Thesis update

Last week, I received a lot of super helpful feedback from advisors. Here are some notes, and I looked into each:

References

1. La Turbo Avedon is an Avatar artist and curator. Avedon has been making work since 2008-2009. Avedon's work largely surrounds digital identity and the internet. Their simulated lectures and exhibitions have been hosted internationally, all constructed using game engines and character creation software.

2. Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) is a Vocaloid software voicebank developed by Crypton Future Media and its official moe anthropomorph, a 16-year-old girl with long, turquoise twintails. She uses Yamaha Corporation's Vocaloid 2, Vocaloid 3, and Vocaloid 4 singing synthesizing technologies. Miku's personification has been marketed as a virtual idol and has performed at concerts onstage as an animated projection.

3. Cao Fei's RMB City was a fictional Chinese city constructed in the online virtual world Second Life. RMB City opened to the public in 2009 and remained active until 2011, when Cao Fei ended the project. During its time in operation, the city attracted users from the art world as well as a broader virtual community within the Second Life platform, particularly for its events, which included artist projects, contests, and mayoral inaugurations.

4. CTRL [SPACE]-Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother

This book might be of interest in respect to self-documentation, self-surveillance.

CTRL [SPACE]-Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brotherhttps://mitpress.mit.edu/books/ctrl-space

CTRL [SPACE]-Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/ctrl-space

5. Matt Romein—Real Time Avateering

This is Matt’s thesis project for Master’s Degree at Tisch School of the Arts ITP. Research into 3D scanning and motion capture as a choreographic structure for live performance and dance. Scanned bodies are controlled in real-time using motion capture suits and digitally manipulated to create impossible movements. He teaches at ITP and is creating an online chat avatar talk show.

6. JenniCam

In 1996, Jennifer Ringley became the first woman to broadcast her life on the internet when she switched on her webcam in her Pennsylvania college dorm room. For years, Jenni broadcast her daily life to whoever wanted to click. From the mundane moments to the occasional glimpses of nudity and even incredibly private moments, the college student shared it all.

Screenshot of the live stream of JenniCamhttps://www.wired.com/2010/04/0414jennicam-launches/

Screenshot of the live stream of JenniCam

https://www.wired.com/2010/04/0414jennicam-launches/

7. Animal Talking

ANIMAL TALKING is a YouTube channel that features virtual late-night talks with celebrity guests, live musical performances, and comedy.

Screenshot of the Animal Talking YouTube channelhttps://www.youtube.com/c/GaryWhitta/videos

Screenshot of the Animal Talking YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/GaryWhitta/videos

8. Sky LaRell Anderson: Twitch game studies paper

This article examines Twitch.tv in order to reveal the design strategies it employs to direct awareness to the presence of players and viewers.

9. Casey Jane Ellison Touches the Art

This is a good example for me to study the pattern of talk shows. In the parodic webseries, VFILES star and Dazed columnist Casey Jane Ellison interviews a panel of art world thinkers, all while wearing black lipstick and speaking through a healthy dose of vocal fry. In this first episode, you can watch people like New York Times art writer Jori Finkel, photographer Catherine Opie, and founder of ForYourArt Bettina Korek try to navigate Ellison’s character’s questions, which are genuine, blunt, and uninformed.

10. Answers with Questions, featuring Gregg Bordowitz & Friends

Answers with Questions is an advice show. Send host Gregg Bordowitz your questions on matters existential and mundane, about the nature of being or how to get up in the morning. For this three-episode streaming series, Bordowitz will be joined by a rotating cast of punk-rock prophets, heterodox theologians, and killjoy comedians, along with musical guests. Together, they’ll do what they can to guide viewers through the dilemmas of life during a pandemic and political upheaval.

Answers with Questions follows from Some Styles of Masculinity, an ongoing series of performances in which Bordowitz probes the personas of the rock star, rabbi, and comedian, which are fundamental to his formation as an artist and activist. For Answers with Questions, Bordowitz and his cohosts will ask how these figures might help us to navigate the cosmic pessimism of the present moment—and to face the crises that are causing so much despair, cynicism, grief, and unrest.


Feedback

1. Screening room for videos

So I tried out some preset scenes on Mozzila Hubs, and here’s how it looks:

3D Screening Rooms on Mozilla Hubs

3D Screening Rooms on Mozilla Hubs

The preset scene looks more like a gallery for exhibitions. But, I want this space to be more like an ideal storytelling machine that looks like a spaceship that can travel across space and time. Something like this:

I also wan to use the screens as doors that connect different digital worlds.

2. A handbook for production in virtual space

This might be irrelevant but I signed up for Unreal’s virtual production seminar. Unreal has been a super powerful tool. The virtual camera is mind-blowing. It has been largely used by the industry for virtual production now. I will take notes for my handbook.

Screen Shot 2020-11-09 at 6.21.39 PM.png

3. The gaze

I found it super interesting that the advisors pointed out the spectatorship. Since I only showed a trailer of the three episodes I have so far, it seems super confusing who are we watching. Is it Jude or is it the interviewee? When thinking about Jude traveling across different platforms and talk to different people, it seems like an art performance by Jude.

Building a portrait and getting access to your life isn’t just turning on a camera: 

  • You’re finding a way to let us in into other aspects of your life!

    • This is really compelling - an art/performance art piece

So, there could be different layers of storytelling going on.

4. Talk show format

Is it a talk show format? How will you structure it? How much time is interviews, gameplays?

  • If it’s a talk show, how do you introduce it to them / what do you tell them?

  • Talk show as therapeutic / are there clear themes?

  • Are there future formats that could work? Is it possible to have two conversations? Could you mix genres and talk shows?

  • Understand & deconstruct the structure of existing talk show (e.g.  midnight gospel)

What’s next?

The thesis defense is next week. Thanks to the advisors now I have done plenty of research to put together the work into a more solid and presentable structure.