Work of Art

Just now in class Mr Ky showed us an amazing episode of Work of Art. I honestly never heard of it but will definitely watch the rest when i get back to Shah Alam since the internet is much faster there.

It was really inspiring seeing how they work in such a short time and produce very very beautiful art. ive never even come close to what theyve done in just 2 days and no way i could even think of something like their work.

Mr Ky's argument was spot-on. i have to admit im nothing much on the creative side and i know really little about art. im spoiled by the products available to us and depends too much on technology. really have to work things out or else like technology, i too will become obsolete

seeing Abdi's sculpture gave me an idea about doing an installation about gaming. gaming epidemic. it would be a work about gaming addiction and also, part of myself. i am very sick. i play games on daily basis and its a disaster. not getting enough sleep. miss out on classes. people. lots of good things in life.

maybe it could be something like this. there's a brain ( of course not a real brain ) inside the monitor but the inside will be dark. i mean like really dark. pitch black. but when a person sits in front of the pc, lights on and you can see the brain shining in a very dark and evil glow with the line "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" ( it's a very popular meme in gaming forums due to fail english translation ) giving the idea that you are being mind-controlled by the computer. another thing that must be implement in this product is the feeling of not being able to escape, to run away from it. gaming addiction is veryyyy dangerous. seriously. i know firsthand. not gonna tell my story here but it once ruined my life. so i was thinking maybe the cables, or maybe the mouse like comes to life and get tangled up on the user and tie them up to the point that there is no turning back. but how the hell can i make that happen bahahaha. so i was thinking maybe like in those spy movies where the chair has somekind of mechanical wrist lock. but i dont know if i can get my hand on those kind of stuffs. unless i work for the fbi >.<

but for better or worse, video games made us gamers who we are today. and it wont be fair just to show the bad side of it, right?

Misguided Direction // New Again

my proposed objective was to collect information from Malaysians and find similarities among them. but I know now that it wont work like that. in achieving true peace we need to value, accept and respect our differences. not just look for similarities and have groupies like high school students ( also happens in MMU haha )

so my new objective is to just act as a medium to talk and listen. whatever it is. whether its part of the MCA's appeal to rid of Malay Supremacy policy, or 'I wish I was born in another country', whatever. it's all good ( as long as they arent in the lines of 'Malay babi hidup pemalas sembah dinding 5 kali sehari' )

i know it might or might not bring unity among us, but at least we know Malaysians true 'voice'. and I think that is more important. hearing the voice of the people.

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the Plan

im gonna proceed with the blocks idea, each playing videos of Malaysians. every time the app loads, it will randomly picks videos from the database. for each person, there will be 1 idle/face video ( 5 seconds ) and another 5 seconds ( or maybe 10 sec ) showing their 'voice' to the camera ( of the same person ).

the setup will be like this :

either unifi ( basically standardized ) or random. random will obviously be harder to code but more appealing to the audience i suppose. maybe 3 'random' block setups. unifi will either be 4 x 2 or 5 x 2, depends on the size that the projector is capable of i guess.

so right now there are two options for navigating.

(a) Motion Detection

When the app is in idle mode, like stated above the video will keep playing videos close-up to the subject's face. When a person move in front of a block ( motion detection via webcam ), the corresponding video will play the 2nd video of that subject, showing his/her 'voice'.

This would pretty cool if I could code it to for example, when subject is in front of block B1/B2, subject A1/A2 will look to the right and C/D blocks will face to the left. giving an interaction between them and the user. but im not sure if everyone ( people that i encounter ) will gladly do this part cus i dont think that may will wanna participate if it's too much work for them

(b) iPod / iPad + iDisplay

There's this wonderful app on iDevices called iDisplay. basically it acts as an external display to your computer ( Windows / Mac ) and has touch capability straight away from the iDevice. so I can use this as an alternative navigation for the users. just click a video on the iPad and the 2nd video of the subject will play. it also supports virtual keyboard input, zoom-in zoom-out, etc.

Here's a video test of the iDisplay with my old flash assignment :

iDisplay Video Test from Faiz Yunus on Vimeo.

Or I could combine both navigation. Motion detection for displaying 'voices' and iPad for changing subjects. Still in consideration

Another thing is whether to have video submissions on the spot. I will need to make another setup, like a white small room with webcam or something for people to record videos and automatically include their videos in the installation database. but that will probably just be an add-on, not my focus for now.

Adding comments might be a plausible feature too. People can give comments to each 'voice' and maybe rate them. Adds more interaction with users

Malaysians by Steven V-L Lee

this book has been getting good reviews on really presenting Malaysians. its by Steven V-L Lee, a Malaysian-based photographer. still havent got the book ( or the money for it xD ) but will definitely look into it. his book might inspire a lil bit on how to design my fyp. he has another book called Outside Looking in Kuala Lumpur but that one is specifically the view of life in Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysians, book cover

Racism, a rife plague

as i dig deeper in this whole racial discrimination in Malaysia, its becoming more clear that its pretty much impossible to really dissolve racism off the face of Malaysia. because yea occasionally you get the 'budak budak mentah' posting racial comments on fb, or video ejek2 on youtubes, but these guys are fine. okay theyre not fine but at least they are somewhat 'treatable'

the big problem here is racism that implicates from the system. the system that grants different races to be treated differently. the system that is called Ketuanan Melayu ( or Malay Supremacy - or something like that >.< ). it is defined as 'institutional racism', "any kind of racism occurring specifically within institutions such as public government" ( wikipedia )

Malay Supremacy goes wayyyy back to the old days. even before Malaysia gained independence. when Singapore was part of Malaysia for the short 2 years period, they made a movement on how the people need to stand up and fight against this policy. which then triggered the incident of 13th May. a bloody mess i must say. then the government in-effort to somehow 'counter' this tragedy, established new special rights to the Malays in the Constitution of Malaysia ( specifically Article 153 ) and also the Rukun Negara. i guess im in no position to say if it was the right or wrong since I'm a Malay myself and I am 'living' the special rights.

so, racism in Malaysia is in general, bigger than other countries' because it comes from hate or dissatisfaction towards the governing system. i read an article written by a Chinese. he expressed how he love his country so much, that there is no other place he even consider going or calling home other than Malaysia. but his dad had to went abroad just to pursue his studies ( back then there werent that many universities accepting non-Malays i suppose ) because his intentions were rejected in his own country. the author described that he was born in Chinese. there's really nothing he can do about it and like it or not, they have to abide to the system.

in conclusion, i really dont know how im gonna pull this off. i mean sending a powerful statement that can really change someone. how he feels. but i know for sure there is no way i can really clear everyone of the racism plague. they are pointing fingers at the government, the system. what am i to do about it? ive learned that to live in a multiculturalism country means you have to acknowledge, accept, value and respect other culture be it ethics, religions, whatever. a good read is a paper written by Maher Abu-Munshar entitled Islamicjerusalem : A Model for Multiculturalism. i have to admit i havent read the whole thing but i did read bits of it. Islamicjerusalem is basically a term founded in early 1996, and scholars are using it to discuss on how Muslims and Christians were able to live in peace back in Jerusalem, unlike how things are today.

“ Their ( Muslims ) understanding of non-Muslims’ rights and recognition of the two communities’ needs engendered a flourishing multicultural society that provided an atmosphere for peaceful co-existence. Multiculturalism, a vital and crucial element of a society, can become a convenient and indispensable mechanism for fostering diversity among different cultures and religions. This approach tends to perpetuate, rather than challenge, views about the differences of other religions. The Muslims’ inclusive vision for Islamicjerusalem, which involved recognizing others, fostering diversity and pluralism, implementing Islamic tolerance and mutual respect, led to peaceful co-existence ”

- Maher Abu-Munshar