Team Shingaporu: FINAL PROJECT

Hi Everyone! We are team Shingaporu and for this project, we are working on a landscape digital painting as part of the celebration for Singapore and Japan to commemorate the 50th anniversary which is happening right here right now.

sj50 logo STB_Joint-Tourism-Logo

Claim

Commemorating the 50th anniversary of Japan-Singapore diplomatic relationship. That is the reason why we combine Japanese traditional aspect (folded screen) with modern landscape of Singapore. We feel that not many people know about this ongoing special celebration, hence this visual response might serve more than just a display but an informative artwork.

 

 


 

Artist Statement:

Shingaporu is made in a way that when the viewers moves in a direction that is parallel to the artwork, they would be able to experience a change in the landscape: from Japan to Singapore, and vice versa. There would also be a moment where two landscapes intersect and exist on the same plane side by side, which symbolizes the close relationship between the two countries.

In fact, our visual response is actually an art to celebrate and increase the appreciation for the ongoing celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Singapore-Japan diplomatic relationship.

Since our visual response is based on the topic Japanese Screen Painting, we played along with the idea of Japanese screen paintings that usually come in pairs. The difference from the original historical art is our art exists as one single screen with two separate different paintings.

Then, in relation to our selected artefact: Four Seasons with Sun and Moon, we decided to paint a landscape of the world we live in now. Unlike in the past, we are more surrounded by skyscrapers and man-made buildings rather than nature. The seasons in the artefact represents a cycle and the passing of time. However, we do not use the different seasons to represent this. Instead, we make use of the foregrounds of each landscape to represent the past, and the backgrounds to represent the present. The “foreground of the past” consists of torn old paper texture, each country’s iconic flower and one of the oldest iconic place. Then, as we look far into the present and the future, we see the background of today’s cityscape. This way, we are able to keep traditional taste of Japanese screen painting despite using modern medium.

Lastly, viewers might noticed that the landscape of singapore is during the night and the landscape of japan is during the day. This corresponds to the yin and yang concept evident in our selected artefact.


 

 

 

Group Members: Darren Ho Jian Hunt, Feliciana, Sarah and Isabella Tong

Title of artwork: Shingaporu

Size: 6 A4 and folded to make an anamorphic art style

Medium: Digital Painting plus filter to make it look like a Screen Painting

Job Allocations:

  • Darren Ho Jian Hunt – Digital Artist for Singapore Landscape painting
  • Feliciana: Concept Artist plus Final Touchup
  • Isabella Tong: Digital Artist for Japan Landscape painting
  • Sarah: Researcher, Writer and Planner

 

Research and Reference: Four Seasons With Sun and Moon in National Museum Of Singapore

Screen Shot 2016-04-14 at 2.14.04 AM Screen Shot 2016-04-14 at 2.14.16 AM

Visual Analysis

  • Both screens have subject matters of nature and landscape: trees in different seasons, hills and valleys ‘framing’ the trees, grass, flowers.
  • Golden frame.
  • Each screen is divided into 2 ‘scenery’. First image: winter (L) with its white snow on the leaves, autumn (R) with red falling leaves, and both are during the day because the tone is bright. Second image: Summer (L) with barren land and withered plant, spring (R) with baby plants, blooming flowers and grass, and both are during the night because there is circular moon at the top side of the painting

Visual Response Idea

  • The digital painting of Singapore modern landscape.
  • Might include famous landmarks, buildings and places such as Merlion, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore Flyer, Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, Esplanade Theatre and many more.
  • Nature’s element presented in the painting: rain forest trees, orchids, or other plants which are present in Singapore.
  • The painting can be folded, just like Japanese screen

 

What else is being done for the celebrations

http://www.sg.emb-japan.go.jp/events_SJ50PA_Schedule.htm

  • There are several events being held in Singapore throughout the entire year to celebrate this joyous event. Events that include food, Artwork, Travel Fair etc. Follow the link to get more details on the different events.

 

Are all the celebrations about let’s forget the past and focus on the present and the future

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/30/sg30-sequel-singapore-japan-to-launch-sj50-to-celebrate-bilateral-ties.html

  • From the article, we read that,

“During World War II, when Japan occupied Singapore, thousands of Singaporeans were killed for being “anti-Japanese” or for being “Chinese sympathizers.” 

But there has been a sea change in relations since the 1945 end of the occupation. The countries launched diplomatic relations in 1966 – a year after Singapore gained its independence – and in the 1970s Japan became Singapore’s largest foreign investor and trading partner. The Lion City was also the first country to sign a free-trade agreement with Japan in 2002.”

To conclude, we can tell that the relationship between Singapore and Japan is ever growing and are going stronger as years goes by.

 

Why is the painting folded into anamorphic style and its function

  • Our artwork is such that when the viewer moves in a direction that is parallel to the artwork, they would be able to experience a change in the landscape (from singapore to japan, and vice versa). While moving, there would also be a moment where the two landscapes intersect and exist on the same plane. This symbolises the relationship between the two countries. Furthermore, the artwork when viewed from the front can be seen as a combined landscape of singapore and japan.
  • Since japanese screen paintings usually come in pairs, we played along with that idea. Our artwork can be seen as two separate screens but they exists as one single screen.

 

Why this medium and how we see the co-relation

  • In relation to our selected artifact, we decided to paint a landscape of the world we live in now. While people used to be surrounded by nature in the past, we now live in a world where we are surrounded by skyscrapers. We intended to show how our landscapes have changed from past in this artwork. The seasons represents a cycle and the passing of time. The seasons has been used to portray the idea of time in our chosen artifact. In our artwork, we plan to do so with our choice of medium while keeping some elements of the original artefact (such as the gold borders, trees and flowers), since the digital medium had not existed in the past.
  • Viewers might noticed that the landscape of Singapore is during the night and the landscape of japan is during the day. This corresponds to the yin and yang concept evident in our selected artifact.

 

What is it’s size and purpose of the painting

  • The artwork will be printed in 6 A4 styles and pasted plus folded in a way to make it into a larger size printing to bring out the sort of impact to the audience. The printing can either be a banner to mark the Anniversary or can be used as a brochure for people to realize the existence of the relationship.

Process Images

Concept & Idea:

20160413124334Base Paintings:

japanyokohama-min MarinaBayp

Final Touch-ups:

JapanYokohamaa MarinaBayp 2

Printing & Folding Format:

Process-min

Presentation & Proposal

AH Last Assignment.pptx.compressed

Reflection

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude for being given the opportunity to do this project. It is my first time of planning and creating an artwork (visual response) by referring very closely to an ancient or historical artifact. From this one project, I feel that I have learned more ideation/conceptualization skills which surely can be used for future projects.

At first, our team found it difficult to create a visual response to an artifact with a general positive intention and no controversy. Personally as an artist, I do not really like to make an artwork with contentious issue: a point of view about particular religion, culture, gender, and many other sensitive topics. It is because my rooted art principle is to create a happy art, which somehow I successfully convinced the rest of the team to have the same vision for this project.

However, non-controversial art might be equal to mediocre and boring art, something that we do not want neither. So, we decided to create something that most of the potential viewers (ADM students and faculties) able to relate to. That is why we choose Singapore as a big part of theme.

Still, something was really empty the first time we came out with the idea of drawing Singapore landscape in Japanese screen painting format. To fill that gap, we infused current general knowledge into our planning: the 50th anniversary of Singapore-Japan relationship. I was the one who came out with this ‘news’, simply because I watched one of the commemorative performance and saw an installation related to this at Changi Airport.

Since then, my eyes are opened. A simple general knowledge about what is going on around us can be a source of inspiration; even better, purpose. Knowing this, I regret of not having the habit to read local news daily. I did not know and have never experienced that an artist may be benefited directly from being resourceful about current issues.

Hence, in the end of this reflection, I would like to encourage as many friends and junior as possible to…read newspaper, or e-news.

 

Team SHINGAPORU: Research and Practice Project Plan

Topic: Nihonga Japanese Screen Painting

Chosen Artifact

Moon Sun

Four Seasons with Sun and Moon, as seen in the National Museum of Singapore, “Treasures from the British Museum”.

Visual Analysis

  • Both screens have subject matters of nature and landscape: trees in different seasons, hills and valleys ‘framing’ the trees, grass, flowers.
  • Golden frame.
  • Each screen is divided into 2 ‘scenery’. First image: winter (L) with its white snow on the leaves, autumn (R) with red falling leaves, and both are during the day because the tone is bright. Second image: Summer (L) with barren land and withered plant, spring (R) with baby plants, blooming flowers and grass, and both are during the night because there is circular moon at the top side of the painting

Contextual Analysis

  • Sun represents the male yang, moon represents the female yin
  • The way of yin and yang (‘Onmyodo’) in the religious context
  • Yang also represents brightness/light while yin represents darkness.
  • The four seasons is a common subject matter in japanese paintings. It represents a full cycle and the passing of time. Expressing a transition.

Visual Response Idea

  • The digital painting of Singapore modern landscape.
  • Might include famous landmarks, buildings and places such as Merlion, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore Flyer, Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, Esplanade Theatre and many more.
  • Nature’s element presented in the painting: rain forest trees, orchids, or other plants which are present in Singapore.
  • The painting can be folded, just like Japanese screen

Claim

Commemorating the 50th anniversary of Japan-Singapore diplomatic relationship. That is the reason why we combine Japanese traditional aspect (folded screen) with modern landscape of Singapore. We feel that not many people know about this ongoing special celebration, hence this visual response might serve more than just a display but an informative artwork.

 

ART HISTORY: Essay Proposal

What is Chinese tomb art?

  • Definition of tomb art.
  • What is tomb art in Chinese culture, hence what makes chinese tomb art different from other culture’s tomb art.
  • The purpose of tomb art for Chinese: religious, social, personal functions.

 

Compare two bronzes from the Shang dynasty.

  • Form of tomb art during the Shang dynasty: bronzes.
  • Types of bronzes found.
  • Brief information on Royal tombs and their burial items as well as commoners’ tombs and their items.
  • (More detailed)  Hence, comparing two bronzes found from Lady Hao tomb (royal tomb) and a commoner/person of a non-royal blood’s tomb.
    • The differences
    • The similarities
    • Meanings
  • Claim: The importance of Shang funeral bronzes is more inclined towards differentiating social status rather than religious purposes.

 

 

WEEK 4 Journal: Reflection on Presentation

Temple Visit-7

Being the first group to present this semester was a challenge:

  1. We had only one week to prepare
  2. We had no idea what was the standard of the class
  3. We were quite busy at that time and it was pretty difficult to arrange a meeting for all of us to meet
  4. We were new faces to each other. We were lucky that we could work together immediately despite we just knew each other.

 

And after overcoming those challenges, we are satisfied and happy with our presentation. Some of the good points about our presentation are:

  1. Well-planned flow
  2. 80% original pictures
  3. Organized slides
  4. The use of different ‘props’: banana, jasmine air freshener, candies, 360Degree Video, in order to bring a more real experience of the temple.
  5. Interaction with audience (quiz)

 

However, there are parts in which we can improve:

  1. More formal attire for presentation would be good, e.g. blazer, shirt
  2. Wearing the same color as a team
  3. Time-management and more thorough content selection. We did our presentation more than 20 minutes and we might have done better with more practices.

 

Overall, that was a precious experience 🙂 and personally, that was my best presentation so far.

For the rest of the class, always do your best 😉 if you have the time to improve on whatever you are doing, just improve it :).

Temple Visit-4

PS: we went to this Buddha Tooth Relic Temple as well! it’s so grannddddd

[Week 1 Journal] What Type of Learner Are You?

So, I took the test first, and my best intelligence is Kinesthetic. Here is the order:

  1. Kinesthetic
  2. Intrapersonal
  3. Linguistic
  4. Interpersonal
  5. Logical

The five intelligences are more than 60% of the the chart, and it is surprising that, despite being an artist wannabe, my visual intelligence is not my strongest.

Screen Shot 2016-01-29 at 5.38.52 PM

However, I do still think that I am a visual+kinesthetic learner in real life. And i’m definitely not an auditory learner because listening to online lecture only without writing anything/looking at a moving lecturer is totally boring. I will doze off or get distracted.