Category Archives: Perfect Pitch

The One With The Dome Project

For my final presentation last week, I proposed an interactive installation taking place inside a dome which is going to stimulate the sensorial experience of being in heaven & hell. I chose this project because it allows me to experiment with different mixture of visuals, sound, lighting and environment all in one project. So this final post for Assignment 3 will be dedicated to the final presentation which I will summarise in this post. The reason for making it inside a dome is that a dome has no corners, giving the visitors the perception that it is in a infinity space. Furthermore, the projection on the dome has an immersive experience for the visitors to enter and watch.

To visualise Heaven & Hell is quite a challenged as nobody has ever been to heaven or hell and came back with a story to tell. Hence, I would actually get those descriptions from the holy book of different religions. For example, the bible and the Quran.

8But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

– Revelation 21:8

The above passage describes hell as a fiery lake of burning sulfur. From this verse, the visuals can be interpret in many ways to match the description.

Verily! The Muttaqun (pious – see V.2:2), will be in place of Security (Paradise). Among Gardens and Springs; Dressed in fine silk and (also) in thick silk, facing each other, So (it will be), and We shall marry them to Houris (female fair ones) with wide, lovely eyes. They will call therein for every kind of fruit in peace and security;

– Quran 44: 51-55

This passage from the Quran describes Heaven as Paradise and words such as Gardens & Springs are being used to describe Heaven. From those few words, some colours and texture immediately come up to mind. This will be one way for me to interpret the visuals and sounds that I will be making inside the dome.

Another famous description of Heaven and Hell would be Dante’s Divine Comedy. In the poem by Dante, he narrated the story of heaven and hell and how each has a different levels. Below is an illustration which many artists have interpret from the poem.

Another inspiration of Hell would be from Haw Par Villa, which depicts the 10 Courts of Hell. These Chinese folklore makes a good attempt in terms of really visualising what hell would look like. Definitely I am inspired by these different sculptures.

However, at the end of the day, I do not want to involve religion into the dome project. Those visuals that I will use will be interpret by my own artistic decision and will not have any attempt in making relevance to any religion. That will be my attempt in this project.

Next up, here are my Work Breakdown Structure. As you can see I have break it down to 4 parts and the above paragraphs which I will interpret from all the different source of heaven & hell would fall under Concept. Constructing the dome is also very important and how I am able to use the different equipments would be very valid. Programming is also essential as I want the whole process to be automatic. Lastly, Experimenting. This is a very important phase because in order to make the experience very abstract, experimentation of different visuals and sounds is essential in order to come up with a final choice of visuals.

The Dome WBS

Below are my Gantt Chart. I did a total of 6 milestones because I need to know the progress of my project and the milestones will do just that. The first mile stone is when I have derived on my Final Idea. And my final milestone is of course during the opening night of the ADM Grad Show! Simulation and experimentation takes a bulk of the time because I need to simulate different visuals as much as possible in order to get the visitors an experience of a lifetime. These period of ‘testing’ would make the final product more reliable and effective.

Gant Chart

The Network diagram is made up of the different equipments that I am going to use. I am planning to use max msp for this whole project as the programme allows me to speak to all different equipments. The diagram below are just some of the equipments that I am going to use. I make add even more equipments because the possibility of different combination is endless!

The Dome Network Diagram

In conclusion, I would like my visitors to escape reality when they are at my installation. This installation aims to provide an out of body experience which will then questions their existence. With the help of abstract visuals and daunting sound, I want my visitors to interpret themselves the experience which they went through. Like all great art, it raise even more questions than giving answers of what is Heaven and what is hell.

Thank you.

The One With The Narrowing It Down

The One With The 10 Ideas

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Let’s push myself to the limits. I am going to come up with 10 different projects for the first phase.

The Perfect Modern Chair
To design an everyday office chair which adjust according to different people’s back shape. A perfect ergonomics chair which consists of combining the idea of a bean bag and a office chair. In this project I would need a partner for this as we need to research on the ergonomics of a chair and also executing the design.
This is a design innovation as combining the materials of bean bag which takes the shape of your body and applying it to an office chair, white collar workers will no longer have backaches while working.
This project might take a long time as it will be a research intensive project I foresee.
The iPhone Film Scanner
Shooting photograph on a vintage SLR is very traditional and brings back nostalgic moments. It also teaches you the basic of photography as we would require to think before spamming the shutter button like we would do in a digital camera. After processing the films at a local shop, those people who wants to scan their images have trouble finding a good scanner and also have to bear the cost. This application on the smartphone would be able to do the scanning of negatives and convert it to a jpeg file.
Definitely need 2 other partners to work on the engineering part and also the programming part as well.
This application would be one of a kind in the market, a big market for film photography enthusiasts! This project would be a real challenge to make it into a reality and it could be very expensive to make.
The Run
The run is an interactive Virtual Reality game that promotes exercise with gaming. With different scenario being selected, gamers are transport to a city where they are require to run away from the enemy. This game would require many platforms such as the xbox and the VR application. This game would probably need a budget of $5000 for research and programming. I would need a team of 3 for this as it will require many different stages of processes.
This game would promote real exercise and attract gaming addicts. A real innovation in making a virtual world into a physical space.
It might be boring after a while, too stagnant.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Tanjong Pagar (MCATP)
The current Tanjong Pagar Railway Station is now being emptied after they moved out and relocate to the Woodlands Causeway Centre. The historical building could be renovated and turn into a contemporary space for art and design. This renovation will take about 4 years to complete and once completed, it will attract many art lovers into Singapore from the region. High budget for this one maybe around 20-30 million dollars. I would need a large team for this project.
This project will be ground breaking and be an attraction for Singapore. Audience guaranteed.
Could be expensive and could become a fad.
The Sound of Light
To come up with an audiovisual installation that explores the uses of solenoid and light. It will be a soundscape experience for people to experience the sound of machinery, based on data and statistics. A solo project by me that could cost about $500 to develop within a year. A possible FYP project. It will be in a grand scale where people will experience something very different. Even though a novelty project but it explores the boundaries and definition of art. It could be too experimental for some people and finding a location and space suitable could be a challenge.
The Book Of Wires
This is a project to publish a book about wires & cables. With beautiful visuals and concise information and instructions, everyone will have no problem identifying the different kind of wires & cables for different uses anymore! Think of a dictionary, of colourful wires & cables!
I would need 2 more partners, to design the layout of the book and another one in charge of photographing the visuals. Budget possibly around $500 for a small amount of copies.
This is a very useful and informative book for those who wants to learn about IT and Engineering as well! Plus its an artsy book!
Challenges faced could expensive and time consuming as publishing a book is not an easy process.
The Body
The Body is an experimental short film that explores the activities inside of a human body that make us function on a daily basis. Using slow motion techniques and different props, different visuals will represent an activity a body does, for example Breathing. This film will explore the use of everyday items to recreate the science behind our anatomy.
This project requires a team of 5 where each person would need to wear different hats such as cinematographer, cameraman, gaffer and other film related job. This would need a budget about 1 thousand as we need to get good props and cameras.
This film will break the boundary of cinematography and open up a new genre of films, definitely will attract art students. This could be a novelty kind of project and people might not be able to understand the experimental aspect of this project.
The Rest Of The World In Singapore
This is a photo documentation project to find and photograph people of different nationality living in Singapore. In other words, to photograph at least 1 people from different countries whose living in Singapore. As Singapore opens up its door to expats and foreigners to come to Singapore, it is possible that at least one people from all the 196 countries is living in Singapore.
This would be a solo project and budget of $500 would be sufficient to complete this project, mainly spending on transportation.
This would be an impossible feat to do but if completed, it will definitely receive a lot of recognition.
This project could be time consuming and might take longer than 1 year to complete.
The Hive
The Hive is the newest building to be added in NTU located at the South Spine. It’s architecture is very unique and what better way than to take advantage of the building by using projection mapping onto the facade. This projection mapping would project graphics and videos to tell the story of NTU and its history.
I would need 2 more people to help with the content creation and of course the technical aspect of this project. This project would cost an estimation of $3000 as the bulk of the money would definitely spend on loaning at least 6 powerful projectors.
This would be a sight not to be miss as this will be the first time a projection mapping is being done onto the Hive.
The Dome: The Heaven/Hell Project
Using the dome system, this project would combine all the interactive aspect that I have learnt in class and integrate it into the dome. By using sensors, motors and lights, this site specific dome would create an experience of Heaven or Hell. These 2 ideal places have been describe through history of times and it would be my turn to interpret the experience inside the dome.
A solo project which could be a potential for FYP. Budget would cost about $400.
This would be a crowd pleaser and many people would be eager to try out this experience themselves.
Project could be expensive and integrating many systems into one could be a challenge.

These are 10 good projects actually that I have come up. Each of them is something that I would want to do honestly.

Fun fact: When the school bought the new dome, I was one of the team that first erected the dome from scratch. We were taught by the people from Russia who came here just to teach us how to build them. It was a very long process during the workshop. Quite an experience actually!

The One With The Imperfect Pitch Part 2

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Conceptualising ideas quickly usually has its drawback, they are quick, lazy and lack substance. But I am going to try one anyway.

To create an interactive sound scape installation that explores the issue of construction. This installation will made up of objects related to construction, that will produce abstract sound, based on data related to figures and numbers on the topic of construction.
Gant Chart of the First Project
To renovate and refurbish the old Tanjong Pagar Railway Station and turn it into a museum of contemporary art. Keeping the exterior and interior design intact, modern renovation will make this place one of the top art museum in the region.
To produce, write and direct a short art film related to the issue of birth and death. This experimental art film will take place inside a human body. Working with resources from the school will only require us to spend money on props.

The application is not really user friendly i guess. I given up as it is really complicated to use this software to come up with a work task. I probably do it much faster on a piece of paper. But I can understand how hard for project managers to plan schedule for a project.

The One With The Pitching of Ideas

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For the pitching of ideas, I have come up with two of them below.

For a project with a partner, I would like to curate the world’s largest art fair ever. It will consists of one gallery from each country, yes from each country in the world, all 196 countries. This will be a clash of cultures, ideologies, art and many more! Way larger than Art Basel and all the other biennale combine.

For a project with myself, I would like to come up with an outdoor interactive art installation exploring the issue of construction and progression. It will be a though provoking installation that will question the role of our nation builders.

The Anatomy Of Life & Death

you know what? Bang Me