert, they portray magical worlds, happy people on beaches, celebrations, special ocassions; all part of the positive images and experiences they want you to associate with consuming their product. The particular advert my instrument is a reference to is the magical journey which takes place in a fantasty world inside the vending machine. This seems to have very little to do with Coca Cola but emparts a cute, happy feeling enhanced with the sweet, music box like tones.

How does this piece relate to previous works you've done?
In a previous project to design and build a wearable human interface, I created a stark white plaster human face with switches, which, when triggered would set off a stream of images relating to emotions. This relates to the 'facelessness' of consumerism, we are perhaps a blank canvas so open to manipulation. We are at the mercy of clever marketing who can control how we feel to make us want to buy a product. We are the white plaster face, our inputs are triggered by advertisments, the output is an evoked emotion.

How would you build on this concept in future projects?
I want perhaps to make something that makes a stronger comment because the hot issue at the moment is in creating a sustainable planet, a goal we are far from. I want to make something people can interact with, take art off the walls, something people can physically interact with and take some understanding with them to change some aspect of their life.

20 questions

Despite being struck by plague and having to have missed two lessons of this studio project, I was pleased that the days' activities were self contained so I didn't feel like so behind, though it was interesting trying to make sense of the shapes and constructs around the studio.

I liked the sound of today's activity which began with bringing in a personal object which required almost no thinking as to what I brought along. When asked to pull them out, it was suddenly strange bringing it into this new context, writing about it proved to be much easier as the personal significance of my object again didn't require much thinking.

A personal object of personal significance - something you value because of it's meaning to you, not its worth. Write an explanation of why your object is important to you and what meanings you attach to it. (click on the below image)

The objects were all then placed upon the table for scrutiny. We all seemed perhaps a bit hesitant, due to their personal significance perhaps leaving us feeling vulnerable. My gentle Mimi seemed out of place amongst the half a dozen or so electronics. Upon given the task of having to 'interview' the objects, each object was taken for scrutiny. It was strange to have my object taken away from me but then it was interesting watching Ryan as he interrogated it, analyzing in great detail the physicality of it, exploring the texture, the shape, the nature, but he handled it gently, valuing it for this physicality and the meaning behind it. I liked this as it explored the character which I had recalled in my analysis of its significance to me. Jason similarly asked my permission before picking it up which showed the same level of respect for the object.

I also noticed more people were inclined to interview the digital object, perhaps because we engage better with technological objects; they are more customizable, easier to engage with and understand, we can associate with a similar thing we posses ourselves so can relate to. Some of the other object, perhaps like mine are fairly ambiguous and we lack the contextual understanding of the connotations and associations, bringing to it their own instead. This was an approach I took in my interviews, trying to imagine as though the objects as though they were mine. Click on the below images to see the interview.

I felt this activity was useful in exploring the potential conceptual meaning behind an object by using our own experiences and objects as a starting point. From here now, we have to go back to our own objects to explore it as though we had no emotional link to it, the way the others in the class experienced it and then attempt to represent it based on our own interpretation and the interpretations of others.

Showtime and reflection.

Two hours before we were due to perform I found I was lacking inspiration in playing my instrument. I found that I wasn't coming up with anything new, exciting or different everytime I went to play it. After having a bit of collaboration with Ryan and Seamus, I found that my instrument works quite well when played by two people and the scale allows for it nicely.

Come time for performance I started out playing it solo and then invited Seamus who so kindly went up on stage for the third time that night to play duet. And in fact, I am seeing and discovering over and over again the benefits of the nature of the many levels of collaboration that occur within our group, not just in the final performances but in the nature of the shared studio space. As our ideas and projects develop, we learn from and offer our individual talents and skills to those around us. Seamus, being quite naturally and by developed skill a musical had a lot of offer to the class but even as our instruments neared their finished state, we began to experiment in playing with each others instruments hence we all learned more about our own.

As usual, I was amazed at the range of different ideas and shapes and forms we had all explored to each come up with something different and unique, often reflecting our interests and existing skills. The final result I think left us all quite amazed at what we had achieved. The range of musical ability was greatly varied in the class but the overall level of performance I think, as was the consensus, greater than what any of us were expecting. Even those who weren't used to the nature of performance were proud of what they had created that they managed to come through as confidence.

What else I found really interesting was that where I'd seen some of the instruments develop from concept to finished product, there were a few I hadn't seen at all so even at the end I saw new object and ideas emerge. On top of that, one of my friends came along to the performance with her little brother and two of his friends in tow (they'd been enticed along to 'a free music thing in town') so it was also exciting to see that reaction from people the outside who were seeing it all for the first time with not a lot of background knowledge on what the project was all about. All of them were from quite musical backgrounds and really enjoyed it. I could tell that at first they were having the same sort of reaction I had when I went to see Phil's performance but they soon got into it. My friend said that she even felt inspired to go home and make something.

A lot of constructive feedback came from crit the next day. Feedback to mine was again the logistics of the upright position of the stand and that it would've been more successful in terms of playable ability if the bottles we horizontal and more spaced apart. We discussed my concept and that the stance I had originally taken on the marketing effect of Coca Cola ended up being more neutral one rather than any strong statement. Suggested ways to improve this would be to have perhaps one odd bottle out to allude to the monopoly of Coke or to link it back to the effect on the consumer, as I had looked at with the Coca Cola robot presented by SWAMP, perhaps by use of my impliments I hit it with such as a syringe. I definitely feel my design could be improved in many ways if ever chose to, whilst taking this feedback, from my personal experience playing it I'd also increase the scale of it so that it could be played by more people.

Overall I found this project a bit more challenging that the other, just because it was outside my sphere of skills. I was forced to think of design outside my usual focus on purely the visual to think also about the sound. Though it was suggested and encouraged we use Solid Works when developing our designs, I chose not to use it as by that point I was feeling too rushed for time to try pick up a new piece of software but I do see it's potential and that it would've been helpful. I am keen to learn it for future projects, especially as I would like to experiment with using the 3D printer at some point, if appropriate to a project. Otherwise, there was a less of a focus on the digital side for this project compared to the other as really it was only Ryan and Zac who chose to manipulate digital aspects to create sound while everyone else focused on the acoustic, with the occasional contact mic. I enjoyed having performance as a part of assessment and hope we have more like this again.

Preemptive performance post

It is performance day and this week has finally brought together a a myriad of interesting noises as the instruments have begun to reach completed states. We started to experiment with sounds with some improvisation activities which linked back nicely to the introduction activities we did where we paid attention to the sound around us and began to think about how we could add to this sound on the basis of listening.

We started by listening to the existing sounds in the greenroom and then we had to add something. This activity was a lot more successful when we turned out the lights as we became disengaged from the physical to focus more purely on the sounds, and hence we able to communicate and res pond more successfully. It also enabled us to escape any self consciousness. What resulted was a composition of sounds of movement, interaction with objects arou nd us, vocal sounds and some even began to incorporate our instruments. Other activites included just the use of vocals and holding a note for a breaths length which created some beautiful harmonies.

I was glad I went along to Phil's performance last week as I felt I had a better understanding of the approach we are supposed to now take with our instruments, as well as a better understanding of the way in which Phil's group were able to interact without verbal communication to create cohesive sound. It was a similar sort of effect we began to achieve in these activities an d it begun to get me excited again about this performance.

My instrument is more or less in a finished state but given enough time or another opportunity, there are still ways I'd refine it. Some of the bottles are unable to hold the compression for a long period of time and I always have to retune it. Three or four of the bottles leak completely and are unable to hold any compression so James discussed with me the need to calculate for a 'failure rate' when designing and constructing and have some spares on hand. Both James and Phil discussed with me the physical logistics of performance with my object in that it would be easier to play if the frame was horizontal or if the bottles are on an angle. I see the point they are making but for this performance I am going to stay with the vertical stand as it is more in keeping with my concept and my original focus on something which is more physically performative.

Now that we have the performance space available to us, I was able to start thinking more about this performative aspect in terms of using the space. I have experimented with setting up lighting with a red gel behind my instrument with the rest of the room in darkness so that the light shines through the bottles and the frame is mostly obscured. I will be behind the instrument but will attempt to set up the light so that my movements are shown by long shadows thrown on the ground. This is what I have to experiment with before tonight as well as becoming more familiar with my instrument and the tools I have developed to play it with.

Construction...and deconstruction

The latter half of last week following confirmation of final design was spent in the 3D lab; the holes were drilled for the bottle caps to sit in an suspend the bottle from, recesses were cut to act as slots for the 'shelves' to slide in and out of for easy removal to change placement of bottles and it was all then put together, all in relatively hasslefree manner. Where my calculations for the height of the bottles was correct to determine the height of each shelf, I hadn't accounted for the additional height to the bottle by addition of the valve.

Seeing no other or easier way around it, it was pulled apart, recalculated and painstakingly reconstructed. The best way to test the strength of a join is to try pull it apart, a task which in itself proved difficult. From there, I had to cut new recesses, fill the old ones and attach additional lengths of wood to add extra height, then put it all back together, sand it down and paint it. All made possible with the ever vigilant and helpful 3D lab technicians.

I am pleased with the overall visual aesthetic, especially when finally came time to put the bottles on. The visual impact is exactly what I'd been hoping for from the relatively simplistic design with the repetition of shape and graduations of size. Where I'd been hoping to reflect the organic shape of the bottle in my design, the geometric shape of the structure actually works quite well in contrast to it. It is a presentation of the bottles not unlike that which we're used to (ie shelves and fridges in stores) but it is decontextualized from this location. The labels have been removed from the bottles but it is still instantaneously recognizable as the product it is. I feel the implications of this are a comment on the techniques employed to emforce brand and product awareness as means of boosting sales, in the short and immediate, as well as the long term.

I was very glad to have found my bike pump which makes the process of fine tuning the sound a lot easier than having to get access to the air compressor everytime. I managed to get some sort of tuning done, varying tones across the sizes. In preperation for performance on Thursday, I can now focus back on the performative aspect of it and what sort of sound I hope to create, perhaps in collaboration with someone else.

Under Pressure

To inform my own research and design, I went along Tuesday night to see a four hour non-stop improvised experimental music performance. One of the performers was non other than Phil who is taking us for this studio project.

I was interested to see him perform as he had already impressed me with his ability to pick up anything and make it musical and he'd shown us a few of his own experimental instruments so I was keen to see these in action.

Upon first entering the back room of The Wine Cellar, it was strange to walk in where it had already started. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it was almost unnatural to listen to at first, perhaps due to the fact that we are conditioned into a type and misconception about what music 'should' sound like. But I found that as I relaxed into the deep couches and absorbed the atmospheric lighting and space, the sounds just started to sound right. Even without communication, the three performers always seemed to thinking in tandem and creating something as though composed, at times almost like a conversation between the instruments. Imperceptible transitions changed the mood from tense, to calm, to suspenseful, to even comical at times. We found ourselves commenting on what the mood reminded us of, from chase scene, to horror movie, to walk in the park. It was a very ambient sound and I found myself absorbing it in almost a trance and, in fact, the performers seemed to be in a trance and working intuitively. I didn't stay the full four hours but was sad to leave.

Back in the studio and my own construction, following some calculations I began to doubt the feasibility of my intended construction, in particular the metal coils. I decided to go ahead and try it out with minor modifications but following a class 'show and tell' session with Phil and James, they confirmed my doubts and helped me move in another direction. I have scrapped the coils and now going for a simple wooden shelf frame with different sized bottles on each shelf. This is in fitting with my concept as the marketing of Coca Cola has reached such a point that in any store which sells it, it takes up a larger shelf presence in it's range of sizes and flavours so that it engulfs the potential consumers vision. They are forced to confront it, increasing the chance they will purchase it while adding to brand awareness and familiarity.

In terms of construction, I have my materials purchased, holes drilled in the shelves for the bottles to sit in, held in by the caps ( to reduce dampening of the sound) and the valves have been inserted into the caps. Armed with an air compressor, I began experimenting with pressurizing the bottles. Most of my joins held and I was very pleasantly surprised at the sound given off which sounded nothing like a plastic bottle. It was more of a 'ping' sound which resonated loudly even when I simply struck it with my nails so once constructed, it will be a matter of experimenting with different beaters. I managed to get a range of tones across the same sized bottles but until my support structure is completed, it is difficult to experiment with tone variation across the different sizes, but at least I know that it will work and it will be simply a matter of fine tuning.