opposites

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

WEEK 1 & 2

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:

EXAMPLES OF RESEARCH

ANXIOUS

lines5 — TURBULENT, INDECISIVE, EXHAUSTED

MEDIUMS EXPERIMENTS

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

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

RESEARCH AND SOME CONCEPTS

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:

ADJACENCY – placing a certain emotion adjacent to each other to bring it out (i.e. systematic vs distracted; nonsensical vs aggressive)
OPPOSITES – using strong objects to showcase fragility; harmless things to show aggressiveness
CONTRAST – by categorizing the emotions of: soft vs dark; messy vs organised