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AFTER YOU

WISANU PHU-ARTDUN (Q)

VDO installation and yawning detection(an experimental project)

Being a foreigner in my very first month here in Germany, I found it quite hard to get in a society. Although I tried to open up my self to others around me, I still felt like I did not belong to any of groups here. Moreover, I also had a feeling of having nothing in common and not connect to others.

One day I traveled by myself to Berlin. And experienced to a warmhearted situation which told me that people can connect to each other just by yawning.

After did a consulting session with my mentor, I came back to do some research about yawning contagious and found that some credible scientists said that it is a primitive social behavior of human when we would like to share empathy and emotion to a group and yawning contagious can also pass across species as well.

To express this feeling of my own, to show invisible chain that can connect people together and also express my wonder that why can't people just connect to others so easily just like the yawning contagious does? I created an installation art containing 1 screen showing VDO looping of myself in a S bahn to make visitors get what I felt on that day(see the VDO link below), and also one experimental of yawning detection using Max MSP and Face OSC in order to continue the invisible chain which connects people by yawning.

Story in Berlin ; One day I traveled by myself to Berlin. I took a S Bahn and sat on the seat that 4 people have to face each other; One read a book, one was busy with his phone, one looked outside a window and I just sat and looked around. Suddenly, a guy who read a book started to yawn, the guy sat opposite him yawned, then the other woman and then me. We all unconsciously yawned after others who sat there. And then at the end of the yawning contagious finished, we all put every activity that we were doing away and looked to each other, then from out of nowhere everyone started to laugh. At that short moment, I felt like there was something connect we all together. Just like we were connected by an invisible chain of yawning contagious.

Although it was a very short moment of time, it made me felt so warm-hearted and also felt like I belong to the society. This short moment means a lot to me because it was the turning point that made me want to still carry on in this country.

VDO installation : https://youtu.be/Wdm94vHhihg

VDO documentation : https://youtu.be/GyTG4MKEWCA