Monthly Archives: April 2017

Research – DADA

While researching about Dadaism, I didn’t expect myself to be so intrigued by this art style. At my first glance of Hannah Hoch’s works, they just look like a bunch of cut outs being pasted together. I do think that the composition of the pieces look nice despite the offset in proportions, but that was just it. It was until I read what the Dada movement is about that I realised that, “OH. The meaning behind is actually meaningful!!”

So, what is Dada?

Silly as it sounds, it is a rebellious art movement that ‘mocks’ the norm and invokes thoughts about society. It started at around 1916 as a reaction to violence and deaths of World War 1 and the patriotism of people that led to the war. The artworks are not meant to be aesthetically pleasing but to get people to question about the nationalism and societal structures. It was goofy and sarcastic and playful movement although it was a form of protest. By throwing aside rationality, Dada artists experimented different ways and materials to express their creativty! The artists usually includes topics about technology and uses cutouts from print media to showcase the increasing connection with the modern life.

The artists themselves question their purpose as artists and that constitutes as art. This led to the spontaneous process of using untraditional materials to mix and match to create artworks. They will gather different pieces of papers/photographs or other materials and arrange them. There also other various forms of Dadaism through sculptures and performance art but we shall leave that for now hahaha.

Photomontage & Collage

For collages, artists used a wide range of materials, from a subway ticket to a piece of handkerchief, they paste the fragments to create a chaotic but neat image.

(Kurt Schwitters – Difficult, 1942-43)

(Kurt Schwitters – Merz 231 Miss Blanche, 1923)

For photomontages, it is a collage of pasted items of existing photographs from the press or photographic reproductions. This form of Dada is more commonly practiced by artists as it effectively shocked the public when they see photos of important figures that they were used to seeing, being edited in a nonsensical way. The fact that they used printed media to create artworks, and arrange the pieces unthinkingly challenges the concise traditional art form of painting.

 (Hannah Höch – Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar Republic, 1919)

Typographies

“They would use as many different fonts as they wanted, would punctuate in unconventional ways, loved to drop random letters or symbols throughout their pages.  They would also print both horizontally and vertically on the same paper, composing indifferently in any direction.”

Artist played with different composition styles with texts to create a visually popping effect, sending hidden messages about politics or social problems. There was a close relation between text and images, using a variety of lettering formats and line dimensions.

(Kurt Schwitters & Theo van Doesburg – Poster design, 1922)

Modern Take

Dadaism is still pretty relevant today as many artists use it as an art style to incorporate into their works. It certainly helps to deliver a visually-popping effect and depending on the composition, creates whimsical moods or jarring effects with the intense contrast.

Here are some examples!

 

It certainly looks like a fun style to explore in my future works! Hope this post helps give you a little more insight of what this unique and empowering art movement is about!

Project 2: Zine Final Outcome!

Hello, here’s the full layout of my zine about Marine Parade!

(cover pages: front & back)

page 2 & 3

page 4 & 5

page 6 & 7


Reflection:

When I started out in this project, I was really quite excited as it seem like while trying to present and encourage people to discover more about Singapore, I myself was opening my eyes to a side of Singapore I never knew as well! I felt like I learnt a lot from my exploration adventures. I used to feel that because Singapore was so small, that was nothing else to do. But being on this zine journey made me realised there is still a bigger world out there. I am stoked to visit more unfamiliar places in the future, especially after reading my classmates’ zines! ╰(*´︶`*)╯

Now for the zine process.

I honestly felt that my idea was not bad. The fact that I wanted to stick to a colour theme and venture on exploring the ‘texture’ side was sort of stepping out of my comfort zone as I was used to drawing (but with not much technical skills lol).

Which was why it was really disappointing that I could not complete my zine in the best way possible. It was still far from what I wanted it to be. There were so many other layout methods that I could have approached e.g. own typography. I should also include textual information on introducing my ideas and explaining the uniqueness of each layer/page, as people who don’t read my OSS won’t know my concept behind the zine.

It was regretful that I was rushed to do the zine although we were given a lot of time and it was unfulfilling to showcase works that were not my best. I could not share my zine properly with my peers. It was even worse that I could not have it printed professionally and my zine was printed in such a bad format, I had to end up resizing it down to nearly an A6 size after cutting away the edges. (。•́︿•̀。)

Given another chance and better time management, I will show a better zine.

Even so, thank you for reading my post and I hoped that you still enjoyed it. ◡̈⃝

 

Project 2: Making of Zine

Heyya! My zine’s idea was to focus on textures and shapes unique to Marine Parade, categorising into the ‘layers’ that make up the neighbourhood.

Since I wanted to explore the topic about textures, I got the idea to incorporate other textures and superimpose them into my photos and mimicking the actual photos, trying to create more variety in my works and not make the pages that flat since I was only planning to focus on the visual aspect on the zine only through my photos.

For example, the waves will be replaced with lace.

 

scan of my lace dress: sea waves

 

scan of blue sticky notes overlaying: tiles

 

scan of several blue yarns: lines patterns of the rock

 

scan of cellophane paper: glass roof

I also did some watercolour drawings so that my beach layer won’t be so plain.

For the buildings, I thought of mixing textures of clay and paint streaks to make a play on the characteristics of how buildings were made.

scan of paint streaks


Now for the pages process! I used Photoshop to create all my edits, saving the pieces as individual pictures then pasting in on InDesign.

I forgot to mention that I titled my zine ‘Slice of Life’. The name was derived from the anime genre – slice of life, whereby the anime of this genre focuses on a cut of narrative that could happen in the every day life of a character. It enhances the ‘layers’ concept and introduces to the readers that they will be getting a taste of a part of Marine Parade!

Because of this, for my cover page, I edited a slice of cake showing the different layers that I gathered from my photos.

It was modelled after this photo of a chocolate cake:

The ‘cake’ layers include the sea waves, tunnel wall connecting to ECP, the post office’s architecture, rock monument, a shop’s banner. The top was then decorated with the clouds as the whip cream and the wheel sculpture as the chocolate piece.

Photos used for this edit:

I also put the cake on top of a paper plate, similar to those used in hawker centres (the popiah), as the use of ‘proper’ plates and utensils may make the styles too contrasting as the cake looks quite whimsical whereas the a porcelain plate is bit formal.

I used my blue painted swirls to add on abstract patterns in the background so that it was less plain.

The back cover follows the same layout showcasing an empty plate with leftover bits of the cake, signifying the readers digested the mini experience of Marine Parade after reading my zine, being a perfect last page to my zine.

 

For the pages inside, I originally wanted to divide the pages from the top to bottom as people, cultures (food, monuments, etc), architecture, beach. I realised the limitations of the number of pages I could do and thus decided on the following layout.

pg. 2: contents page – introducing readers to the layers

pg. 3: first layer – cultures

pg. 4-5: second layer – architecture

pg. 6-7: third layer – beach

 

For the contents page, I kept it simple. As mentioned, I wrote down the ‘layers’ that I would be showing.

The drawing of whale was extracted from one of the wall murals below the HBD flats.

 

For page 3, it is about layer 1: the cultural aspect of what makes Marine Parade unique. Unlike most other neighbourhoods, there was an effort to make it a culturally unique place. There was many recurring usage of the nautical theme through the multiple figurines placed around the neighbourhood.

  

 

I also included some of the ‘everyday’ objects that I found! Although there were not exactly part of the nautical theme, I had not seen them in any places yet, making them special too.

I compiled the photos as a collage.

 

For the 4-5 pages, they centred on the architectures that one can find in marine parade.

I wanted to present the architecture to form up one continuos flow of buildings. Mimi helped gave me some ideas such as making fonts out of these building structures or just putting them in a collage style. Such as:

Another idea was to overlay the different patterns that I found. Whereby the buildings will follow the grids of the patterns or fit into them.

   

In the end result, I chose to make it as a collage style.

I then added on the “reflective glass roof” cellophane paper cutouts and overlaid the paint streaks in a similar fashion to follow the pattern as shown below. The pattern was used in many of the HDB flats’ void-deck walls design.

 

 

For the 6-7th page, they featured the beach – East Coast Park!

I decorated it with the little shells/starfishes drawings I made. The background used was the waves painting. As mentioned, I used the lace to superimpose on the sea waves.

I included the stone benches as I felt that they are an iconic object found in ECP. The white flowers were also added as greeneries are an important part of the beach.

During my visit, the trees near seawalls area were blooming! It was really beautiful and I wanted to include them for appreciation of the nature aspect of Marine Parade.

 

 

And that’s all the pages that make up my zine! Hope you had fun viewing it!

Project 2: Zine’s Research + Ideas Presentation

Hello! For our 2D’s second and final project, we were each assigned to a random neighbourhood in Singapore and afterwards present a zine about it (:

Aaaand the neighbourhood that I got is.. Marine Parade! To be honest, the ‘bubble’ that I live in mainly revolves around the MRT’s purple north-east line and I had zero idea about what does Marine Parade look like. Just the week before Mimi picked the neighbourhood for me, I was talking to my hall friend, Evelyn. Our conversation went something along the lines of:

Me – “Oh ya, where do you stay ah?”
Evelyn – “Marine Parade!”
Me – “Oh…. Marine Parade.. Where is that?”

 

Great start to the project. However I was quite pumped up as this meant exploring a side of Singapore that I was unfamiliar with! I had no idea of where to go and what to expect, and it was really interesting to discover the unique sides of Marine Parade in my recce trips.

It was really quite inconvenient to visit via MRT but lucky for me, I had a direct bus from my house, bus 43! (But it was really super far when I went from hall…) During my first visit, I went during the evening as it had been raining for the previous few days. The findings were not much. I only covered the Marine Drive area.

    

There some nice mural paintings about community care (for the elderly). And I noticed that most of the HDB flats were white with some blue accents.

After some of my classmates did a presentation on colour theory, I got inspired to have colour theme so that my photos can look more consistent. Which was why on my second recce trips, I focused on sceneries/objects that were white & blue (with some green)!

Here’s what I found!

            

I walked from Parkway Parade to the estate areas, covering basically the whole Marine Parade Road: Marine Drive, Marine Terrace, Marine Crescent. It was really fun photographing the colours aspects of the neighbourhood, there were a lot! I guess it was because there was an effort to integrate a nautical theme since it was built on waters (which I will elaborate on in a later part). From HDB flats to condominiums to even the landed properties, most of them were a mixture of blue & white. Along the way I also spotted objects that were blue & white too, such as the chairs, market shops’ banner and decorations.

Also it was then that I realised that East Coast Park was part of Marine Parade….. Which was embarrassing because every Singaporean had been to ECP at least once in their life. Which was even worse when I told people I have not been to Marine Parade before when I frequent ECP often when I was young (¬_¬;) ohmy

These were the photos that I took and which that I used to present my findings.

ANYWAYS! I did some research on my own too.

Background Information of Marine Parade:

Marine Parade is a reclaimed land, being part of Singapore’s multi-phase project. Works started at 1966. Being one of the first few housing estates on reclaimed land, it was popular in demand of that time. Which was why in recent times, it had regraded as one of the silver zones in Singapore.

I thought that the fact that Marine Parade is a reclaimed land was really cool, and I wanted to incorporate this information into my zine’s idea.

Reclaimed land is the mad-made process of stacking and packing layers of sand on sea waters. Because there are layers of the whole land, I thought of translating that into my zine.

Whereby the pages of the zine are the layers that form up Marine Parade, e.g. the sea waters on the last page. And architecture, people, culture are the layers stacking on top (the upper pages). I proposed a rough idea to Mimi but she felt that the idea had to be more concise.

An idea then popped in my mind. The concept of these layers are also associated with their ‘textures’, e.g. Smooth waters vs rough sandy lands vs angled layers of buildings. From my photos, I noticed that there were also many intriguing-looking shapes and patterns from the buildings.

Basically, I wanted to work with textures and shapes of Marine Parade, exploring the ‘layers’ of the land, while being in the theme of blue & white.

I wanted to my audience to focus more on the visuals on the zine which was why I decided to include only photos and edits in it, showcasing the textures of each layer.

I went to look up for inspirations on how I could make the layouts of my photographs more interesting.

 

I wanted to do more the scrapbook style similar to those of Japanese magazines, where they played around with patterns and photo to make their editorials more appealing.

 

In order to gather more finds about the textures, I went back for a third and fourth recce. This time I explored near the ECP area and got these photos.

          

Once again I found new textures to work such as the wall designs, sand particles, sea waves. Also! There were a lot of cute sea animals statues aww. And bonus popiah photo since it was my lunch @ marine parade central’s hawker centre + it’s sort of white colour haha.

 

I think I was more or less settled with these photographs at that point. I did went back two more times because I wanted gather some thoughts and opinions people had of marine parade as I felt that texts can make my zine look more entertaining to read and convey my message better.

 

Refer to my next post for the making of the zine’s pages! (:

Project 3: Library Installation

Hello! For the final 4D project, we were assigned to create site specific installation work in the ADM library. It was a pretty tiring project but I’m glad I managed to produce an art piece!

Research:

Like how I start with every other project, I analyse the brief and hope to attain ideas from it. To me, it was understood that I had to create something that enhances a specific role/function of the library, while being a ‘site of surprise’, making it look entertaining enough for people to be interested in interacting with it.

Perhaps my creative juices of the semester was running out but I was really clueless when delving into this project. It was challenging as we had to include the 4D aspect in our works – photo motion, video, sounds, or objects. Sadly, I did not have any major inspirations or concepts. I even did a rough planning to better conceptualise the ideas:

After listing down some possible topics, I narrowed it down to what a library is:

    • students mostly come to the library to study
    • maybe also for reading purposes (rarely in a school library)
    • look: modern (study) vs whimsical (magical fantasy)

Therefore I wanted to focus on creating installations that can enhance the reading/studying experience of students, but I not sure how ‘professional’ the works should look. And here’s some of my rough ideas (I still got no clue on what do to)

When I presented these 4 rough ideas to Michael, I personally felt that idea no.1 looked like it can work best as it had a clearer message – “creating a good ambience for students to study.” Although my final idea had changed quite a lot, it was derived from this idea!

So for my original idea, I wanted to create a interactive table board at the study tables areas. A motion screen will be attached to the table top, connecting to switches, which students can adjust – music, lighting and screen’s background animation, to suit one’s preference in creating a study environment.

I had no idea why I was so into exploring the tech side of art but it was clearly impossible to do so with my time/money constraints and lack of technical knowledge. I went on to do some research to get some inspirations and voila! I found this post documenting the 2012 architecture festival in montpellier. In one of their art exhibitions, this work piece was titled ‘site surprise, site supernate’ by tri-oh! ateliers:

It occurred to me that by building the light/video/photo/sound ambience in a box! It would be easier to control and not affect/disturb their peers. I thought of suspending the box though the pole structure above the table (light source). However I also realised that if I want to include video motion in my work, how am I suppose to secure all of that in a tiny box?

I knew I had to ‘scale’ it down to being an installation on the ground so I had to find another spot in the library. Since it was no longer near the study area, the theme does not have to be so ‘serious’. By this point, my hanging box idea changed to one that encourages users to lie down and put their head inside, making them rest and experience a different world inside the box. Instead of trying to create a soothing study environment for the students, I wanted them to experience a magical setting one gets from reading books, having a mini step-away from the reality of studying. Which was why I had to find comfortable spot for them to lie down.

 

In the end I decided on this sofa spot below the staff staircase as it had the biggest space to work with!

 

There were also many power plugs available, which can help support the high numbers of electronics that I would use in my installation.

I will be planning to create a box unique to the site’s shape. AND FINALLY I GOT MICHAEL’S APPROVAL WOOHOO! However when I submitted the proposal to Michael and the library, I felt that it would be a bit too inconsiderate of me to encourage student to lie on top on the couch as it may will not reflect well on the student’s image as well.. Why was I decided to up the scale and create a box big enough for a student to sit inside.

(sketch up of proposal)

(my ideal presentation)

Title of Artwork: Dreamy Flashback

I chose this name because

1. It is an actual instrumental soundtrack that I like. It is composed by Kevin Macleod

2. I wanted to create a DREAMY aesthetics feel about my work and because I will also be using… (wait for it,) FLASHlights. hehe

Work description (summary):

At our age, most young adults come to the library just to study. But we seemed to have forgotten how the library used to be a huge collection of wonderful novels and books waiting for us to explore when we were kids. This installation is to recreate the magical feeling one gets from reading, having their own little imaginative world. Students are welcome to use it to relax in this space, and have a break from the reality of studying, invoking the joy of reading they once had.

To recreate that fantasy feel, I thought of different environmental settings, which will be shown through a scenic video. The environments include nature, steampunk, aquarium, and galaxy. As you can see, I wanted the projector to be situated at the top, so that the projection can be shone all over the interior of the box, creating the effect that the student is inside the world. I would also be using different light sources to enhance the effects of projected worlds (notice lights 1,2,3 in the sketch).


Construction process:

I wanted to make my box out of cardboard too, similar to my inspiration. I felt that the plain exterior of the box will provide a great element of surprise with the colourful settings that were shown inside the box! And also it was cost-effective.

I managed to get a lot of big cardboard from my mum (THANK YOU!!!)

Before starting the construction, I had make measurements of the couch area so that it would not over-exceed the size limitations. I also had to rent a projector. And and and, I need to stay how grateful I am to this sir that lent me the projector!!! ヽ(˙︶˙)ノ I was originally given the bulky white projector like other people but it was really heavy and I was worried that the projector would not hold up and may fall on the student’s head! After listening to my long-winded explanation and endless pleading, he decided to make an exception for me and lent the smaller projector to me! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THIS PROJECT POSSIBLE!!!

With things prepared and set, let’s go!

Sorry that there is no footage of me making the box but it was REALLY tiring and time consuming!!! It was even more difficult to work with tapes have low adhesive power, which was why I had to resort to tearing small pieces to tie the cardboard sides together before taping over them down vertically.

(notice the orange circled part)

For the bottom box, I actually spend more than four hours on it I was so shocked that time past so quickly when you’re absorbed in doing work… 

For the square block base, I cut out a door for easy access. For the four cardboard flaps, I cut out two of them to create an empty sitting area inside the box for that people can still conformably sit on the couch instead of the cardboard layers. I left two remaining flaps as I wanted to create better support for the model.

For the interior decoration, I cut out drawings of a bird flying to present the idea of photo motion to fit into the ‘nature’ theme, similar to the effect of this picture:

 

I used lights 1: fairy light to hang around the interior of the box, creating a sense of dynamic movement in the box and to also guide the user’s eyes to the flow of the photo’s motions. I also did a drawing of a clock gear to fit into the steampunk theme to create to movement of gears turning.

Other lights: I made light 2 this star torchlight that I diy-ed from this idea:

For light 3 – the fish lantern, I first cut out a black circle then poked out random dots (in caring sizes) and triangles to create the starry night effect.

 

I made the fish lantern by cutting out various fish shapes in a black construction paper then overlay the shapes with red/purple/yellow cellophane papers, as I wanted to create the effect of many colour fishes swimming with the projection background.

For the projection video, I compiled a few scenic views with the themes of nature, steampunk, aquarium, and galaxy. Because when I did not want to bore the person in the box, I chose to create a mixture of scenes instead of showcasing the ‘worlds’ one by one. The sounds that I used in the mix were also a mixture of sounds from different ‘worlds’ as well!

I experimented with using sounds that were not directly related to the scene of the videos but rather to play with the possible sounds the scene could have made. E.g. the popping of bottle caps to show different bicycles riding past instead of the pedalling sounds. This helps to better transit the scenes. If you listened attentively, you will noticed that the background sound used in one scene would be the ‘melodic line’ of the next scene. I aimed to create a continuous video loop so that there will be an enhanced dreamy effect.

Check out the video below!

some were some of the projections made – galaxy themed with the star torchlight shining on them.

For the securing of the projector, I was struggling so much because I had to rest it on a new ‘roof’ that i built on top of the square block.

As seen from the above picture. The square base was quite secured (bye arrow). The projector however, had to be on top of the blue box so it could project downwards on the walls of the square block. The ‘1’ orange circe is the box containing the projector, while the ‘2’ orange circle is a plank to cover up the box, providing enough darkness for the projection to be seen more clearly. Although the plank was later on replaced by another box so that there a more consistent dimension in the box.

  

I cut out holes from the bottom for the projector’s wires and projections to fit through. The projector was originally tilted to with a tissue box. However the tissue box kept collapsing from the weight of the projector and in my final presentation I had to end up submitting the height with my duct tapes.

 

Of all the wires were brought the bottom side of the square block and attached to an extension plug.

 


Presentation:

It was really unfortunate, BUT IT WAS RAINING SO HEAVILY THAT DAY. Because of the scale of the box and the cardboard material and how there were so many electrical gadgets used, it was really difficult to transport my work through the rain.

Luckily for me, Van and Sammi accompanied me during the presentation break time to carry the installation over. For the work to carried over more easily, I had to bend the boxes… (ohm an) The rain also made the stickiness of the tape even weaker.

When we finally reached the library, I had to save whatever I could but it was still really… messy looking.

 

So yea as you can see, the duct tapes were all loosened up no matter how I tried to stick it back, even with new tapes. The boxes kept falling over as they had become really flimsy. Sighs, I really wished that it could have been cleaner-looking so that the box looks more professionally structured. This was also why I had to changed the location of the box from the couch to the ground, because the box just could not hold in when it was being placed so high off the ground. Even when I tried to secure it on the couch, the pieces kept dropping and for some reason, the projector kept getting disconnected.

In the end, this was what I presented:

Once again, it was really fun watching people interacting with my piece, especially how they were complaining that the box was too small to get in hahaha. Because they were sitting on the floor, they could only either lie down and fit their upper body in it, and get in a crouching position. I felt bad because I did try to present the ‘best’ size possible (big enough to fit most people) that was why I went to take measurements. But it did not seem to work ay.

Anyways, here are some of the pictures of the interactive moments!

 

THANK YOU LYDIA AND TREY FOR THE PHOTOS AND VIDEOS!!

AND THANK YOU MICHAEL AND CHRIS AND XF FOR TRYING OUT THE EXPERIENCE!!!

(〃^▽^〃)

 


Reflection:

Listening to my peers feedback and my own evaluation, I did felt that I could definitely improve in the appearance of the box by using better tapes and planning early to avoid the rain.

They suggested to use the available existing space of the library such as the above pic, by covering the staircase with a black backdrop and shining the projection on the wall. In order to make it seem more like a resting place, I should have included pillows or blanket in it as well!

I have maybe add some whimsical decorations on the outside (also made of cardboard) to attract people into trying and they would immediately know that the box is art-related. The drawings used for the photo-motion effect could have of better quality as well. There were some technical difficulties such as a control how big the image could be project and how the the lights’ designs may change with the intensity in brightness. These are areas worth considering.

But I do think that the video that I created had a visually effective effect on creating the mood. I tried to incorporate all the aspects of 4D that I had learnt over the past year – video, motion making, and sound. It like how well the lights worked with the installation although it was my first time.

Hope that you enjoyed my work and sorry that I was always unfair to my classmates for always being late for my submissions!!! Thank you and hope to see you soon! ^__^