https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4m5gEQrl5bKLVdXY1h3RkUwaDg

Organic

Industrial

Yes there are definitely differentiation between organic and industrial lines. It has been confirmed. Lines of nature such as tree leaves, branches, flowers, ocean waves, all the lines of our body are non linear they are softer and rounder. Everything that are made to fit to be worn on our body . Have you seen a rectangular flower? Can you wear a cardboard box as a top? Do you have dead straight wrinkles? No. However sometimes construction takes place when creating something to fit the natural form such as patternmaking a garment to fit a human body such as shoes, clothes and hats. In pattern making everything has to be accurate down to the 1mm. It is so important for the lines to be linear and the darts to be on sharp angles. It is interesting to think how although patternmaking consists of perfectly measured curves and straightness of the lines the product of it comes out flowy and organic, comfortably fitting our body. Going back to the differences of industrial and natural lines, industrial lines seem to have a clean, professional, high maintenance, advanced feel and i think we find that perfect proportion aesthetically pleasing which is why our beauty standards are closely related to the perfectly balanced and straight look.

I took photos for all objects and a video each of the gas stove and freezer to record sound.

There were two parts in noticing and recording temperature, nature and technology.

There are appliances such as the air conditioner, gas, freezer, electronic kettle, toaster that has the function to manipulate temperature and there is nature where temperature cannot be controlled by men and is shown through sunshine, rain, snow and clouds which we refer to as weather.  In nature the main indicator for temperature would be the sun which is why i think we associate bright sunny images to higher temperature and gloomy dark images to lower. The differences i noticed in high temperature and low temperature are these

Higher temperature: Clearer definition, brighter colours, there’s some kind of glow or light (whether it is from the fire or sunlight)

Lower temperature: murky definition, dull colours (grey), cloudy, dewy/icy

I also noticed that the image and the sound of the fire or heat from the gas stove and toaster resonates danger and uneasiness whereas the image of the sunny road and the blue sky evoked warmth and happiness. The images or sound of cold objects didn’t prompt any definite feelings such as danger but all the images had a colour coordination of grey scale. I notice coldness is associated with white or cool tone colours because of the relation of water(rain)-ice(snow)-dew-frost and the colour of those are mainly clear or white.

From the idea that we are subconsciously attracted to the industrial straight and perfectly proportioned lines and shapes, it made me notice two things that are most commonly applied to our natural body forms. Hair straightening and teeth straightening. I took a video of myself straightening my naturally wavy hair and a photo of my roommate’s retainers. In this case noticing was not done visually i didn’t have to see through my eyes to notice. I had trajectory thoughts from organic and industrial lines that eventually led me to think of the idea of straightening our natural body forms by using industrial mechanics. To transform what is naturally present acquires a lot of force which is why the retainers are made of strong metal wires and the heat of the hair straighteners are as intense. Looking at the video/image of the industrial straightening tools, there definitely is an intimidating vibe to them. The metal clapping sound of the straightener and the wires of the retainers do not exactly scream gentleness and comfort. In terms of the order of noticing and media taking I thought of it first then recorded the objects. I knew exactly what i was going to take a photo/video of there was no wondering or surprises. The media taking part was pretty much planned however what it led me to notice next was not.

While straightening my hair, I noticed the temperature of the hair straightener, how hot it was and i thought it would be interesting to try to capture temperature through media. The noticing of the forcefulness and intimidating vibe from the two appliances came later after examining the footages.

Next object of noticing = Temperature

I felt like line was an easy object to notice there were lines everywhere. However  i found myself only photographing when i remembered and it wasn’t like i saw lines and took photos, most of the times i had to remind myself of this project then i intentionally looked around for lines to take photos of. Lines don’t stand out and honestly everything is made of lines. Unless i see something specifically associated with lines for example a zebra passing by i am not going to think Oh lines! and snap a pic of it. Although through the process of media taking, before even looking through the pictures I noticed a sense of differentiation between the lines. Lines created organically such as the texture of the chocolate ice cream or the lines of nature like the tree leaves are very crooked and irregular. Whereas the others are very straight, rectangular and industrial. It made me think back about the odd angle photography of my body and how all the lines of my body were very soft curvy and never straight. All our body parts are 100% non-linear! Our finger tips, hair, our waistline I can guarantee there isn’t one single body part where it consists of a straight angle and it is same with nature. I would like to explore further on this subject.

Capturing the gaze

I was struggling to find an angle on how i would capture people’s stare. I had lots of ideas (written below) but they all required other people to be in the media process whether it was to take it for me or to be the model.

• Filming a couple staring into each others eyes in a seated position (staged)
• Photographing moments of others eye contact when in a group situation (just hanging out)
• Asking friend to photograph or film my gaze during interaction with others (when hanging out)
• Photographing myself every time i catch myself looking into my reflection
• Photographing the object of my gaze whatever I stare at for more that a set amount of time I take a photo of that object. (But what if I consciously stare at something for longer than I would because I want to take a photo of it? And how do I stay conscious every time I look at something and time how long i’m looking at it for)

I wasn’t sure if they would feel comfortable being photographed or filmed in their somewhat vulnerable or intimate eye contact moments but honestly more than anything i doubted that the gazes in the photographs or film would not be genuine especially since they are conscious about being filmed unless the camera is hidden and they don’t know they are being filmed.

Question: How do photographers or videographers capture genuine moments? Like they not staged but very real? Are they real? Is it even possible? Do the models pretend that the camera doesn’t exist? How? Don’t they get nervous? shy? When there are cameras, are the emotions of the models feel 100% pure?

When I was still stuck with how to go about with capturing the gaze, trying to find the most practical way to do it an idea struck me unexpectedly.

Unexpected opportunity

At work a small souvenir shop where i work alone, i noticed that i had a perfect opportunity to capture my gaze in an un-staged environment where there was interaction with others (the customers) and all i had to do was set up my camera so it stood steadily. Through several trial and errors to find the right spot to place the camera and right angle to make sure my face was in the frame which was hard as using the back camera on my phone, without a preview screen to check. It was almost like setting up a hidden camera on myself. Due to its large file size the actual footage could not be uploaded but the film clip below roughly shows the set up of it.

Honestly while examining the footage, the first thing i thought to myself was how fat my face looked. I have never taken a photo in that angle. I have never seen myself in that angle. It is a weird angle to take a photo at. There are good selfie angles and accidental angles where you open your camera function expecting the camera to be back facing but it’s on selfie mode and you accidentally catch a glimpse of your double chin and unattractiveness so you get shocked and quickly change it to back facing before anyone sees. In the video clip i saw that it was definitely not the most beautiful side of my face but after all I just had to admit that that’s what I look like when shot in that angle and if someone looks at me from that angle that’s how I look like to them. I realise that I only see myself from the front or from the side. Because of where my eyes are positioned it is impossible to see my face from below my chin or from any other angle than the angle that I look into the mirror at OR from the angle I use to take selfies which are always the same because there are particular angles (holding up the phone higher than my face and tilting it downwards) that I’m used to and think works the best.

Therefore I was first shocked at the newly discovered (not so appealing) side of my face but was amused at how different I looked in that angle and how unfamiliar I was with it.

Some other things I noticed in the video

• I Blink a lot when I speak but never blink when I nod (Turns out naturally I don’t blink when I nod)
• I have a pattern going on in the video. The ratio of the time I’m looking down to when I look up to check the shop or any customers is 8:2. I’m looking down most of the time while I fold the clothes or do other things but every few minutes I look up for a sec to check on the store and customers.

Subject of noticing or this time more like method of noticing – (To take media items from an) Odd angle

The Start!

On the 29th of September I check my phone’s gallery to see the latest media item. Out of a series of consecutive photos that I took of my friend before our meal the one on the far left was the very last one.

Saturday during brunch with my friend Joo. The far left photo out of the three above turned out to be the very last photo taken on my phone. Some of the things i noticed in the photo were the colourful plate of food in front of her, the watch on her wrist, a random lady figure in the background and her stare. Honestly her gaze was what stood out the most to me as it was not a usual friendly photogenic gaze like in the second photo but closer to a death stare. I was stuck between choosing the food and her stare as my next object of media content; although her stare was what i found more intriguing, considering the difficulty of capturing a ‘gaze’ I contemplated. I realised the sleaziness of my noticing. Like everyone else i like to do things the easy way and before even trying it out i instantly made a presumption about how one thing was going to be harder to discover and encapsulate than the other. It was interesting to see how i did a little demo on different ways to capture either objects in my mind and weighing which one would work better or might not work at all, before making the decision. I noticed that my mind is very controlling. Do we ever do something without a reason? i think that there is a reason for everything that we do and sometimes we play it safe and sometimes we take the risk even when there are doubts because safe can turn out to be quite mediocre. Therefore I went with the stare.

The next subject of noticing = Gaze

Reflecting back on this semester, the most important thing i have come to realise is the great value in noticing, being aware of the surroundings and thinking further about relations between all subjects. If before i was only prone to noticing things that really stood out and were purposed to be noticed, the projects that i commenced this semester allowed me to see beyond that.

By setting up methods and rules, it worked as a guide and directed me through the process of media making and by trying different ways of media making and following through with them, i was able to train myself to practise media making in times where i normally would pass by without a single thought.

In my first project, through the use of film camera and its way of mechanics, i discovered the beauty in anticipation in the process of media making. There are so many risks that must be taken in consideration and i would not recommend it to people who need their pictures to come out exactly how they saw it through the viewfinder and imagined them to be but for my project it was perfect. I was surprised with so many things in the photos that i din’t expect to see which made the examination of the photos much more exciting. When i thought one object fitted the specification i initially set up for this project in a certain way, when looking through the photos, i noticed there was actually another object in the photo that fitted the specification also. This made me think about how before the media making process, we set up an object of photography in our minds for example we think ‘i’m going to take a picture of that red balloon’ but without the function to focus film cameras just focuses on everything which allows us to notice things we couldn’t see at the time and place of media taking so only once you have developed the image, you notice something else next to the balloon you didn’t notice or see at the time because you were too focused on the balloon.

I was amused by the contrast between what we make the object of photography and what actually becomes the focal point of the photo. What we see and choose to be the focal point of the photography at the time of media making is relative to our intention of photography and our thoughts so if we couldn’t notice something due to whatever reason, cameras don’t lie and regardless of their feelings or the weather, they capture what is there as it is. So what we thought was going to be the focal point of the image and we think we are positioning it right in the middle to make it the focal point, the film camera may not agree and the picture may come out as your object of photography (red balloon) in the left corner and something else like  a big sunflower right in the middle standing tall, stealing the red balloon’s supposed focal point but because of that ‘mis-happening’, you are able to notice things that not only you couldn’t see at the time but also things you didn’t give a single thought about leading to more gaining of information.

From this point i was intrigued by focal points and started off project 3 with noticing the qualities of focal points in photography and whether people saw focal points differently from each other.

In the next project i moved in a trajectory manner and moved through different phases of noticing. Some of the major learnings i encountered was that firstly focal points are made up of a variety of things such as position, lightning, colour, but the most definite was repetition. When people see three different photos with the exact same object in each one, regardless of the position and size as long as its visible to our eye, people pick up repetitive patterns very quickly and that object will hands down be the focal point. In the second experiment i explored the concept of un-staged media by taking photos of the road every 30minutes of the sunrise which led to the idea of noticing uncontrollable situations. I noticed that nothing is really controllable not the sun, the rain, the snow whether it is natural or unnatural. Every situation can be stopped it’s just a matter of how much force must go into it in order to change the situation. Another major thing that i noticed was that we tend to notice less of the surroundings around us when we are in a moving transport (which i defined as uncontrollable in my project). If we are in control of the situation we stay attentive. For example if we were the driver in control of a bus we must be alert for road signs and keep our eyes on the road looking out for anything that might interfere with the trip but passengers that are on the bus are less attentive. 40minutes of travelling time for the passengers who really have no direct responsibility on where the bus goes, means they are positioned in a limited space where movements are restricted and nowadays with advanced technology most people go on their phones. However this conception might have occurred because my experiment focused mainly on public transports because i thought public transports were the furthest from our control. (It is controlled by a higher authority and heavy consequences follow when tried to be controlled forcefully way different from our siblings or friends  driving.)

All the noticing i have gathered from my previous projects i used to build a method for my final project which was to not focus on the media making itself and go through multiple cycles of noticing to find out the relation between intentional and unintentional noticing.

Honestly i think there is definitely room for improvement when it comes to exploring more creative possibilities of media making. I only used photography and filming in my projects and i don’t think i was researching and concerned enough with the technical sides of media making. However i believe i was never stuck in a box to take media in a particular way using particular methods and was never afraid to try different things that were easily doable and accessible to me such as filming inside an enclosed fridge by placing the camera there and shutting it. I also think that what my work doesn’t do so well is allowing the viewers other than myself to see what i have noticed. The most difficult part for me was presenting and organising all the media items in a way that prompts the audience to notice and understand the relations of the media items and my thought process. I actually think i failed with the video i made for project 4 as the media items just presented one by one along with the titles for each segment was too weak and not enough to demonstrate the flow of each segment, how they relate to one another, and what went through my mind in those media making processes. I think it could have been improved with a narrative voice over which i couldn’t do due to my lack of time management.

What i wanted to know by doing project 4 was the relationship between intentional and unintentional noticing the order of it and how it affects our media making. From what i have noticed is that basically nothing is unintentional. There is a reason for everything and for my case the whole project itself had an intention, a huge one so i can’t really say what was intentional and what was not because even when i was supposed to be ‘unintentionally’ noticing i had to search.

Whenever i looked at my media items i was looking for subjects to notice and then I was searching for things  that were related to that subject that was chosen to be noticed. Visually there are reasons why we notice certain things in photographs and films and that is easier to manipulate. I think constant media taking is a really good practise to prompt yourself to notice more and teach yourself the skills of revealing the unseen through media. Because you can notice something but by taking the extra step of taking a media of it leads to afterthoughts and more questions which leads to research on that subject. Without curiosity and noticing then studying the unknown there will be no developments in the world. As i have discovered the huge difference between just seeing and taking media of what i saw or the other way around taking media of something then  noticing something out of it i want to challenge myself to take in the habit of media taking. During the process of media making you will notice things that are obvious, things you may know already but those things that you notice will remind you of other things such as information or feelings that you never think about in you busy life.

I believe noticing is about enhancing and enticing our mind and our view.

In class we did a break down of the project into categories of biggest, big and Small things.

Biggest (What would I find out at the end of the project? What do I want to find out? The aim of the project in the broadest sense)

Big (The things I need to do to reach the aim of the project, to find out the things in the biggest category)

Small (Step by Step directions of the doable things including exactly where to start and the materials needed for the project)

Biggest

– I’d like to find out the difference and the relation between intentional and unintentional noticing. At the end of this project i expect to have a record of my process of noticing and the effect it has on media making. I am also interested in whether the order of (media making -> noticing) or (noticing -> media making) has a relative meaning or intension behind it.

On the side I’d also like to personally test my range of perspective on the world how far I can go with it and I’m really curious on where this journey of random noticing would end up.

Big

– Regardless of the medium whether photographing or filming or sound recording capture the object of noticing. Be conscious about whether it was intentional or unintentional noticing and always record the object in its most natural state possible.

Small

– What I need: Device to take media (Possibly my phone or Mirror less Sony a6300)

– On Monday the 26th of September, Look at the last media item taken from my phone

– Notice something from that piece of media and starting from there, take the next media item that you notice in relation to the noticed object of the first media item.

– For example I notice an apple from the very latest photo taken from my phone then I will go out and discover something related to that apple and take a photo/video of that object. Let’s say it was another apple and after examining that media item (photo of the second apple), I notice someone wearing bright sunnies in the background then those sunnies become my next object to notice. The next object from the sunnies

It doesn’t necessarily have to be sunglasses but whatever I notice in relation to the sunnies I apply it to the media process

And I will repeat this process for as many times as possible.

Timeline

In order to keep myself held accountable and to manage my given time I set out a timeline accordingly.

• Starting point – 20th of September
• Week 10 / Week 11 – Noticing and media making
• Finish collecting media – 7th of October
• Week 12 – Putting them together, editing
• Week 13 – Refine and finalize blog posts, Reflection
• Submission – 20th of October

I took photos of my face and body from the back, from the top of my head, side front, side upwards, from the belly, awkwardly close etc. As much as how odd the angles were, the photos turned out to be equally as awkward. I noticed by looking through the photos later, they seemed to be restricted in terms of the distance or radius they were shot within and I realised it was because the camera was only allowed to go to the length of my arm. During the process of media taking I found it difficult to intentionally find an odd angle because how I defined something was shot at an odd angle was by looking at the already taken media item and i looked odd in it. Odd angle = Odd face but as i was taking the photos i couldn’t see how i was being photographed. I couldn’t see the odd face so i wasn’t sure if it was being shot at an odd angle. What’s the standard of odd anyway.

I kept forgetting that the theme odd angles was only being used as a method to notice the next object so i shouldn’t be too caught up with how much the photographs of odd angles portrays or explains odd angles. Nevertheless, by examining these photographs i noticed the lines of my body. The wrinkle lines on my neck, the roundness of my face, lines of hair, the curves of my legs. By avoiding photographing from the obvious angles such as the front or whatever common angle, it allowed me to move my attention away from facial features and proportions bringing out other elements such as the lines of my body.

Always following the common method leads to receiving a common outcome but when we move away from that we tend to receive a different outcome and discover new things that we couldn’t  notice before.

Next object of noticing = Lines