Phase4:Google Image Trawl

There seemed so many options in Phase4, but actually no easy way out. I finally decided to pick Google Image Trawl, cause it was relatively easy to control the whole process.
Then I started brain storming, tried to list some key words and input them in Google search bar. I expected something interesting come out.
That didn't work out as the way I want.
Just felt like to relax, I went to one of the biggest online Chinese bbs. There were many interesting topics published in every second. I accidentally clicked one of the post, it talked about something related to the Phase4 - something about how online contexts change the nature of the image and reframe it.
I copied the key word "春熙路刀客(Knife Guy in the Sunshine Spring Road), pasted it in Google image search, clicked the search button.
After a few seconds, a series of images appeared, some of them looked like what Ineed. I searched through the links, found the original images. It basically caught a dramatic moment of a man standing in the local street, with a knife on hand, staring at a couple of Chinese police who surrounded him, then he started to fight and struggle. The original scene itself already sent strong messages, which could come out as varies interepretations from the audiences` side.
This story firstly appeared as local news online and attracted some audiences. Some of them started to recontextualize these images using graphic design tools, such as photoshop. Here the nature of the online medium played an important role- comparing with the paper medium, it not only allowed the audience to view, but also gave them choices to download, make change and upload. Once this action started, more and more viewers followed and posted the recontextualized works. The recreated images kind of reflected the viewer`s identities, perspectives and concepts, which reflected local and international commercial culture, pop culture culture, social and political issues... This group work of image recontextualize could be valued as some kind of conceptual practice using online medium, although many people who participated might not be aware of what they did.

So my Phase4 would be about the issues I mentioned above. The digital representation would be made by Flash. In this way it could be more flexible while dealing with image sequences.
In the future, I might post my Phase4 to English based online forums.

phase 3 : the concept of TIME

That was April 15.

I decided to use "Time" as the theme of my phase 3.

TIME was an scientific term, an manufactured measurement to help a socialized person fit into the modern society. TIME was artificial other than natural. It had created a powerful virtual space in our life, a system calculated every steps we made, and everything around us, and calculated the distance between life and death. I thought life was real, but it had been seriously infected by TIME.
That was an interesting contradiction, and I could related it to my phase 3:
Captured reality VS Constructed virtual reality
TIME could be captured, as it could be represented by the sound of clocks.
I basically created two files. One captured 1 min clicking sound made by three clocks. Another one was simply constructed by my working files(4 or 5 pieces while making the capture piece). There was a sense of rhythm in the constructed piece, and it didn`t sounds like clocks at all. I kind of like this effect. And I decided to place the constructed piece as file a, put the captured one behind. So when the audiences listened to a, they could get confused and try to figure out what that sound was. Then let the second piece answer it.
That could be interesting.

phase 3 continues

OK,I was sick in the last a few weeks and didn't update my blog for a while.
Here is what happened after April 13.
So, time was running out. That was the night before phase 3 critique. I was stuck somewhere, thinking about the theme of this project. It was so quite in the morning around 2:32, the sound of clocks faded in, sounded clear and clearer, started taking up the space, and filling up my mind.
Time
Real
Constructed
It seemed something interesting within these key words.

Then I turned the clock on my table closer to the Mic, recorded 1 min using Audacity. Then I listened to the recorded piece. It sounded very simple, maybe too simple,actually boring. I was a bit disappointed.
3:12, I tried some other crazy ideas, most of them had horrible sound qualities, turned out to be a group of nonsense of meaningless nonsense.
4:30. I was so upset. OK, time to give up.
I woke up at 8:30, felt like shit.
Around 10:15, I got a seat in the lab, didn't bring any phase 3 working file with me. Only 9 people showed up and did critique that day. And after listening to those pieces did by others, I felt lucky that I didn't show my stupid things in front of the class. By that time I just told everyone I had a backup idea.
Yes, I had to got something.
I was too ambitious to try to play with sound. I was simply not good at it.
So, now I think it could be OK to be simple, as long as the concept worked.