The definition of Deja-vu is very well established in different studies, and different theories. Deja-vu is a phenomena that occurs to all people at anytime. In this project a fake interview will be held between a german young man and an egyptian girl that is pretending to be an old lady having dejaa-vus during the interview without the german man knowing. Obstacles occurred and the concept was developed after more research, and at the end we have a movie with a normal conversation on a public bus between a german man and an egyptian girl that is visiting her friend in germany. I this performance the german is having the deja-vu by seeing the same girl and having the same conversation with her several times until he panics and leaves. Having plans and timelines help any concept or idea to develop thoroughly and properly; and that is what this research and project is based on.
Experiment l
Participants
This performance included two participants. A 23 year-old young man living in germany and goes to the university of furtwangen, and the other participant was the main character which was a 20 year-old young woman that is from egypt and goes to the german university in cairo. We brought a specific german counterpart to help us realize our concept in this first trial of the performance. The german student was not aware of the girl’s cover. He only thought he was doing a normal interview with an old lady.
Procedures
Our keyword concept (déjà vu) was edited and played with some several times. Until reaching the idea of our first experiment that was an interview that we set up with our fake old retired actress and singer and with the German group. Saying that this is only a meeting to interview her about her career, her journeys around the world, and trips to Europe. The concept that we had told them at first is that the interview is to complete their project about cross-culture differences. In performing our first experiment, during the interview déjà vu appears to the old lady, she gets glimpses of déjà vu while talking to the interviewer on Skype and from that she thinks she had seen him before long ago and tries to convince him with that matter. As old ladies also lose the sense of time somehow, the interviewer calmly understands and explains to her that they have never met.
Salma practiced as an old lady in a mall to know how to deal with people and how to act as an old lady among them. Also we started to talk with old people to know how do they talk with other people with English which is a foreign language they don’t used very often. So we gathered ideas how old people act and deal with others while dealing with people they don’t know. We wanted to have a fake normal salma to convince them that she is salma’s grand daughter (the old lady). So salma’s sister volunteered to act as if she is salma. And we cared that the old lady starts to talk and interact with the fake salma. Also the fake salma was acting all the time as if we are helping her grand mother in translating what the germans are saying. After the interview we asked the germans about there experience and they were not sure if she was an old lady and that she was having a déjà-vu or not. The participant from the german side started to convince the old lady that he is not the man in the picture that the old lady showed trying to convince him; as she was convinced that she has so him before. The boy on the german side tried to convince her that he is the wrong guy, he took out his ID to show her and convince her and pointed out at his birthday to do that.
This performance included two participants. A 23 year-old young man living in germany and goes to the university of furtwangen, and the other participant was the main character which was a 20 year-old young woman that is from egypt and goes to the german university in cairo. We brought a specific german counterpart to help us realize our concept in this first trial of the performance. The german student was not aware of the girl’s cover. He only thought he was doing a normal interview with an old lady.
Procedures
Our keyword concept (déjà vu) was edited and played with some several times. Until reaching the idea of our first experiment that was an interview that we set up with our fake old retired actress and singer and with the German group. Saying that this is only a meeting to interview her about her career, her journeys around the world, and trips to Europe. The concept that we had told them at first is that the interview is to complete their project about cross-culture differences. In performing our first experiment, during the interview déjà vu appears to the old lady, she gets glimpses of déjà vu while talking to the interviewer on Skype and from that she thinks she had seen him before long ago and tries to convince him with that matter. As old ladies also lose the sense of time somehow, the interviewer calmly understands and explains to her that they have never met.
Salma practiced as an old lady in a mall to know how to deal with people and how to act as an old lady among them. Also we started to talk with old people to know how do they talk with other people with English which is a foreign language they don’t used very often. So we gathered ideas how old people act and deal with others while dealing with people they don’t know. We wanted to have a fake normal salma to convince them that she is salma’s grand daughter (the old lady). So salma’s sister volunteered to act as if she is salma. And we cared that the old lady starts to talk and interact with the fake salma. Also the fake salma was acting all the time as if we are helping her grand mother in translating what the germans are saying. After the interview we asked the germans about there experience and they were not sure if she was an old lady and that she was having a déjà-vu or not. The participant from the german side started to convince the old lady that he is not the man in the picture that the old lady showed trying to convince him; as she was convinced that she has so him before. The boy on the german side tried to convince her that he is the wrong guy, he took out his ID to show her and convince her and pointed out at his birthday to do that.
Final video for Experiment l
Experiment II
Participants
This performance also included two participants, Salma the egyptian girl, as herself, an Egyptian young lady but traveling to Germany to visit her friend and randomly meets Gregory on the bus, the German young man who goes to the same university that Salma’s friend goes to. And this is what the conversation goes around.
Procedures
After researching more about déjà-vu, we decided to change the idea of making the young woman an old lady and just let her be herself; let her be a 20 year-old young girl. And instead of performing the video in the form of an interview between both sides, we set up a random meeting where the girl gets on the bus and meets Gregory. As they are sitting they start talking about their destinations and she shows him photographs of her friends from Egypt. She leaves the bus and he goes to sleep, but when he wakes up he finds the last scene of him meeting the girl is repeated. The man responds calmly at first thinking it is just a dream. And the girl shows him some photographs from Egypt again. The conversation ends and starts over again as soon as he opens his eye from his short nap. It is repeated a several times and he panics more each time. The fourth time he sees it happening he panics and leaves the bus. The idea of repeating the same scene continuously is delivering the idea of déjà vu but in a different – exaggerated - way.
This performance also included two participants, Salma the egyptian girl, as herself, an Egyptian young lady but traveling to Germany to visit her friend and randomly meets Gregory on the bus, the German young man who goes to the same university that Salma’s friend goes to. And this is what the conversation goes around.
Procedures
After researching more about déjà-vu, we decided to change the idea of making the young woman an old lady and just let her be herself; let her be a 20 year-old young girl. And instead of performing the video in the form of an interview between both sides, we set up a random meeting where the girl gets on the bus and meets Gregory. As they are sitting they start talking about their destinations and she shows him photographs of her friends from Egypt. She leaves the bus and he goes to sleep, but when he wakes up he finds the last scene of him meeting the girl is repeated. The man responds calmly at first thinking it is just a dream. And the girl shows him some photographs from Egypt again. The conversation ends and starts over again as soon as he opens his eye from his short nap. It is repeated a several times and he panics more each time. The fourth time he sees it happening he panics and leaves the bus. The idea of repeating the same scene continuously is delivering the idea of déjà vu but in a different – exaggerated - way.
Final video for Experiment lI
DISCUSSION (Observation)
Results
Experiment l
Our first experiment, the concept was to express déjà vu in an interview between an old retired actress (performed by a student) and the German group. We practiced the old lady makeup and costume in a public place to get used to the character and create a good performance. We went through some makeup problems to be believed enough.
They did not know what the concept was, or that the old lady was a student, but during the Skype conversation they doubted her age a little, but yet did not figure out the concept. The interviewer asked her random questions about herself, her acting and singing career, and her trips around the world and what she thought about them. During the interview the old lady thinks that she had discovered she had known the interviewer back then about 25 years ago, and that he was a friend of her sons. She keeps insisting on proving that to him by showing him very old photographs of him standing with her two sons. He shows her his ID to prove that he is not who she thinks, she gets mad and leaves the conversation. We went through some technical problems, and at last we went through concept problems.
Experiment ll
After our cover was revealed, and the old lady was discovered not to be one, we faced technical problems and it was impossible to perform it again the same way as before so we changed the character that experiences déjà vu. The German student faces déjà vu a several times on a bus when meeting the old lady. We kept her in the picture to make it seem freakier to the German student. The performance was a success, but technical problems were faced again. And the performance had to be repeated again.
After some questions and researches about the psychological déjà vu process, we decided no old person has to be involved, since after all any age experiences it, however different studies show that it is more frequent with younger ages. We performed it with a regular German student and with a normal Egyptian girl in their early twenties. As mentioned earlier, the girl gets on the bus, sits besides the German man and starts having a normal conversation with him. After repeating the conversation several times the man starts panicking wondering, and gets irritated by what’s he is experiencing which is deja-vu and at the end he leaves the bus.
Relationships
Skype and Deja-vu
We found the déjà-vu can be implemented through skype. While using skype during a video call, we may face the phenomenon of "Deja Vu". As during the call sometimes we see the picture changing very fast after a long stop; disproportionate with the sound and though, while looking at the picture we might see it repeating it self in front of our eyes, but not recognizing its repeating, as the fast changing infront of the camera wouldn’t be unrecognizable by our optical nerve and so the "Deja Vu" occur.
Skype and Public Transportations
It was decided that we relate the public transportation with Skype because we found it is somehow similar - talking randomly to the passenger beside you in a public transportation - to the online chatting - randomly clicking a contact and starting a conversation. As an example, SkypeMe, an option given by Skype that you can call any contact online that you don’t know and chat with them but only for one time as long as you don’t have them as a friend or their name listed on your friends’ list. Also this is the same as Chatroulette where you are connected to people who are online randomly with out knowing them at all and start to talk with them for once in your life without the necessity of a long friendship, not even online.
Through the entire duration of our project we learnt a lot of things. The most important thing that got us confused is when we had to change our project concept a couple of times we had a feeling of losing track and concentration on the main project “idea”, until we reached our final idea and accomplished it. Ideas changed a thousand times, and that lead to having more chances of gathering even more information about our concept to slightly change it and develop it. That was not the only problem as we faced so many technical ones. The project was repeated about five times. That made it necessary to always have a plan B. In fact we faked a video performance after we had done it live using skype due to technical problems we replaced a video with one side of a skype video-call. We also faced communication problems with the German students as we were setting meetings with them to perform and discuss.
Results
Experiment l
Our first experiment, the concept was to express déjà vu in an interview between an old retired actress (performed by a student) and the German group. We practiced the old lady makeup and costume in a public place to get used to the character and create a good performance. We went through some makeup problems to be believed enough.
They did not know what the concept was, or that the old lady was a student, but during the Skype conversation they doubted her age a little, but yet did not figure out the concept. The interviewer asked her random questions about herself, her acting and singing career, and her trips around the world and what she thought about them. During the interview the old lady thinks that she had discovered she had known the interviewer back then about 25 years ago, and that he was a friend of her sons. She keeps insisting on proving that to him by showing him very old photographs of him standing with her two sons. He shows her his ID to prove that he is not who she thinks, she gets mad and leaves the conversation. We went through some technical problems, and at last we went through concept problems.
Experiment ll
After our cover was revealed, and the old lady was discovered not to be one, we faced technical problems and it was impossible to perform it again the same way as before so we changed the character that experiences déjà vu. The German student faces déjà vu a several times on a bus when meeting the old lady. We kept her in the picture to make it seem freakier to the German student. The performance was a success, but technical problems were faced again. And the performance had to be repeated again.
After some questions and researches about the psychological déjà vu process, we decided no old person has to be involved, since after all any age experiences it, however different studies show that it is more frequent with younger ages. We performed it with a regular German student and with a normal Egyptian girl in their early twenties. As mentioned earlier, the girl gets on the bus, sits besides the German man and starts having a normal conversation with him. After repeating the conversation several times the man starts panicking wondering, and gets irritated by what’s he is experiencing which is deja-vu and at the end he leaves the bus.
Relationships
Skype and Deja-vu
We found the déjà-vu can be implemented through skype. While using skype during a video call, we may face the phenomenon of "Deja Vu". As during the call sometimes we see the picture changing very fast after a long stop; disproportionate with the sound and though, while looking at the picture we might see it repeating it self in front of our eyes, but not recognizing its repeating, as the fast changing infront of the camera wouldn’t be unrecognizable by our optical nerve and so the "Deja Vu" occur.
Skype and Public Transportations
It was decided that we relate the public transportation with Skype because we found it is somehow similar - talking randomly to the passenger beside you in a public transportation - to the online chatting - randomly clicking a contact and starting a conversation. As an example, SkypeMe, an option given by Skype that you can call any contact online that you don’t know and chat with them but only for one time as long as you don’t have them as a friend or their name listed on your friends’ list. Also this is the same as Chatroulette where you are connected to people who are online randomly with out knowing them at all and start to talk with them for once in your life without the necessity of a long friendship, not even online.
