Category: Process

Hope

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Saw this at the hospital today

 

Is hope is this cruel thing?

1 Corinthians 13:13: And now abideth faith, hope, and love, even these three: but the chiefest of these islove. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love

Nostalgia

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My lovely mother

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Hello 2016-02-06 11.20.14 1My father & I

I decide that nostalgia would be a theme based on images that are only taken by film. I think its interesting to use a mixture of mediums for each of the series? Could that be a possible idea,  to play with different ways of showing a story? If it was a simple photography project then just taking one image would make sense…

 

Let’s just see how shall we?

 

Sycronicity:Layers of Infinite Possibilities In A World Of Closing Borders.

http://www.stanza.co.uk/sycronicity1/index.htm

 

Stanza_body1 Screen Shot 2013-08-02 at 19.23.55d s2

 

Version II

“Databody Portrait Of The Internet Citizen” see below for screenshots

The version embeds a human body inside the system as the data flows all around in a slipstream of information

Concepts

What happens in world of merging data streams?

How will big data empower the system and does this added value allow more freedom or does it seek a more subversive form of control.?

Syncronicity starts to answer this by merging different live streams of real time data to investigate how these visual patterns and organic structures.

I find this artwork very interesting because it combines the narrative of data into  images.

 Stanza, the artist, works on this idea of the city as a display system. I was wondering if the data and stories that I collect can be reflected on a 2d or 3d object.

Monomyth| The Hero’s journey in Journey

 

Environment 01The hero’s journey

Used in stories for many thousands of years, the Mono myth is this idea of a story structure of a hero. The story is centred around one key character in a certain order.   It makes stories that we know very easy to digest and it is a key link in allowing us to connect with the character’s struggles.

Perhaps more so than anywhere else, the game Journey uses this to guide its entire game narrative.

The game Journey is essentially a game about the hero’s journey. Using the game itself as a metaphor, thatgamecompany created a game that captured the narrative element within the core levels of the game.  The mood of the game is crafted with the same flow of the Hero’s journey.  In his speech, he explained that the games were created with the vision of connecting people. Jenova, creator of Journey, experienced an immense sense of loneliness as he played video games online. Journey was created to connect two strangers online and share an experience.


The entire level design of Journey IS about the struggles of a hero.  Each level was designed with the intent of reflecting the phases that the hero struggles with. I feel that the mono myth captures the flow of what a story is. The beginning, middle and end of a story each has a specific role to play.

The first part of the story helps us to understand the nature of the character, their fear and motivations that led them to start this journey and also make us feel something for these characters.

The middle of the story shows us the conflict and challenges that the character has to face and we become more attached to them as we watch them try to resolve this conflict.

At the last part we find ourselves rooting for the character as they struggle to conquer this obstacle. The struggle that they face parallels our own struggle and we begin to care for the character themselves until their eventual resolution of this conflict, and then the character returns back.


The mono myth structure helps us to understand and even create a sort of anticipation of what is going to happen to the character. Over time it has become a little overused in the mainstream media and as a result we have become numbed to it because of the repetition that arises from its popularity.

Regardless, I still feel that there it is a great structure help us understand how stories are told and playing Journey has helped me understand this universal story a lot better.

 

In pieces

in pieceshttp://species-in-pieces.com/#

 

An interactive website that uses CSS polygon to create illustrations of endangered animals.

 

“IN PIECES IS AN INTERACTIVE EXHIBITION TURNED STUDY INTO 30 OF THE WORLD’S MOST INTERESTING BUT UNFORTUNATELY ENDANGERED SPECIES — THEIR SURVIVALS LAYING LITERALLY, IN PIECES.

Each species has a common struggle and is represented by one of 30 pieces which come together to form one another. The collection is a celebration of genic diversity and an attempting reminder of the beauty we are on the verge of losing as every moment passes. These 30 animals have been chosen for their differences, so that we can learn about species we didn’t know about previously as well as the struggles they have surviving. Many of them evolved in a particular way which makes them evolutionarily distinct.

Take for example the Kakapo, an animal which evolved without natural predators and thus didn’t require instincts to defend itself. Unfortunately — and as is the case with most of the species showcased here — humans began easily hunting upon encroaching their range, then introduced the stoat and other forms of pest control for other species. The Kakapo was almost completely wiped outthrough this introduction and fights on today because of this catastrophic lack of judgement.

When you dig into a lot of research around this topic, it’s not long before you see the real darkness that is going on. Millions of years of evolution has occurred and humans are in danger of ruining it through desperation for financial gain or greed.

There are some species here who as grim as it sounds, would require a small miracle to survive because the numbers are too low to rationally continue to exist, Vaquita being one such example.

In Pieces hopes to educate and inspire, and provoke thought on this complex and intricate topic. I sincerely hope that you can take something new away and enjoy this collection as much as I enjoyed researching, designing and building it. “

I found this website interesting because of it’s use of simple geometry to create very beautiful animations.

Kai xin

When I was young, my aunt would ask

“Ah xian,  Ni  kai xin ma? ” Which translated to, Ah xian ( that’s what she calls me ) ,are you happy?

Of course, I would say   “wo kai xin!” Which meant that yes, I’m happy.

 

My aunt is  a joyful person. She loves to sing. She loves many things. She is a person of faith, which keeps her strong through this time. She never let us see her sad. Every time we meet her, she would do her best to smile. Every time we meet her, she would do her best to sing songs of praise, Church songs. She does it and it makes her happy.

 

I believe she also does it cause it makes us happy.

 

Occasionally, I hear Mom talking on the phone…

 

 

” She vomited 5 times last night?”

 

 

“She hasn’t been sleeping well?”

 

 

I know she is in pain cause she is constantly on morphine. She also gets more and more breathless each time we visit her.

The last time she could barely finish her sentence…

Yet, each time we visit…

Every time actually…

I would ask, ” Ah yi , Ni Kai Xin ma?”

 

And she would reply,

 

” Wo kai xin.”

 

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Inspirations

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One and a two is a movie by Edward yang about the life of a family after the Grand mother falls into a coma  .

The movie follows the life of different family members and is a slice of life type of story. The appeal of the story is that it feels sincere.

You don’t feel like the narrative is purposefully crafted and yet there is without a doubt some character development.

The movie manages to explore each character and their struggles and give us someone to root for regardless of what kind of background or role we play.

 

I guess the biggest take away of this movie is how it manages to always keep us engaged without being too dramatic.

 

This  feels very close to what I am trying to express with my project.

 

I have yet to decide a kind of medium for my project but I’ll keep exploring.

 

At the moment I’m torn between something that is told and something that is played.

 

回程 ( huíchéng = return trip )

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Every week, my dad will send my sister and I home.

 

 

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For the past three months, we would make a stop to visit my aunt before heading back to school.

 

Every week, I always leave wondering when I’ll see her again.

Every time i wonder if this is the last time.

 

hui

 

  1. to return, to turn around
  2. a time, occurrence, occasion
  3. (literary) chapter
  4. the Hui ethnic group
  5. the Hui language

 

回程 ( huíchéng = return trip ),

回答 ( huídá = to answer ),

回来 ( huílái = to come back ),

回去 ( huíqù = to go back ),

回头 ( huítóu = to repent ),

回忆 ( huíyì = to recall )

 

My budding idea is the idea of the Chinese word 回.

It encompasses several meaning and layers when paired up with different words, which i believe can be different chapters of one narrative.

 

The narrative that I am exploring is a story of my home, a personal story based on these words, each word may be tied to different character in my story.

 

 

I was heavily inspired by a few photographers.

 

A while back I was introduced this website.

http://www.dayswithmyfather.com/

 

The story is captivating as we peer into the life  of Phillip and his relationship with his family, it made me think about mine.

 

I have an idea of a story that I want to share. At the moment I guess I’m just wondering how do I go about telling this.

 

 

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My first concept is to create a interactive website. One that unravels the story bit by bit…

 

I like to think that this means of telling the story can help me remember…

 

And like memories, they are scatter and picked up, left abandoned until triggered…

 

What kind of interaction would that provide for someone who’s trying to remember?mom dad dad4  mom3 mom4 portrait