Wang_Mengfei_YouAreAJoke_2018

Project #3

May 9, 2018

HARVARD GSD 02484: INTERDISCIPLINARY ART AND DESIGN PRACTICES SPRING 2018

Instructors: Silvia Benedito

Pamphlet #3

You Are A Joke

Author: Mengfei Wang Collaborator: Eric Moed

The Interdisciplinary Art and Design Practices seminar investigates the exploratory character of art and design work in the interdisciplinary modalities of the contemporary culture. In the present context, where artists and designers must respond to challenges of global magnitudes, engage with cross-cultural in often conflicting conditions, and operate in disparate economic and societal realms, the demands for increased disciplinary adaptability and collaboration are paramount.

1) PROJECT STATEMENT:

Our project speaks to the defensive armor people don when they feel vulnerable.

When two people assert defensive armor, they become offensive; insulting or cut down each others egos by any means necessary. The formal language of humor can be aggressively applied to real-time situations and excitations: “You’re kidding yourself. Are you kidding me right now? Who are you kidding? Is this a joke!?”

Jokes have no dignity. The echo of traded mean-spirited joke-language barbs continues to weaken each participant, until no ego is left. A special kind of insult is produced in this situation that is very aggressive, conveying the subject’s anger while using language and terms that connote humor.

“All cultural production produces a spectator as an effect.”

A spectator may feel uncomfortable watching two persons offend each other. However our intention is to not only make the spectator engage in anxious self-reflection, but also provide a laugh, diffusing the situation and putting things into relief, quite literally.

PSYCHOANALYTIC TERM - Defense “Inasmuch as the ego is constituted as an agency which embodies this stability and strives to maintain it, it may be considered as both the stake and the agent of these operations. Generally speaking, defense is directed towards internal excitation (instinct); in practice, its action is extended to whatever representations (memories, phantasies) this excitation is bound to; and to any situation that is unpleasable for the ego as a result of its incompatibility with the individual’s equilibrium and, to that extent, liable to spark off the excitation.”

ABOUT THE STORYBOARD The storyboard shown last week illustrated the effect of telling “bad jokes”, which is destroy the relationship between speakers and shrink their egos. We intend to augment that with a surprise element that diffuses the situation for all actors [including the spectator. Humor can be a tool to minimize ego in a positive sense - resolving a situation with two defensive and vulnerable persons.

“You’re a joke.”

“You’re a joke.”

“You’re a joke.”

“You’re a joke.”

“You’re a joke.”

“You’re a joke.”

“You’re a joke.”

“You’re a joke.”

“You’re a joke.”

1.1 Initial Storyboard Our project speaks to the defensive armor people put on when they feel vulnerable. When two people have defensive armor on, they become offensive and insult or cut down each others egos by any means necessary.

Jokes have no dignity. The echo of traded mean-spirited joke-language barbs continues to weaken each participant, until no ego is left.

2) CRITICAL REFLECTION:

This project got inspired by a story between Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein: A moment that marked Chaplin and Einstein’s friendship was their joint arrival at the premiere of Chaplin’s film City Lights. The two masterminds entered the hall together, both wearing a black tie, leading Einstein’s wife on Chaplin’s right side. As the guests applauded, an alleged conversation took place between the two: ‘What I admire most about your art” Albert Einstein said, “is its universality. You do not say a word, and yet … the world understands you”. “It’s true” reply Chaplin: “But your fame is even greater… the world admires you when nobody understands you.’

In this story, Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein mutually praise each other. This is Einstein's highest praise for the actor; Chaplin's reply gives a funny effect - it uses A diametrically opposite approach uses Einstein's discourse structure to acchieve the same conclusion.

We have different interpretations of this story from different perspectives. Standing onlookers' point of view, they were given a comedic effect of listening to jokes; for Chaplin himself, this demonstrated his ability to be a funny comedian of anytime and anywhere, and was funny but invisible and natural; and for Einstein, this kind of sudden public joke in his public object, but with a kind of offensive and impolite, is equivalent to saying "You're a joke". However, if the two are very good friends, then the offensive will be reduced a lot, and the relative friend-like funnyness will be more obvious, reflecting the friendship between the two.

There are so many ways to interpret joke between great people. What about ordinary people?

In order to understand this problem, we tried to collect relevant daily conversations in the movie. The search keyword used was joke. After the collection, we classify these movie clips according to their lines.

The first category is "You're a joke." When the characters in the film say this sentence, they invariably express contempt and insult to the other party.

The second category is "It/This/That is a joke." When the characters in the film say this, the meaning of the expression is very rich. It may be to relieve the embarrassment of what he said in the last sentence. It may be that he does not believe in cruel reality. He may be taunting a thing, and may be expressing a purely surprised or sad heart.

The third category is "Is it/this/that a joke?". When the characters in the film say this, they may express shock or anger at what the other person has done. It may mean that they do not believe in the occurrence of bad things. It may mean something unexpected happened.

After we have collected all the footage, the next thing is to integrate these materials with unique editing techniques to achieve a funny effect. At this time, we gained inspiration from the popular ghost video on the video website. There is a type of ghost video which achieves unexpected and funny effects by editing the characters' motion and language in the video with a totally unrelated audio.

Put it in our current situation and analyze it. Our current material content is very serious, and most of them are negative emotions. If you want to achieve funny results, you need to find very different audio effects. Therefore, we selected a few songs are very humorous.

In terms of video character lines and audio synchronization editing, I played my own musical advantage. After finding out the rhythm of the audio and lines, I aligned the strong beats and accents in the Vegas Pro to achieve the final result.

The final video's only downside, in my opinion, is that the characters in the visual action are too "normal", resulting in the overall video as a trailer. However, another reason for the funny effect of a ghost video is the abnormal human movement caused by editting. This "abnormality" makes the viewer regard the "world" in the video as a special "world" instead of a real world. This anomaly prompts people to laugh.

3) PROCESS:

Part I: Collecting video clips (i) Go to website YARN (https://getyarn.io/). (ii) Search for subtitle keyword “You’re a joke”. (iii)Download about 40 video clips whose subtitles are “You’re a joke”, as well as the other related ones such as “It’s a joke”, “ Is this a joke?”, “Are you joking?”...

Part II: Choosing proper music (i) After listening to a group of classic cheerful music, we chose three most satisfied music: Java (by Allen Toussaint), Crafty Party (by Gert Wilden), The Benny Hill Show Theme. (ii) Input the three music to Vegas Pro and test them by synthesizing video clips with music. (iii) According to effect, we chose Gert Wilden’s Crafty Party as the final background music.

Part III: Video and audio composition (i) Input video clips and background music to Vegas Pro and drag them to video and audio tracks. (ii)Cut the audio track according to the meter and synthesize it with video clips. (iii)Output the clip from Vegas Pro and Input it to Adobe Premiere. (iiii)Final editting with Adobe Premiere.

3.1 Searching for subtitle keyword “You’re a joke”

3.2 Testing background music

3.3 Video and audio composition

3.4 Background Music Structure Analysis

YOU’RE A JOKE Music: Gert Wilden - Crafty Party Editor:Mengfei Wang, Eric Moed ___ You’re a joke. you're joking.

Is this a joke, are you joking?

The last guy was a joke.

This en�re project is a joke.

You're wearing that bell is a joke, right?

You're joking. You're joking.

You're joking. You're joking.

You're joking, my dear.

Motal iratake is fixa�on.

You're joking. You're joking.You're joking.

Oh, you're joker, Huh? Telling me jokes?

You're a joke, you're the worst teacher I've ever have.

You think you are too good for me, but that's really a joke.

Is that a joke? Tell me you're joking.

It's a joke, It's joke, It's a joke.

You're a joke. You're not lord.

You're a joke.

You're a joke, Tom, haha… ___ This refrigerater is a joke.

Is this a joke, slightly, 101?

City elec�on supposed to be a joke.

Such a joke, people even don't afraid it.

Here is the punchline. He is Mr. Punchline.

Punchline? I don't think it is a punchline. It should be, hah?

You are gonna love this: You are a punch line.

Of course, I am s�ll a punch line, I am �ed.

Sex is a joke and heaven.

Make us feel like a joke. I am joking. Is this a fuck joke?

You make a joke of everything.

You're joking. You're joking. You're joking.

You're a life-stuck, you're a joke.

Everyone won't be a joke forever.

Hey, it's a joke. That's a joke. It this all a joke? Joking!

Life is a cruel joke! ___ Tell me about it.

3.5 Lyrics

3.6 Video Clip Composition

3.7 Video Clip Composition

4) MEDIUM | FORMAT :

MEDIUM: You Are A Joke is a composed video with both video and audio tracks. The video track contains a collection of film clips whose subtitles include the key word “joke”. These subtitles might be “You’re a joke”, “ It’s a joke”, “ Are you joking?”, etc. The audio track is a piece of cheerful humoristic absolute music.

FORMAT: The video is MOV format which lasts for one minute and thirty-nine seconds. The resolution is 720*480. The audio track has two sound channels.

5) SITE:

SITE: This project is not site-specific while it is set up to a specific situation when people use the word “joke� in their conversation.

6) BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1.Emily Apter. SILVIAKOLBOWSKI with Emily Apter, The Brooklyn Rail, 4/1/2018 2. Hannah Entwisle, Merouan Ammor. Silvia Kolbowski interviewed by Hannah Entwisle and Merouan Ammor, CCC Newsletter, Haute écoled’art et de design, Genève, 2010 3. Laplanche, Jean;Pontalis, Jean-Bertrand. Language of Psychoanalysis. Karnac Books, 1988.

7) ILLUSTRATIONS:

Front Cover

Eric Moed, You’re a joke. April 30th 2018.

Back Cover

Eric Moed, If life is a joke, what is the punchline. April 30th 2018.

Fig. 1-1

Mengfei Wang / Initial Storyboard

Fig. 3-1

Mengfei Wang / Searching for subtitle keyword “You’re a joke”

Fig. 3-2

Mengfei Wang / Testing background music

Fig. 3-3

Mengfei Wang / Video and audio composition

Fig. 3-4

Mengfei Wang / Background Music Structure Analysis

Fig. 3-5

Mengfei Wang / Lyrics

Fig. 3-6

Mengfei Wang / Video Clip Composition

Fig. 3-7

Mengfei Wang / Video Clip Composition

HARVARD GSD 02484: INTERDISCIPLINARY ART AND DESIGN PRACTICES SPRING 2018

Pamphlet #3

You Are A Joke Author: Mengfei Wang Collaborator: Eric Moed