Chinese Whispers or Telephone
Where did this surrealist game come from?what are its origins? The name Chinese whispers reffers to the way that the chinese language sounds to some people. The name came from this; since they did not understand the lanugage they called it chinese and it stuck with it ever since. As to its origins; it is unclear where it originated from since there are various variety and different names for this game.
The various names of this game: Chinese whispers, telephone, the broken telephone, Whisper down the lane, gossip, Arab phone, and stille post or silent post.
A Brief explanation of our artwork:
In here we can see on top of this collage that there are words all jumbled and mixed up. This was made to represent the mixed language that people hear and the dificulty of the whisper being heard and what other words might replace words that were previously said. The words that are not in the mix up but on the sides represent the ones that the original message sound like and are more clear to the person who is hearing this message. We can see different facial expressions; this is because with each message a different thing was understood; with this body language which is a form of language just like speaking is people might also mis interpret words and sentences. For example if someone tells you "Your car is on fire" but they say it with a smile and very calmly and you cannot hear that person very well it will be very confusing to believe that it actually is on fire. The human psyche and the human mind dwell on the unconsious. Thoughts lurking in the back of everyones head; not only thoughts but also imagery and so forth. Another thing that can be seen from this collage is that all the participants are women. We did not do this on paper but women seemed to portray more facial expressions than men when we looked in magazines for samples to make the collage.
Words have an effect on people: words are associated with emotion and body language therefore to speak one has to move their lips and that movement is considered a type of body language.
Different messages convey a different type of overall thought process; our thought process intakes the information and analyses it and from it we can formulate a response. It is only human to formulate a response and also to ask questions. This game brings out epistemologies aout the brain; how it forms words, speech, writing and so forth.
In the first subject we see authority and from body language we see the hand gesture as if expelling something out of the hand even though nothing is coming out but it is clear that her mouth is open and it is in the form of an “o” with a heated facial expression. Then we see the words ‘you owe me money’ which is the initial message. From this we go on to the second subject which looks frustrated and again we see body language with the hand on the head and rubbing the hair as if thinking “what do I do” people do not even have to speak to pick up a message this is how body language can sometimes change the meaning of a message by saying something but displaying something else; this is how some analysis can also foretell if someone is lying by using the opposite of this theory. The message goes on to be displayed throughout the project and from the second subject we see that they send a different message. Another factor that can change a message is perception, tone of voice, or even stress or thoughts that are filling ones head. This is why In the project we input all those words on top of everyone symbolizing all the words and thoughts that people might have running inside of their head; these thoughts might also distortion the message by maybe not picking up parts of the words and replacing them with what one is thinking or the closest word that might come to mind. And in the final subject we see the word “you look like honey” and we can clearly see a smile on the woman’s face and she looks radiant with joy. Was it the message? Where there other factors affecting the way she in took the message? So many questions can arise out of simple communication. But communication is simple one might say. It is simple but it is as simple as the auditor makes it to be. We have a theory that goes like this: most people can hear but can they listen? So do people listen or hear? There is a difference in the two or also we might look but not see taking into consideration the amount of attention we give a certain subject.
In the project we took into account various factors that might hinder our experiment. There might be a purposeful instigator that will contort the message and change it to his advantage. And we have our doubts; we believe there was one and that the message did change drastically because of him or her.
The results of our project were these:
Initial message: “Three blind mice like to eat rice on a day that is nice.”
Subject #0: Three blind mice like to eat rice on a day that is nice.
Subject # 1-Three blind mice like to eat rice when its nice.
Subject #2” three blind mice like to eat rice when the day are nice”
Subject #3” three blind mice like to eat rice at night”
Subject #4”three black mice eat rice and whisper”
Subject #5” three black mice eat rice when they whisper”
Subject #6” three blind mice eat rice something whisper”
Subject #7” three blind mice and someone whispering”
Subject #8 “Blind mice something about whispering”
Subject #9 “three blind mice and something about whispering.”
Subject #10 “three blind mice something about them whispering”
Subject #11 “three blind mice are always whispering”
Subject # 12 “three blind mice are always whispering”
Subject #13 -25 states ”Apple Bottom Jeans”
Final message “Apple bottom jeans”
Statistics
Initial message: “Three blind mice like to eat rice on a day that is nice.”
Final message “Apple bottom jeans”
Constant (11,12) and (13,15)
Change(1,11)
