Object Stories

For this project, I had chosen a film canister (with unprocessed film) and a guitar pick for my objects to be abstracted from.

After a deep state of contemplation, I realised that I could extract the notions of sentimentality, nostalgia and memories from the objects. In a way, I had realised that these emotions were in fact, not possible to be realised without a concrete object.

The derivation of the emotions co-exist with the objects that are apparently imbued with it. The film canister is, in its essence an empty lump of metal with rolled up gelatin based paper. And then its apparent value exists on how we can relate to it. We give an object a particular meaning.

Hence, how could I abstract the concept of the in-between? How can we dissect the act of giving meaning and separate it’s coexistence with the object? In a way, is it possible to to fully realise the notion of sentimentality and nostalgia in its own right? And if so, can we preserve the moment?

Vacuum-packed, hand-dyed flowers. From a budling to full bloom.

As I had approached this project in a philosophical manner, the presentation of the flowers themselves are arranged in a way to represent the movement of life. From a young budling to the full bloom, a flower in this way would best encapsulate the notions of transience. Furthermore, flowers are well known to provide itself with a more romatnci value of emotions, more commonly derived to be objects of romance, love, sentiment and memories.

We become aware that of how we attach certain notions towards a particular object and in my case, sentimentally and memories. As the flower would eventually wither, would your emotions and memories fade too? Or are emotions something truthfully internal? And if so, does this deride the object of its emotional value? Can emotions and memories expire too?

The use of the flower in a zip loc symbolises the act of self-preservation; a kind of failed desire to sustain the sentimentality and memories through the act of preserving a decaying flower. The notion of never letting go comes to mind as we realise the flower in the zip loc eventually begins to decay but our sentiments still remain.

Memories may fade and expire over time but this act of self-preservation thrusts how we, as human beings, objectively curate our surroundings to fit our emotions. And in my case, not wanting to have my memories fade – as the decaying flower that is ‘contained’ becomes a beacon of hope to sustain those feelings.

Object Stories: Process & Ideation

Based from the project brief I was given, I wanted to abstract the notions of sentimentality, nostalgia and memories from the objects I had chosen – a canister of unprocessed film and a guitar pick; both of which have a difference in perceived value.

The guitar pick was once a valuable item to me, of which it is now simply an object of sentiment. The unprocessed canister of film is the existing value of sentiment; photos that are very dear to me.

Hence, I wanted to delineate an abstraction and play around with the ideas of the perceived difference between these two objects.

Planned outcome: a structure of ziploc-ed objects, mainly flowers hung and exhibited in either an embossed cut book.

The flowers delineate the notion of sentiment and nostalgia. Often given to your loved ones, we realise that these flowers would eventually wither. The notion of transience became a recurring concept that I could push to further delineate the abstraction of the sentiment, nostalgia and emotions.

The draft of the first, rough outcome

A flower in an (almost) air-tight zip loc bag.

As this is only a mere draft/sample, it is not perfect but wanted to roughly visualise the outcome.

Process

I had used rose pink to collar the water. I had graded the amount of colour intensity based from the amount of drops, starting from 1, 3, 5 and finally 7 – an n+2 formula.

The flower were only placed in the rose coloured water after 7 hours. As such, it did not manage to take in sufficient water as it was presumably, dead.

Reflection

There were a few things I had to take note before progressing with the final project.

The bought flowers should be placed immediately in the coloured water. Otherwise, it will wither and not uproot the coloured water; giving it the effect I had intended.
Creating an air-tight compartment is not as easy as I thought it would. The ziplock bag slowly regains air and after a certain period, air will be in the bag, removing the ‘tighten’ effect I had attempted to achieve.
I realised that a flower would remain dead longer than it would be alive , an interesting idea I could further push for this project.

Images

A series of dead flowers

No coloured water was taken in by the roots

The lower stems were merely stained by the coloured water.

Point-Line-Plane, Process

I wanted to focus on delineating a shape from a one point perspective.

The aerial view of the study model attempts to visualize what it should look like, from a two-dimensional perspective.

I wanted to recreate a spiral shape, onto a curved plane. As the final material is translucent plastic, the criss-crossing of the lines on the exterior portion of the structure would provide visual interest.

I had foiled the material into a curved shape, almost cylindrical in nature to provide the surface of which it can be played around with.