lvanhuis – experimental studio 2/3

Lily 🙂

TACTILE ART – SYMPOSIUM

Below is a document with my script and full list of sources (including images/videos)

Symposium Script and Bibliography Download

Participatory Sculptures from classmates 🙂

My Dreams Started Breathing

Artist Statement :

I have always been fascinated by dreams and their ability to distort and enhance our reality. My speculative video considers a future in which humans have figured out how to become fully conscious while dreaming. This advancement is revolutionary at first, but quickly renders our own reality meaningless as it blends together with our dream reality. No longer able to discern what is “real”, people are unable to trust their own minds and senses. Paranoia, disassociation, and confusion ensue…

With my speculative concept in mind, I knew I wanted to make a glitchy, trippy, distorted, disorienting, eerie, hypnotic, and confusing video. Immediately I was reminded of the video game, Mouthwashing, which is also a form of speculative fiction as it is follows a crew of 5 characters who work for a delivery company in space. This video game distorts time and reality, using a really cool video technique called datamoshing. Datamashing occurs when you intentionally corrupt video files, creating trippy transitions between clips. In order to achieve this effect, you must disrupt the I-frames and P-frames. I watched roughly 5 videos on how to datamosh, however, all of them required downloading sketchy programs to my computer… and I was not prepared to contract a virus! Luckily, I found this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTm7w461OEU), suggesting the app MoshUp which allows you to take videos within the app itself, datamoshing them! Regarding my video’s audio, I wanted all the sounds to either be muffled and distorted or sharp and piercing. I created my own videos and audio in addition to using found footage and audio from online. I created 3D scans using Scaniverse and Kiri.

For a full breakdown and explanation of EACH AND EVERY video clip, scan, audio clip, and image, please go to the “Video Analysis” and “Audio Analysis” sections below!

The title of my video piece, My Dreams Started Breathing, is meant to signify the moment when consciousness is gained within one’s dream; when one becomes fully alive within their dreams. As I see it now, when I dream, I am not fully alive… rather I am a fake actor in fake scenarios. However, in this speculative future where humans can become conscious in their dreams, I believe we would become fully alive, lungs breathing and heart pumping, just as we are alive in our “true” reality. At the same time, if we are now fully “alive” in our dreams, our dreams themselves become alive, or maybe a more fitting term would be “awake”. I also intentionally made my video 3 min and 33sec because 3:33am is considered witching hour, a time of day when spiritual and supernatural activity is at its highest.

My ultimate goal with this video was to create an intriguing world which viewers simultaneously want to experience and understand yet at the same time are deterred and unnerved by it. I mixed calming audio, such as the low hum of my humidifier which I associate with sleep, with visuals aiming to generate paranoia and confusion.

Mouthwashing Datamosh Clips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOL_85L4LG8&t=3220s

Pill Bottle Green Screen Tutorial:

Video Analysis

*Datamoshed footage created using MoshUp app

*Scans created using Scaniverse and Kiri apps

Datamoshed video of the view from my window, transitioning to a metal sculpture of an eyeball which turns into my own eyeball! Title card reads: My Dreams Started Breathing
3D scaniverse of myself brushing my teeth. I was curious if I could scan myself, so I tried! As I took a scan of myself, I move my head alongside my camera, which resulted in multiple perspectives of my face similar to a cubist painting! To take the scan, I held my phone out as far as possible then slowly circled my body.
Two overlayed videos of a window looking into my garage and raindrops on a concrete wall I thought looked cool while walking around campus. I lowered the opacity of the raindrop video so you can see both videos together. I thought the textures worked well together and I loved the little stars on the window!
In the background, I inserted found footage of a 3-hour anxiety ASMR video I have watched at least 30 times… over top, I placed video clips of ads because often when I watch ASMR, random ads while appear onscreen and are MUCH louder than the ASMR video, ripping me out of the sleep, and the dreams, I had just entered. Very frustrating! Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoPltZg7EE0
This is a scan of my favourite childhood book, Mr. Topsy-Turvy! I have been collecting these books since I was born and I have at least 40. The scan oddly turned all fleshy and organic, which luckily mimics the “aliveness” I am trying to convey with my video’s title, My Dreams Started Breathing. I took a screen recording of this scan, circling around the book before entering it, like a doctor placing a camera down someone’s intestines! Once inside the book, I revealed another scan of my Ashwagandha pills, which I have to take every night or I get really anxious the next day. I have included a video detailing how I achieved this semi-translucent effect on my pill bottle. In short, I scanned it, took a screen recording of it on my phone, placed the video of the pill bottle on top of another video, hit “green screen” on iMovie, hit “clean up”, then selected the white background. A lot of my video editing process is trial and error until I find the effects I am trying to achieve.
Datamoshed video of a coniferous tree turning into deciduous tree! This video was taken in my front yard.
Datamoshed video of a white lily turning into the hand of a different white Lily (haha get it). I wanted the stamen of the flower to look like my fingers! I also copy and pasted this video multiple times, reversing it so people get a better sense of the flower becoming my hand and vice versa.
A screen recording from scaniverse advising me that my scan is not following their guidelines… oops!
Green screened footage of myself walking on various terrains as often in my dreams, I am walking or running in random locations. Sometimes in my dreams I am not actually moving forward, or I am moving slower or faster than I should realistically be able to. I thought it would be cool to try using a green screen on the ground and I am very pleased with the results! Nathan helped me set up the camera and record the footage from above, telling me where to move and how fast. Nathan also gave me extra guidance when editing on DaVinci. All the found footage in this clip is royalty free from Pexels.
This clip is from my green screening footage and the effect occurred when I played around with the Matte Finesse – In/Out Ratio controls. To be honest I am not 100% sure how I managed this, if I had to guess, I think I may have selected my eyes to be green screened out by accident. Very odd but very cool! I find that the coolest effects come from playing around with buttons and seeing what happens!
Datamoshed video of a nighttime walk. I wanted to distort my own reality and I personally think street lamps are eerie in their own nature.
The next clip is found footage of people walking. For the first half of this clip, I overlayed the same video on top of each other, reversing one of the videos so half of the people walk forwards while the other half walk backwards. I then inserted one of my favourite images EVER, which is “Pale Blue Dot”, a picture of Earth. I love this picture because it makes my problems feel so so small in the grand scheme of the universe, which brings me so much relaxation. Also, it seems crazy that 8 billion people live on such a small dot in the great abyss which is the universe! Crazy shit. Here is a link to the full picture https://lowell.edu/astroalert-nasa-remasters-the-pale-blue-dot-photo-of-earth/
This is a Kiri scan I tried to take of my bear, but for some reason it got my whole room! I thought this was an intriguing distortion of my own safe space where I rest at the end of the day, so I decided to add it to my video. I then inserted a video I took at an aquarium into the background to displace my bedroom even further.
Datamoshed video of a candle turning into glass of milk. I glitched the ending of this video clip using the DataMosh app and placed a 3D scan of my sweater on top of the clip, which we as viewers enter, symbolically crawling into the cave of textile comfort!
Datamoshed video of cars on my drive to school. I wanted to make it look like I was going to crash or run into another car! This resembles how dreams shift locations quickly and randomly.
Split screen videos from my bathroom. On the left, my hand wiggles in a cloudy mirror which fogged up after I took a shower. I enjoy how you can only see the form and colour of my arm and may not initially know what it is. I also flipped the video to make it even less apparent. The video on the right is of my sink. I noticed an odd rainbow-like glisten that was happening as I washed my hands, so I filmed it.
The last video is found footage of a cat that got stuck on a baseball field. I wanted to portray the paranoia and disorientation I experience within some of my dreams as I often appear in locations which I feel I should not be in. The cat is supposed to represent the worry of being in a foreign environment and the feeling of being watched. In a reality where I can be conscious in my dreams, this paranoia would leak into my true reality as well! I emphasized the feeling of being watched through the use of my giant eyeball. The audio “what hurts more, a false memory or an impossible future” is explained in the “Audio Analysis” section. Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTkBVNMD-VY

Audio Analysis

My Humidifier:

I recorded the sound of my humidifier and spanned it across the entirety of the video to place a sound that brings me so much relaxation and comfort into an unsettling environment. I relate this sound to sleep as I use this white noise every night to fall asleep. I also thought by using this audio across the entire video, it helps create a sense of cohesion and unity.

Random kalimba:

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/random-kalimba-a-288207

I wanted to incorporate a sparkle or bell sound into this video art and stumbled upon random kalimba. This instrument is already a little strange, but when paired with my video, I felt as though they were a perfect match! I slowed the audio down 45% to spread out the sounds. I think this audio helps keep my audience’s brains stimulated, as the dull sound of the unchanging humidifier may get boring…. and my dreams are anything but boring!

Magical Sparkle Rise FX – 0:47sec

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/magical-sparkle-rise-fx-356090

I wanted to bring even more attention to the floating Ashwaghandha bottle that appears on screen, so I paired it was this audio. I pitched this audio down because the original was WAYYYY too high pitched and hurt my ears! I also slowed the audio down by 75%. This audio gives the object and eerie yet whimsical aura. Just like the pill bottle, the audio quickly fades away.

Crowd Talking – 1min 43sec

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/crowd-talking-138493

I wanted to include muffled human voices because sometimes in my dreams, I cannot understand what people are saying and everything around me seems muffled and muddy. I found this audio and then slowed it down, put the “muffled” effect on it, and reversed the audio to distort it even further.

Guttural Sounds from my Bathtub Drain – 2min 09sec

Every time I have a bath or shower, my bathtub makes this strange guttural noise which I honestly really enjoy. Aside from sounding a bit like snoring, I wanted to use this sound to distract and break the focus of my viewers as they watch my hypnotic video.

“What hurts more, a false memory or an impossible future?” – 2min 57sec

The phrase “What hurts more, a false memory or an impossible future?” references the harm dreams can cause as they give you visions of false memories, things that did not actually occur in your life, and impossible futures, bending the truth of one’s reality. A false memory may show you an alternate, and untrue, version of your past in which you made different decisions and choices. An example of an impossible future would be receiving a vision of someone who has passed away in your regular reality still existing in your dream reality. If humans were able to gain consciousness in their dreams, they would experience multiple versions of their reality (one minute they are in a reality where someone they knew is dead, the next they are experiencing a reality where that person is still alive). These false memories and impossible futures would add to their confusion of what is actually “real”.

BRAINSTORM & PROGRESS PICS

Moments of Magic

BONUS VIDS!

Symposium Bibliography (Top 5 Sources)

Bakare, Lanre. “Please Do Touch: Sculpture Exhibition Curated by Blind People to Feature Tactile Works.” The Guardian, 14 July 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/jul/14/please-do-touch-sculpture-exhibition-curated-by-blind-people-to-feature-tactile-works.

Brouwer, Olivia. “Touching Sound: A Nature Walk + Workshop.” Olivia Brouwer, oliviabrouwer.com/touching-sound-walk-workshop/. Accessed 8 Oct. 2025.

Jackson, Rachel Elizabeth, et al. “Touching the Invisible: Exploring Intracellular Host Pathogen Interactions through Multisensory Art.” Immunology and Cell Biology, vol. 103, no. 6, 2025, pp. 535–40, https://doi.org/10.1111/imcb.70019.

Trotman, Nat. “How a Sculpture by Felix Gonzalez-Torres Traveled around New York.” The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation, 10 Aug. 2017, www.guggenheim.org/articles/checklist/how-a-sculpture-by-felix-gonzalez-torres-traveled-around-new-york.

Ukeles, Mierle Laderman. “Touch Sanitation.” Women Eco Artists Dialog, 25 Oct. 2021, directory.weadartists.org/touch-sanitation/.

To Light – Sound Object

Artist Statement

To Light started with the general concept of participation. As I have been researching participatory art for my symposium presentation, I have grown more and more interested in including interactive aspects into my own artistic practice as I believe it better engages audiences. I knew whatever I created, I wanted my audience to be involved somehow.

At first, I experimented with magnets and the idea of dreams, but then I became fixated on the “No Flash Photography” rule at most art galleries. My goal was to create a sculpture that would be displayed in a darkened gallery room. The sculpture would contain a hidden light sensitive sensor that would trigger a sound ONLY when it sensed a bright light. Thus, audience members would be invited to activate the sculpture by using flash photography within a gallery setting.

Once I ensured this idea would work, with the help of the amazing tech Nathan, I needed to work backwards and decide what materials and sound(s) would suit this concept best. As for the sculpture’s materiality, I wanted to make a reflective and iridescent sculpture that would also “activate” with the flash of a camera. People who take a picture of my sculpture will not only activate a sound, but it will activate the materials as well, creating bright flash effects within the pictures they capture. For instance, I used reflective safety stickers that are grey normally, however, when you use a flash on them, they turn bright white!

As for the sound, I wanted to create a simulated environment for my audience to experience. Since the location of my sculpture would ideally be kept in a dark room, and the materials of the sculpture are all reflective, silver, and iridescent, I mixed the sounds of spring peepers and cresting lake waves to create a similar experience to a moonlit stroll by a body of water. The front of the sculpture itself resembles the surface of a body of water while the back is similar to the face of the moon. I also wanted to include forms similar to the pattern found in water (see image below). The audio helps complete this simulated environment by letting my audience enjoy two of my favorite sounds, both of which hold many fond memories of taking late night walks down to the lake at my cottage.

Overall, this work requires participation from audience members, activating the sculpture through use of flash photography. These flashes reflect off the sculpture, producing unique photographs, while also triggering an audio to play. I challenge the rigid rules of galleries by involving my audience in my art and poke fun at the “No Flash Photography” rule.

Audio File: Spring peepers and Cresting Lake Waves

When the webcam inserted in the sculpture senses the bright light of my phone’s flash, it plays an 11sec audio. Audiences are invited to walk around my sound object, taking pictures and videos with flash, activating both the material and the sound!

Some of the material is activated through light! I used reflective stickers that are grey normally but turn white with the use of a flash photograph.

I aimed to create forms similar to those found in water.

Brainstorm!

Work in Progress Pics

Moments of Sound Magic

Pinecone Music

Destruction of Private Property

Annoying

Leaf Crunch

Squirrel Burying Their Food

SYMPOSIUM PROPOSAL

Topic:

Alternative Engagement with and Accessibility of Touch Based Art

Overview:

Historically art has been placed behind barriers and made accessible only to one’s sense of sight. As an artist who enjoys working with texture, materiality, and three-dimensional sculpture, as well as being an individual who processes information better through hands-on projects, I strongly encourage artists and institutions, such as galleries and museums, to consider the possibilities of tactile art. Tactile art provides audiences with an alternative way of engaging and connecting to an art piece, combining the sense of sight with one often not utilized in a gallery setting, touch. Forming a connection to a work of art through touch not only provides individuals with a unique experience, but it gives those with accessibility needs an ulterior method to enjoy art as well. Through touch, an individual is invited to connect indirectly to the artist themselves through the material which was used. Additionally, the audience may be invited to alter and contribute to the piece of work through the use of their sense of touch, giving them a sense of being a part of something bigger than themselves. Tactile art is an important first step towards breaking down the sterility of a “hands-off” gallery which isolates individuals from fully connecting with a work of art and helping bring back a level of human connection between artist and audience.

Potential Presentation Formats:

Video essay (uses sense of sight and hearing)
Programmed buttons that speak my presentation (mixing tactile/ hearing/ visual)
- Everybody gets a numbered button with corresponding sections of the presentation
- Each button has different textures
- Use slideshow to show correlating images
Program an object to give my presentation
Invite class to touch my tactile art
- Bring blindfolds, different textures and rating cards to experiment with how people feel and react to different textures
- Sculptural pieces representative of my heart, time, and soul I put into my creations (so that others may connect with me, no barriers.)
- Wear a custom designed piece of clothing with different sensory areas (cut an area to touch the skin of the artist aka me)
- Include something the class can touch and contribute to (a material that retains form when pressed like playdough/ could be a representation of myself)

Research Avenues:

Feedback forms for class on how they felt touching different textures
- Can also include my family + friends for more data
Research on experimental artist that deal with the sense of touch in their art
Formal and informal articles on accessibility of tactile art in museums/ galleries
Scientific research of how different senses react to art within the brain/ body

Topics:

Artists focusing on sense of touch within their works of art
Accessibility of touch-based work (multi-sensory museums/ visitor participation)
Feedback forms on emotional response to different textures in class

Content’s Importance:

Exploring the different human senses and their potential to connect people with art in new ways allows people to broaden how they think and engage with art.
Tactile art allows those with vision accessibility needs to still connect with art.
I personally process information better through hands-on learning and always appreciate when art is physical.
Classmates should consider their own artistic practices and explore highlighting senses other than sight within their works. This opens up new ways of engaging with art pieces.

LIVE ART – Four Cheeks

Artist Statement

Over the course of two years, I have been caring for a chipmunk in my backyard. I have enjoyed watching their daily rituals of sitting in certain areas of our outdoor patio chairs, drinking from our pond, and collecting food until their cheeks are full. Out of adoration for my animal friend, I wanted to take part in their daily ritual and create a collaborative live art piece in which we share multiple meals and store them for the winter.

I chose to store Werther’s in my cheeks to incorporate one of my own daily rituals. After school every day I ingest roughly 1-5 Werther’s to help myself focus while studying and to also treat myself to something yummy! Werther’s have always been my favourite candy since childhood, and I was called “grandma” in elementary school.

The set up of this live art involves two plates of food, two cameras, and four cheeks. Once me and my performing partner respectively fill our cheeks, we go to our respected safe spaces and store our food for later, coming back for more. After I finished my plate, I allow the chipmunk to keep feasting, which he continued to do for the rest of the day. After the live performance, I took the Werther’s I had spit out and melted them so that I may use it for winter baking, ultimately storing the food for winter.

I was initially inspired by the photograph of a musical performance given to the audience of a melting glacier (see image below) as it led me to think about non-human audiences. Eventually this led me to the realization that there are non-human rituals as well! Through participation, I gave new meaning to the enjoyment I get from visually watching a chipmunk’s daily ritual, similarly to ethnographic research.

BONUS CHIPMUNK FACTS:

Chipmunks can store up to 70 sunflower seeds in their cheeks!!!

https://www.reconnectwithnature.org/news-events/the-buzz/five-incredible-things-know-about-chipmunks