Author: ultrablack

Qixin‘s Final Project

Centri-Petal

time-based & mix-media art

Qixin Zhang, Dec 2022

I am interested in the “in-between” of natural/organic/physics movement (in this case, water movement / turning movement / glass reflection) and technological/synthesis/computational movement (slit-scan program, light changing pattern). How water/waves/light/reflectin move/ how pixel move.

Experiment & exploration of a workflow – integrate Japanese ink painting skill suminagashi (including the process, the result) /  other live image making, and visual for live performance.

set-up:

mounted camera – cake stand – laptop – touchdesigner – projector

night version:

slit scan has an element of time: glass with smooth light changing pattern

strobe light, with sound

 

change light direction

 

day version

suminagashi : With ink and water spread out, it creates a figure-ground relationship and temporal relationship. slit scan :direction of the movement and time. 

 

result on paper:

 

Special thanks: STUDIO of Creative Inquiry, Prof. Golan Levin, Prof. Nica Ross, Kyle McDonald, Matthias Neckermann

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suminagashi x Slit scan 

My interest is in between natural/organic/physics movement and technological/synthesis/computational movement.

Suminagashi is Japanese-style ink painting. With ink and water spread out, it creates a figure-ground relationship and temporal relationship. Slit scanning is also about the direction of the movement and the direction of time. So I wonder what happens when two collide. How water waves move/ how pixel move. What’s the relationship? Or do I create a new relationship?

Person In Time

Thermē

Qixin Zhang, VMD, Nov 2022

 

*content warning* nudity

 

How would human flesh represent in the world of temperature? With our own body, silhouette, and skin, with touch, interaction and exchange? In the gradient of ink,  I am using this opportunity to explore – how can I use temperature as my pigment, and how intimate, sensuous bodies compose a poetic song.

 

experiment & findings:

it’s cold to do it in winter./cold body in hot water works. /depending on your body temperature image has different contrast. the temperature of your body even on a small portion is not even./it not only detects temperature but also contrasts – the exposure. the movement would make it recalculate.

 

 

Special thanks to Steffi Narareth! *permission granted*

ultrablack-TypologyMachine

Journal of breath

 Qixin Zhang, 2022, mixed media – audio, paper drawing

My project is aiming at capturing different breath patterns, by putting myself in different scenarios, in which I’m revealing my mysterious life.

Breath of sweet sleep, the breath of anxiety, the breath of talking to someone you have a crush on, or even the breath of making love? Every moment of breathing is a different pattern, a different physical experience, a time experience, and an emotional experience. Your breath is leading you, ahead of your judgment, it is essential, it keeps you alive.

I brought zoom recorder H6 with me every day everywhere I go. It represents my ordinary daily life, and also shows my tendency of looking for drama and performative/ritual experiences.

To add visual elements, for each piece I made a drawing to go along with. They represent the experience in  another way.

 

 

The challenge is – to be at the moment and also out of the moment – remind me to connect the device and start the action of recording. Sometimes Iwas so immersive in my emotion that miss the chance to record. Also, it’s this setup don’t allow me to record my breath during big movement. But it seemed easier than expected that the audio quality is quite nice.

The  opportunity remains is that I want to use this medium to augment storytelling. There’s a way to make myself into a character, live my life as a performance art, in which has some predesign scenario and at the same time unknown. Secondly, I’m interested in instrument performer’s body movement, breath, the music that they make out of movement & the music they hear, at the moment when they perform they forget themselves.

 

 

 

Journal of breath and beats

The breath of sweet sleep, the breath of anxiety, the breath of talking to someone you have a crush on, or even the breath of making love? Every moment of breathing is a different pattern, a different physical experience, a time experience, and an emotional experience. Your breath is leading you, ahead of your judgment, it is essential, it keeps you alive.

Life starts with a breath. Baby’s breathing is the most standard, deeply inhaling the air into the bulging belly, and then slowly exhaling. Adults’ breath is influenced by complex experiences and interleaved thoughts, but we are barely aware of that.

My project is aiming at capture different breath patterns, (and possibly heartbeats patterns) by putting myself in different scenarios as a topology machine, in which I’ll reveal my mysterious life. It might go natural as the day goes, or go dramatic as I particularly look for. I carry a portable capture machine with me and record when I’m present to the moment/right after (to find a quiet place/when I’m not talking). My end result will be: scenario description + a series of audio + wave chart + drawing – so you listen, read and watch. That’s how we are going to communicate.

Ultimately, to question – if you and my breath and heart beating synchronize, are we closer to each other?

Julie Mehretu
Mind Breath Drawing, 2012 It has movement, depth/space, time, counterparts, construction

reading1-ultrablack

This article made me feel that hundreds of years ago before photography was developed, mankind exhausted all techniques and tried all means in order to see-observe. Whether it was the very macroscopic, the twinkling stars in the sky, or the very microscopic, an element; out of sight, invisible spectra and rays …… in order to see and be visible.
This reminds me as if our imagination of the world is not satisfied with the visible world in front of us, and the limitations imposed by the naked eye. We want to SEE in different ways, from different angles, layers, and dimensions, in order to shape our perception of the world. It is like a kind of excavation, trying to exhaust the surface and phenomena of the so-called objective world, and the “appearance（相）”, while we still pursue this “appearance”.

I wonder if there’s a method to film the image behind closed eyes?

ultrablack-lookingoutwards

Is there a correspondence between the subjective feelings we perceive and the objective data and indicators? How does it correspond? As they are both information encoded in different formats.

Science can explain part of the truth in this world, but human still have so many things unknown or unexplainable, things beyond our understanding or perception.

Sound artist Maxime Michaud turned his body into an instrument – generator, actuator, and receiver. He used Muse brainwave device and capture his up-and-down brain volts/electron info and used sound to interpret the brainwave. He tried to enter different statse of mind: when he thinks hard, when he meditates, etc. to trigger different sound effects. The final presentation is a live performance in theatre.

Also, this website braintoneart  is a real-time experience, that turns into brainwave into digital art. It makes me think of Rorschach inkblot. (further research needed)

 

As a person who meditates a lot, noticing a lot of fine brain movement, sensitively experiencing different sensation from body but couldnt explain by words, i”m interested in the gap between how human perception, how it’s actually doing in the world of mater, and how we communicate beside/beyond language format.