“Simplicity, clarity, singleness: These are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness and joy as they are also the marks of great art.”

—Richard Holloway

 

Minimalism is an intriguing concept for me. It leaves a lot of “blanks” in the interpretation that everyone can fill in the blanks however they like. There is no right or wrong answer, but there is always an answer that is closer to the artists’ intention.

One of the artworks that I found interesting is Oneness of Concrete (1971) and Oneness of Wood (1969) which are parts of Jiro Takamatsu’s Oneness series (1969 – 1972).

 

Oneness of Concrete & Oneness of Wood by Jiro Takamatsu

 

I feel that in that simplicity—breaking things and fitting them back together—I can actually form a narrative inside my head. A tale about how sturdy things can still be broken. A story about how something can still be “whole” in its brokenness. A question of identity, finding beauty in the broken, life and death. There are plenty other narratives I can think of. The piece itself is almost poetic, I’d say.

 

 

While I think it’s essential for art to tell a narrative, I don’t think it’s good to enforce that. Letting the audience form their own narrative is just as powerful. Ironically, this is contrasting with my group’s project, where we are feeding the audience with our story. However, I think the “minimalism” can still be found in the way we tried to “show” (and not tell) the audience what’s happening, let them interpret the severity of the situation themselves, and give them a certain degree of freedom to act.

 

 

Reference:

https://www.theartstory.org/movement-minimalism-history-and-concepts.htm

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/takamatsu-oneness-of-concrete-t13499

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/takamatsu-oneness-of-wood-t13511

This time, we attached the circuit into our cardboard prototype.

We did write the codes, but they didn’t work the way we wanted to, so for the presentation, we just tested out the sensitivity of the photoresistors. At first I was a bit worried that the photoresistors wouldn’t be a very good sensor, but they turned out to be more sensitive than I expected.

Feedback received from the presentation:

  • Use backlight instead of LEDs on the gap so it won’t interfere with the photoresistors
  • Add ambience noise (e.g. whispers) to attract audience
  • Play around with the volume

So now, the things that we need to focus on are:

  • Think of the materials we need and the exact amount of each of those
  • Start making the story: think of how many recordings to make and the length for each one
  • Settle the code

Video of the class presentation:

 

After that, I went back and tried to fix the code. We need to make a circuit where when the light that falls on the photoresistors is on the minimum (darkest), the sound will start playing. Since we don’t have ethernet shield to read SD card (is that what we need?), for now the sounds are just from the buzzer. Here’s the working circuit.

However, I’m still not sure whether we need the sounds to overlap each other when both of them are triggered or not, but for now there will only be one sound played regardless of the number of sensors activated.

As for now, I think we’ll need to just try the different things first and make sure the electrical component works.

 

Group: Vania, Dan Ning

For the group mood box, we decided to use the other recording (the one I didn’t use). For that sound, we used rhythm sticks, triangle, and zig zag board.

Instruments used

This is the sound.

Here is my waveform analysis for the sound.

Mood Box

Here is our final group mood box.

 

We put the model in a circular arrangement to represent repetition, although there is some kind of starting point indicated by the positioning of the wire (wrapped with aluminium foil) and the ball of wire and thread.

Zoomed in

 

The wooden sticks represent the dominant, constant sound of rhythm sticks. They sound very stable and straightforward, hence we placed wooden sticks in the straight directions. The up-and-down positioning suggests that the sound is all over the place.

The wires wrapped with aluminium foil represent the subordinate, which is the zig zag board. The texture of crumpled foil suggested the rough, edgy sound of the friction. The sharp cuts of the sound is represented by the sharp edge of the wires.

The subdominant sound, which is the triangle, is represented by the ball made of wire and thread. The thread tangled all over the place since the sound of the triangle kind of “melted” into the entire recording and enveloped the other sounds.

Top view

 

We also tried to make the frame “invisible” by using transparent acrylic and tubes to frame.

We put black as the base and thread color to give a darker, more mysterious mood; but it is the calming kind of darkness.

 

Reflection

The challenges when creating this model:

One, the positioning of the up-and-down wooden sticks. We couldn’t get the positions right although we tried using several different methods; they always ended up a bit off.

Two, using the right amount of glue. If we used too much (especially on the transparent acrylic), it would look very messy. If we used too little, they wouldn’t stick very stably.

In the end, we required more time than we actually predicted due to those challenges. However I think our end result is good as our intention is clearly expressed in the model.

For this project, I worked together with Sabrina and Pei Wen. We decided to make a head gear and a pair of shoes.

Here are some of the sketches.

Shoes sketch

Head gear sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The head gear is supposed to represent our pleasant scents, while the shoes represent our unpleasant scents. Our pleasant smells are tea, candles, and hay; our unpleasant smells are carrot juice, damp clothes, and toothpaste.

Head Gear

 

                                                           

For the head gear, the idea is to go “up”, so we made the components pointing upwards as much as possible. We used wire wrapped in black craft foam as the base to make it strong yet comfortable for the head. To keep the upper parts light, we used art card and thin wire wrapped in gold paper for the other elements.

The idea of going “up” represents tea and candle, which usually produce steam (which floats up). The strong head gear, which grounded the elements to the head, represents hay.

 

Shoes

 

We tried it first using art card.

As for the shoes, we tried to incorporate the same idea, that is, to go “up”. Hence we made the corrugated board strips go high until they touch around the leg area.

The jaggy texture of corrugated board looks like flow of water, which represents damp clothes, and also looks like toothpaste when put on toothbrush. Meanwhile, the shoes are shaped with pointy end, which represent the shape of carrots. The plastic shoes were also kept together by strings to show tension and discomfort.

 

End Result

 

Although I feel that there is very little time, I am quite satisfied with the end product. It was challenging to combine different ideas into one and incorporate them into a product with interesting yet reasonable design, but it was a fun challenge to conquer. Here’s Sabrina modeling our accessories!

 

Lastly, thanks to Pei Wen and Sabrina for being great people to work with!

Bottle Sculpture

 

How is smell related to memories?

Our memory is triggered by a lot of things; what we see, what we touch, what we feel. What we smell can also trigger memories. In fact, scent is one of the greatest trigger of memory. The concept of recollecting memories with the use of scent is also called olfactory memory.

Image result for scent memory
My pleasant smell is the smell of Chinese tea…
 

 

…while my unpleasant smell is the smell of carrot juice.

 

 

Here is my bottle sculpture.

Front view

Top view

The base (dominant part) is supposed to represent a cup. The rest of the sculpture has the idea of going “up” because I want to portray a “steaming cup”, which represents my pleasant smell. At the top there is just a whole chunk of wrinkled bottle, which shows something very “cringy” and unpleasant for me, and even almost nauseating.

At first I wanted to make the wrinkly part by cutting some holes in the bottle and then heating it, but it didn’t turn out as expected.

 

Planar Model

 

A plane is an element with surface direction without mass.

There are two types of plane, 2D and 3D. The difference is, if you look from above, 2D planes fit in a rectilinear shape, whereas 3D planes don’t.

Types of planes

Here are my planar models.

 

2D analysis of my models

Model 1

I used a grouped plane for the dominant, broken plane for the subdominant, and bent plane for the subordinate. I tried to make the curves for the dominant at two-thirds and one-third of the total height respectively. I filled the void above the shorter curve using the subdominant. I put the subordinate at the same area as the subdominant to leave the bigger curve area empty, to contrast with the “crowd” at the other side. In a sense, it is also a form of counter-balancing.

From top view, I made the subdominant point away to kind of fill in the empty area at the top corner.

 

Model 2

For this one, I used twisted plane for the dominant, grouped plane for the subdominant, and a straight plane for the subordinate. I just realized that actually both of my models are similar in a sense that I made the subdominant go up and leave the rest of the area above empty.

From top view, the corners are generally empty while the center part is fully covered by the dominant and even the subdominant.

To me, this model looks like a snake in a playground for some reason. That was my initial idea for that, but I don’t think I convey it well enough.

 

I feel like I should have explored more with the ideas I want to convey, because although I did use different types of planes and different arrangements, they have similar vibes.