I rarely use my actual phone number these days to talk voice to voice with people. There are so many chat applications that have implemented online phone calls, that my actual phone number has been rendered almost obsolete. When the network is bad, there would be a delay sending my voice data from my phone to the other person's phone. I would sometimes say something and then half a second later, hear my own voice on the other side. It's distracting but I've gotten kind of used to it. I want to explore this slightly annoying feature and utilize this feeling in my final project.
My proposal is to create an application that resembles Marina Abramovic's "The Artist is Present" piece. The application would essentially be an online video chat application used by two people. Everything is normal at first. However, as time passes, the delay between the users sending and receiving their video data would grow. The delay would increase gradually, going from a couple millisecond delay to several seconds. I would like to see how this gradual growth of delay would affect the speech and communication between two users. The delay would eventually grow to a suitable amount for the users to be essentially looking at each other in silence, as they realize that their ability to communicate has been rendered almost useless. The application would then gradually, at a slightly faster pace than previously, return back to normal.
I am interested in exploring areas of discomfort, this case being control and intimacy. Control due to the fact that the users' ability to communicate slowly deteriorates, and Intimacy since the users are forced to look at each other through screens.