Reading Response: The Modernist Era

I do not think that anybody should worry about being timeless but rather be concerned about doing the job at hand. -Page 44

The idea of being timeless is interesting as the term “canon” was loosely thrown in during one of my art history modules. “Canon” refers to an art piece that stands representative of achieving absolute effect in an entire generation of art makers, having an implicit timeless quality to it. For example, Duchamp’s Fountain or Picasso’s Guernica.

In the later pages, it is mentioned that there “has been a betrayal of Modern in the form of endless rationalisations about decoration, coupled with complaints about the coldness of Modern design” I find this quote itself tinted with probable faults/betrayal apart from the one aforementioned. In the short yet educational weeks placed under Lisa, we have learnt many traits of different art movements. And with that, terms like “decoration” and “rationalisation” and “coldness” themselves are intuitive for many opposing art movements. Art deco loved decoration and yet Constructivism hated it. Dada hated rationalisation yet the Impressionists revered it. Futurists loved the coldness of visuals yet performance artists loved the sensual and dynamism of human mediums.

Hence, we realise that there is this apparent paradox in art. Timelessness itself reveals the chance of betrayal, where we flip from one side of the coin to another. One visual trait we possess can be abandoned within the next decade. It is empowering to follow the quote, where we should finalise our works according to contemporary issues, instead of worrying if our artworks fit the bill of our contemporary cookie cutter.

Reading Response: Age of Information

 

Reading the interview of Massimo Vignelli was particularly inspiring as the recent contemporary art modules I have had have been revolving around the values of contemporary artists and their relationship with their target audience. 

Back tracking to the progressions of art movements introduced to us, we are able to magnify and zoom out for greater details since the chapter of art history has already been signed off. I find it interesting how this particular quote in the featured article by Vignelli  lists down four essential traits to have that defines a quality work. These four qualities somehow have a representation and notion of time and space to its definition, be it intentional or not.

a short manifesto to quality work from Vignelli by Brendan

Quality begins with the sprout of passion, such as that of Dadaism. It is the spirit of anarchism towards cultural, social and political boundaries that triggers the rigid and pushes the poets. It is only with the initial passion to push an idea that creates art movements.

Curiosity follows this procedure as passion runs out and free spirited expression needs to offshoot into more intellectual/intended practices. This is evident in Picasso’s exploration into different variations of Abstraction and Cubism: Analytic and Synthetic Cubism. Curiosity drives the artist to explore into different techniques and methods, eventually finding their inner mojo.

Intensity is a hard word to define, but probably refers to the extent to which an artist attempts to defend their value and visuals. In examples like Rodchenko and Duchamp, the ludicrous quality of their artworks are adventurous for some, but can be hilarious to those who do not understand them. The intensity to which they wish to portray their works will affect the visual aesthetic and believability.

Lastly leaves professionalism, a stage where people will take whatever you give them because you’re a professional artist. 🙂

 

Bao House

“Singapore” 2018

This is Singapore as a budding nation, transforming from the dull baby blue circle filled with endless potential into the vibrant triangle that propels into the endless void.

The upwards gradient of red to yellow signifies a transition of banality into energy and vibrancy. There are also multiple triangles of varying warm colours to signify the resilience we share as a country that defies the odds of many conflicts. With triangular shadows placed below to create a spatial illogicality.

There are however, two varying versions of spheres: one baby blue and one dark blue. The baby blue represents the infinite potential with decreasing opacity to reveal transparency, as a statement to the political environment in Singapore, whereas the dark blue sphere that is slightly smaller creates visual weight to imply sturdiness and foundation, holding balance in the asymmetrical perspective in the picture.

The dark blue sphere offshoots into multiple horizontal and vertical lines of different weight, paying tribute to Singapore’s skyline as well as the concept of Constructivism in a Singaporean context. The diagonal lines with weaker weight in one end helps to create the spatial awareness within the picture.

 

Art Nouveau

a dragonfly
and its surrounding

 

 

new view

After a stroll through the Botanics Garden, I happened to notice a tiny dragonfly perching on a green stalk.

I found this scene quite interesting as there were a few elements that were visually dynamic. Firstly the dragonfly was just sitting on the tip of the leaf minding its own business, being comfortable in its own environment. Secondly there were still morning dew even though it was already 5p.m. And thirdly we were near a water body. I realised this dragonfly was living in its own version of a HDB flat and this was the Singapore culture I was looking for ,albeit rudimentary in its aesthetics.

The graphic above expresses the art nouveau quality with its usage of floral and fauna as icons. Even though I didn’t use curves, I took elements of abstraction and turned the dew into circles. I kept a minimum use of colours but using clear cut, criss cross lines to respect the dynamic and bold lines art nouveau employs.

This is Singapore culture as it is merely a visualisation of the urban lifestyle we surround ourselves with, projected onto the organic “skyscrapers” the dragonfly lives in. It stands on the point that art nouveau wants to transform architecture into something living and floral-like.

A Kinetic Beast Finalisation Part 1

After a tedious process of taming the beasts, we finally understood how our designated animals interact, individually and together. Minjee and I came together with our final project-  

The Purifier.

Do check out Minjee’s OSS for part 2 on our explorations, challenges, and future projections. https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/minjee001/croc-plover-behind-the-scenes/


The link redirects to our PDF to summarise the entire project:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QFSrEBHJk2F3MRmh2KwJDc0KQH_-S-_C/view?usp=sharing

final submission

Product Brief:  Our kinetic installation named The Purifier, is an amalgam of the quiet aggression of a crocodile and the perky routines of a plover bird.

It is a moving platform constructed with a Japanese “deer fountain”  pivot that directs hot water down a scaly acrylic board brushed with thermo-chromatic paint. 

The pivot represents the plover bird‘s plucky energy of pecking incessantly at the crocodiles‘ teeth. The slanted scale mimics the body of a crocodile,  slowly and gently floating on water while being cleaned up by the plover bird. It hides its sharp teeth within its scale exoskeleton.

Meanwhile, both animals share an affinity with warm temperature, where the plover bird uses the heated water to lay eggs and the crocodile uses its back scales to source out heat. We chose to represent this common trait with colours that changes according to temperature. And hot water is a concept that is  physically and aesthetically charged with energy.

The process of starting this installation starts from funnelling hot water down onto the peak of the pivot, which the water accumulates weight against the balance point and eventually pours out. The hot water brings the “plover bird” down to the “crocodile” and trails down the slope. The hot water seeps down the acrylic, turning the acrylic from dark green to yellow as it moves along protruding edges, slithering like a crocodile.

The hot water sliding off the acrylic propels the installation away.

 

                         添 水                          

movement of pivot
colour changing to heat

vision
ocean purifier

After much consideration, we realised that there was one obvious function that this installation could be broken down into- Cleaning. 

The very fundamental relationship between the crocodile and the plover bird stems from the plover bird eating flesh off the crocodile who just lies in the water stale and awaiting for a chance to pound. This could not point further than an ocean purifier.

The Ocean Purifier is a futuristic device that is self functioning, afloat the ocean.It moves around the ocean without manual control, filtering the ocean clean of pollution. Dirtied water spirals down the polygonal funnel, splitting into the magnetic pivot filters, picking up metal scraps. The water then moves down into the jagged base,  where bigger chunks of junk are retained. Technology is advanced and the jagged base releases a non-toxic chemical that purifies the water. It changes colour the moment water touches it, becoming visually stunning whilst in a concept that is often seen “dirty”


To accentuate this idea and installation, many explorations were done and those can be found on Minjee’s OSS. The process of making this installation functional was tedious and that will be explained below.

Plover’s Pivot

Minjee started out with a great abstract representation of the plover bird that funnels water as it moves along a pivot, much like a water wheel. We later found out that this was a concept commonly known as a “deer fountain” or sōzu which is commonly used to frighten crop pests away. We took a while to understand and harness the concept of balance, our attempts are shown below. 

 

more failed attempts
successful attempt

We realised that this entire structure is based on balance and weight. The pivot is a beam lined with an off-centred balance thats heavier behind. This creates a default position of perking upwards like a bird shown in the sozu shown below. The water’s weight when accumulating on the beam pushes it downwards and releases the water. We realised the reason why our model did not work efficiently was because it lacked space below the beam. This meant that the beam lacked space for the pivot to rotate down and move up, losing ability to gain momentum. We picked up on it and adjusted the model’s height accordingly.

sozu
movement
perspective view

Crocodiles Scales

The crocodiles’ scales were less restrained with technicality, since it is just mainly acrylic shards with thermo chromatic paint. The crocodiles’ scales thus changes colour according to the heat. Our initial model was abstracted scales that rises with water, which we eventually turned into a flat plane where water floated on, which is further abstracted into protruding spikes. The spikes allow the water to flow around in a slithering pattern, instead of one smooth flow.

initial colours- dark green
heated colour- yellow

On the day of presentation, the scales turned yellow 1 minute into standing outside. This immediacy and adjustment to heat is representative of this dynamic ability of the crocodile.

perspective view
closeup

The shards are placed at an angle that allows the water to flow in a slithering position. They are also placed at an angle such that the water can flow over.

Initially the thermo-chromatic paint was lined over the plover bird instead of the crocodile. It was meant to have the bird change colour when the hot water funnels down. Instead, we decided that the water flowing over the crocodile’s back would be more visually engaging.

We realised that the thermo-chromatic paint (which is actually heat-sensitive nail polish) turns transparent when heated. We had an issue earlier on as we realised that the black paint turns white, which is coincidentally the colour of the plover bird model.

plover changing colours

 

To further elaborate on the movement of the animals within this installation:

The crocodiles’ movement is represented as the slithering motions of the trailing water hot water, leaving a line of yellow amongst the dark green acrylic. It is also represented in the floating motion of how a crocodile hunts, snout above the water. More subtly is the representation of having teeth underneath the acrylic board, which will be discussed further in part 2.

The plover bird’s movement is the pecking action of picking out meat from the crocodiles teeth, just a routine action of falling up and down.