Ego Research

CLASS ACTIVITY

This was an activity where we wrote something about ourselves and we had to pass it around in a group, and let the others write something about us. It was really interesting and fun, and it has surely helped us in our final assignment: EGO.

me
ABOUT ME
mein5
ME IN 5 YEARS

 


INITIAL CONCEPT


Based on the elements in the previous pictures,  I have decided on an initial concept for this assignment.

3D + VFX = ME

HARD WORKING ME – RESERVEDNESS = A BETTER ME

TECHNICAL SKILLS x CONCEPTUALS =  AN IDEAL ME

SCI FI + VFX = ME IN 5 YEARS


COLOUR THEORIES


colorwheel

Monochromes Harmony

Same hue, different saturation and values.

Penning my thoughts. #abstract #lights #stilllife #xperiaz3

A photo posted by Justin Cho (@zomgno1) on

single-hexcone model of color space

Analogous Harmony

Analogous harmony is the use of 3 or more adjacent colours on the colour wheel.

Warm and Cool

The colour wheel can be split into 2 parts, the warm and the cool. In my opinion, it is more harmonious if we use adjacent colours from just one side as compared to combining part warm and part cool.

More #symmetry. #taipei #hdr #temples

A photo posted by Justin Cho (@zomgno1) on

Warm colour are passionate, energetic and lively.

tpcool
Taipei 101 – JUSTIN CHO PHOTOGRAPHY

Cool colours are calm and soothing.

Complementary Hues

Complementary hues are colours that are opposite on the colour wheel, creating contrast and could also draw the attention to a specific area.

Tokyo Tower – JUSTIN CHO PHOTOGRAPHY

Split Complimentary

Sunset on a boat – JUSTIN CHO PHOTOGRAPHY

As for split complimentary colours, just with a little tinge of yellow, it dilutes the intensity of the contrast, yet still has a high degree of it.


 

I thought that since this project is about ME/MYSELF/I, I have used my personal photography gallery to study colour theories. I hope you all enjoyed it. (:

Assignment 2: Rhymes Final

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO ROUND AND ROUND

a tragic bus crash story

CRXjrU0UcAEpxhU

loosely based on an actual public bus accident that my grandfather encountered


CONCEPT


(FROM TOP LEFT IN A CLOCKWISE DIRECTION)

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO ROUND AND ROUND
In this composition, my interpretation of the “wheels” are the steering wheels instead. From a first-person perspective, you see an impending bus crash from the inside of the bus driver’s perspective. I have made use of the many grabbing hands to show movement in the steering wheel.

ROUND AND ROUND
In this composition, it shows the external events that are happening in the bus, as it literally go round and round like clockwork. (hence the gears)The bus is spinning round and round; the old man is crying; the lady is screaming; the man is spinning around screaming; the sound of heartbeats; and objects, represented by the fish out of the water, is flying around.

ROUND AND ROUND
In this next composition, it shows the internal events that is going on in someone’s head, as represented by the dissected head and brain background. Family, food, religion, money, best experiences and memories goes round and round, represented by the ring.

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO ROUND AND ROUND ALL DAY LONG
Now in this composition, the bus is already overturned and stopped. It is a third-person perspective now. Everything has rolled out of the bus, round and round. I have used the “teeth” of the wheels, layered with a spiral dingbat, to show the wheels going round and round, all day long. I have made use of everyone’s dingbat that are either round in shape, or if it contains a face.

When pieced together, the final composition of all 4 images form a full circle, keeping a flow and linking them together. (I wanted to incorporate my photosphere in my previous post) This might have also helped enhanced the effect of the tragedy. I have chosen to use black as the primary background colour as I wanted it to feel dark and tragic.


ORIGINAL DINGBATS


ding
I have originally came up with 50/50 dingbats for each rhyme.

SKETCHES


sketches


CHALLENGES FACED


The biggest challenge I had, I think, was the choosing of the concept of my rhyme. As seen from my previous posts, I was actually trying to push for a social commentary style concept of the issues that I see in my commute. However, I took a step back to see my original rhymes I have shortlisted: the wheels on the bus and the crooked old man. The crooked old man reminded me of my grandfather who was affected by the accident, who had problems walking/unstability for a period of time after the accident. It really pushed me away from my original concept and made me conclude with the concept of a twisted and dark reinterpretation of the wheels on the bus rhyme.

Another challenge was the lines: “round and round” as they were very vague – it could mean anything! After coming up with a mindmap of what could go round and round, I have finally classified them into external and internal, using the dingbats that my classmates have created.

I am fairly familiar with all the technical jargon – so nope, no problems there.


REFLECTIONS


PERSONAL THOUGHTS
I thought that this project was very interesting as I have never thought about using Photoshop to do mono-toned photomontage style compositions before. As a digital person, it was definitely much easier than the traditional assignments that we have to do. I really liked the idea of sharing dingbats!

TUTOR THOUGHTS
Joy liked how my last composition juxtaposed the chaos with orderly circular objects that was arranged neatly. She also liked how I made use of a personal experience to incorporate into a concept, as well as how went back to my original shortlisted rhymes to come up with my final concept.

CLASSMATES THOUGHTS

comm
A picture speaks a thousand words

Rhymes: Progress

The wheels on the bus go round and round.. round and round.. round and round.. round and round… (I have probably repeated that line a thousand times already.)

Since my chosen rhyme was inspired by the idea of commuting, I was led into the direction to conceptualize what I felt and observed during my commuting process.

I have came up with a few issues that I could maybe address in this assignment:

  • Stomp-style on ARMY personnel
  • Old/Elderly people
  • People and their chatter (noisy)
  • Smartphones/social
  • Kids

Some thoughts on layouts:

layout
Layouts to best show round and round

Anyway, here are some work-in-progress.

wip2
Animal on wheels going round and round

wip1

“The wheels of the bus go round and round.”

For this sample, I experimented on just the literal meaning of the wheels on the bus going round and round in circles, going around the wheel.

wip3

“The people in the bus go ignore, ignore, ignore.”

For this, I have tried changing the rhyme lyrics a little to address the issue of the elderly while commuting.

wip5

“The people in the train go stare, stare, stare.”

wip6

“The people in the train go scroll, scroll, scroll.”


After much considerations, I have also came up with a dark narrative story too. This is inspired by an actual incident that happened to my grandfather a few years back when a tour bus ran straight into a public bus my grandfather was in.

Start from top left and go in a clockwise direction:

wipstory
The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round, the wheels on the bus go round and round, all day long.

Assignment 3: Re-telling myth

lycantext


LOGLINE


An immortal werewolf desires to live a normal life and the only solution is to kill his inner beast to become a full human.


GENRE


Drama / Fantasy


MYTHS


Spin-off from Dracula
Werewolf as a myth itself
Pinocchio’s “wants to be a real boy”


SYNOPSIS


It is the year 1827. The story starts off in the dark forest where a monster hunter chases after Mr Lycanthrope, an intelligent and indifferent werewolf that can control his ability to transform. He is soon cornered and gets shot down by the crossbow. This gives him no choice to confront his chasers, transforming into the Beast and killing him, then feasting on him.

The story moves forward to the future in different eras – 1880s, 1920s, 2000s – where Mr Lycanthrope shapeshifts into different faces of his human form, hiding in the shadows and looking at humans in envy. Being the one and only species of his kind, he finds the humans interesting through their enjoyment of life, as well as companionship between couples. The humans could live together in peace and harmony. He desires for this life.

March 2015, Mr Lycanthrope is now seen trying to blend into the society without interacting with anyone – as it may affect his status quo. He sees a group of guys having a time of their life playing basketball in the park. With the build-up of his urges to interact with humans, he joins them and plays along, having the best time of his 300-years life. He got so immersed in the game and became very competitive, turning aggressive when he is blocked by the 3 huge guys. He pushed them and with his superhuman strength, they flew across the court. Shocked and guilty of his actions, he runs away.

Mr Lycanthrope thinks about his purpose in life; purpose in his existence. He is in an existential crisis and yearns for a solution to this dilemma. His finds his ability – a disease – a bane to his existence and decided that he should kill the Beast within. He researches for a cure, knowing that in this modern time and age, it is definitely possible. He goes through a series of self-experiments.

Mr Lycanthrope tried using wolfsbane, the poison known to humans that is used to kill wolfs and beast, but his body rejected it. He tried using the silver bullet, the element used to kill his cousins – the vampires – but his body only regenerated ever-so-quickly. He also finds an exorcist to perform exorcism, where his wolf spirit is called forth and was burnt in flames, but it was not affected. Seeing that there was an actual research on clinical lycanthropy, he tries neuroleptic drugs as well as but it was only a temporary solution, lasting only a few mins as his body regenerated fast enough to counter the medications.

Being the last resort, Mr Lycanthrope started his ultimate plan – of using the modern day technology and skills of the Researchers. Sure, this could be a double-edged sword where he could cure him or he could end up dead and dissected. When all preparations are complete, he kicks off his plan and goes on a rampage to let his presence be known. Sure enough, a research facility picked up on his existence and captured him to conduct intensive experiments. Weeks after weeks; month after months; experiments after experiments – a cure was imminent. While being a subject of research, he was also looking at the humans as a subject of his own research.

After a whole 11 months, the deed is finally done. Mr Lycanthrope, who knows the facility inside out, takes this opportunity to start his escape with his vaccine. Every corner, every access code and every personnel – he remembered to heart, and soon he successfully reaches the exit of the facility.

Just as the door opens, he sees an unknown pretty face with a beautiful figure in a lab coat. Threatened by her presence, he tries to escape and was successful. With all his emotions building up, he takes a last glance at her and leaves successfully. Mr Lycanthrope, now at his safehouse, with all determination to become human, shapeshifts into a new face before injecting himself with the vaccine. He faints.

Waking up hours later, Mr Lycanthrope is now still on his newest face, but his attempts to shapeshifts are useless. It worked, and Mr Lycanthrope is finally a complete human – free to live life. He immediately leaves his house.

Mr Lycanthrope is now at the research facility entrance waiting patiently, unknown to anyone, and it ends with him introducing himself to the pretty-faced lady, with time slowly ticking away, cherishing every moment he has as a human.

Assignment 1: Lines

OPPOSITES

inspired by Cai Guo Qiang’s explosion art where he creates organised chaos; beauty in destruction

ass1

As mentioned in my previous post, I have came up with 3 concepts: Adjacency, Opposites, Contrast. I noticed that they were quite similar, and thought that I could combine them into 1 – OPPOSITES.


CHALLENGES FACED


Originally, I have organised the 18 emotions into 6 categories – Rhythmic, Soft, Lines, Messy, Dark/Murky, Organisation.linesgroup

layout

As seen from the final layouts that we could use, there wasn’t any that could fit all 6 in, hence, I had to further re-categorize them and finally ended up with 4 – DARK, SOFT, MESSY, ORGANISED.


CONCEPT


The main concept is to place each emotions based on their visuals or their meanings beside/adjacent to each other to show the stark contrast between the 2.CLASSIFICATION

I have also further grouped them into row categories based on their visual elements.

ROW CLASSIFICATION
ROW CLASSIFICATION

I have also tried exploring/experimenting with using opposite meanings, objects or techniques to further expand on the styles/concept.

EXAMPLES

sloven: using cleaning metal sponge to explain messy
awkward: related to silence, so opposite is noise which led to “film noise”
aggressive: writing praises, compliments aggressively
distracted: opposite is focus, so out of focus is bokeh in the camera
fragile: instead of using fragile object, I used “durable” mats like the cloth and drew wireframes to show the fragility
indecisive: decisive (decision tree) so I flip it upside down and it becomes roots
embarrassed: this is a head hiding upside down like ostrich
systematic: inspired by Cai Guo Qiang’s organised chaos, I thought of a traffic jam at a highway, still orderly even though chaotic


REFLECTION


I have found the assignment really insightful as I have learnt how abstraction is not really random art but much thought have been put into the process. I have also learnt more about myself as to how I interpret different emotions as they are really subjective. I felt that I could have experimented with more techniques that can help push my concept even further.

Lines: Progress

This is a post of my progression of my Lines Project from start to end.

WEEK 1 & 2

Finally more done up
Finally more done up

During previous consultation, I have learnt that by carefully selecting the placing of the emotions it can help bring out the stark contrast between them.

lines1
Drawn from my own interpretation, without any research done

So I figured I had to do intensive research on each emotions and what do they mean/best represented through their mediums, styles or even their symbolism. After much thought and research, I have came up with a table to categorize them accordingly:

linesgroup

6 styles: Rhythmic | Soft | Lines | Messy | Dark/Murky | Organisation


EXAMPLES OF RESEARCH


lines2

ANXIOUS

lines3
LYRICAL
lines4
PSYCHOTIC
lines5
TURBULENT, INDECISIVE, EXHAUSTED

MEDIUMS EXPERIMENTS


In week 2, I have started experimenting with new mediums, specifically Chinese Ink and Monoprinting.

MONOPRINTING
MONOPRINTING
Chinese INK
Chinese INK

I have also done some texture research to see if I can incorporate it into monoprinting.

TEXTURES RESEARCH
TEXTURES RESEARCH

RESEARCH AND SOME CONCEPTS


BIZARRE
BIZARRE
SLOVEN
SLOVEN
AGGRESSIVE
AGGRESSIVE
SYSTEMATIC
SYSTEMATIC

 

WEEK 3/4

As mentioned in the weekly consultation, I have yet to decide on a concept for this project. One method is to think of a TITLE for this project. Some concepts I came up with was:

  • ADJACENCYplacing a certain emotion adjacent to each other to bring it out (i.e. systematic vs distracted; nonsensical vs aggressive)
  • OPPOSITESusing strong objects to showcase fragility; harmless things to show aggressiveness
  • CONTRASTby categorizing the emotions of: soft vs dark; messy vs organised

CONCEPTUALIZING


fragile
FRAGILE
AGGRESSIVE
AGGRESSIVE
DISTRACTED
DISTRACTED
SYSTEMATIC
SYSTEMATIC
AWKWARD | EMBRASSED
AWKWARD | EMBRASSED

MORE EXPERIMENTS


TOOTHBRUSH STROKES
TOOTHBRUSH STROKES
Monoprinting in progress
Monoprinting in progress
CHINESE INK
CHINESE INK

Lines: Reference Artist

cgq1

CAI GUO QIANG

cgq2


I particularly like Cai Guo-Qiang’s explosion art as it shows duality of exhilaration and destruction. Using gunpowder as his medium, he creates beauty from destruction. After creating his scene with scattered gunpowder and pre-cut stencils, he ignites them and this creates a sort of controlled randomness – organized chaos – in his art.


 

He also describes his process as to making love: “You can try to steer it, but you can’t. It’s like making love. It’s very in the moment. And there should be no regret.” The process of making these drawings are publicly displayed, and I feel that there is much appreciation in the process of making art.

cgq3

cgq4
CLOSE UP OF THE MARK OF 921

Also, in Cai Guo-Qiang’s drawings at up close, you can see that there are much details and randomness, yet it can portray the emotions of pain.

 

In relation to assignment 1, I am looking into his artwork in smaller pictures and seeing how it portray emotions.