Project 02 – Dictionary direction – Film Dictionary

For this project, I’m looking to dive deep into films to create a visual dictionary. With the list of specific words that I have chosen, I seek to find movies that are associated with the words and bring out new meanings through dialogues or objects. So far I’m still looking for methods that are further than appropriation and looking to draw out various elements in films that are not face-value and details that are usually overlooked.

The examples below are some that I’m interested in. They have successfully compiled a series of recipes that are unique to the individual films that they are representing. Food and drinks are some of the things that we tend to overlook in films in this case. However, they can easily encapsulate the aura or spirit of the film. In this case, we often associate Martini Dry with James Bond and White Russian to the laid back attitudes of The Dude in The Big Lebowski.

http://cocktailsofthemovies.com/

Project 01 – Calendar

As I skimmed through the databanks of Wunderground, a global online weather network, I realized how important data is to us in every aspect of gaining some form of confidence in making sense of the recurring behaviors of the world around us. There are certain aspects of the project that was interesting but there were definitely some improvements I could’ve made to it to build the layers.

I Started out wanting to build layers of data to build an intricate series of interwoven lines and solely utilize that aesthetic. But I soon realize that it was far too little and there was a lack of objectivity to it and thus I wanted to embark on a direction that’s more scientific and something that has a functional purpose.

Building on the sentiments that I’ve previously felt about the nature of time as a constantly flowing, ephemeral and intangible quality, I made use of something that’s far more material and tangible which is the volume of rainfall in Singapore. I wanted to accentuate the nature of how we always like to use pieces of information from the past to determine the future. For us to have a fairly accurate weather forecast, we need tidal data, wind data and many other conditions and recurrences. However, even in data forecast, it’s never 100% due to Chaos Theory. Thus, this project gives an overview of weather conditions in Singapore for the past years and at the same time creating a series of interweaving and dancing data that creates a form of forecast on its own.

Looking at days as data blocks

An initial idea of executing the visualized data as a one-way flow with lines at the bottom signifying each individual days. (The different coloured graphs were suppose to vary in the actual outcome)

The final outcome followed the format similar to that a runic calendar that I shared earlier on. It has a sterile quality to it which I wanted and at the same time, I felt like I could’ve worked on the craft even more.

Using logos to represent different religious and customary holidays, I placed them to draw on the curiosity of whether “divine intervention” has acted on various days. Depth wise, I felt that the project would’ve been even more substantial if I collected more data. looking back perhaps in terms of decades in order to present some outcomes about the state of our climate and showing that our future could be very bleak if we didn’t do something about it.

I felt like I’ve forgone the initial art direction to the project, which was supposed to be a subtle and cryptic piece and eventually gotten everything labeled. I would say that this is something that’s a little different from what I’ve always done and stepping out of my comfort zone. Maybe I’ll execute my upcoming projects better with my intents made better known.

Back to perusing for now.

A recap on concept and process Week 2-4

Just a recap on the processes and art direction that I was pursuing for the past few weeks. I eventually went with the art direction of Daymare. The idea that daydreaming doesn’t necessarily only lead to a pleasant escape, but a rather contemplative experience that hones on thinking about the unthinkable, the unknown and the dark.

I was propelled to this idea also partly due to my fascination with the themes found in H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu and Junji Ito’s Uzumaki which centers around the fear and the darkness of the unknown. It’s after reading those materials that I often plunge into a state of constant psychological entrapment by the figments created by the stories. It was impossible for my daydreams afterwards to feel pleasant in any way as deep in my consciousness, the brutality of how much we don’t know and the notion of how ignorant we could possibly be simply took over me.

Thus I looked for dark, immersive and brooding images (that was featured in the moodboard).

Eventually I ended up with these images.

Through experimentation with some tools in Illustrator, I managed to cook up some warped and distorted web-like motifs, fragmented circles, and prisms that are somewhat inspired by the Cthulhu’s island in the books.