4D Final Project: Evocative Objects- Can you hear your image?

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CAN YOU HEAR YOUR IMAGE?

By Qian Yin, Rui Meng and Joey.

1st Part: Concept

For this interactive installation, we aim to target people’s attention towards what they are wearing. This is because it has been officially proven that many Singaporeans are not mindful about their dress codes whenever they go, leading to improper dressing a lot of times. It is to be noted that we are not stereotyping anyone, nor are we discriminating against people who are wearing a certain type of attire. This project only aims to remind people to pay attention to how they look to other people, and what image they give off to them. Furthermore, we narrowed down our analysis towards very generic physical appearances such as spectacles, hairstyles and types of shoes.

The point of this project is to remind people about what they are wearing, and for them to reflect about how they want to portray themselves to others. Ways of dressing and outfitting is important because when done deliberately, it can potentially spell out our personalities and individuality. This is because what we wear essentially reflects our own styles most of the time. While it should be noted that this may not be an accurate description of oneself nor stereotyping, this analysis of one’s portrayal is simply an impression others may have on the targeted audience.

While seemingly superficial, it cannot be denied that in many parts of society, people are concerned about appearances, be it at work, school or socializing. A reminder is that this project does not aim to make anyone feel good or bad. Rather, it is simply to act as a catalyst for people to be attentive to what they are wearing.

Description and Equipment needed

2nd Part: Equipment and Setup

We will be needing an array of equipment. The following equipments are;

  1. 2 Speakers
  2. 4 Cameras
  3. 1 Motion Sensor
  4. 1 Music Player
  5. 1 Screen
  6. 4 Projectors

The speakers will be situated at the top of the entrance, beside either sides of the door.

The cameras will be situated at the following areas:

  1. One facing outside school at the entrance
  2. One facing inside school at the entrance (Back to back with 1)
  3. Two cameras facing towards the entrance, one on each side.

The motion sensor will be situated at the side of the door.

A music player will be attached and linked to the cameras.

A screen will be hung in front of the stairway on the 1st floor, while the 4 projectors can either be hung up on the wall, or on the ceiling.

Set-up and Walkthrough

Projector placement

First, the targeted audience will walk into ADM via the main Glass door entrance. The movement will trigger the motion sensor, which will send signals to the cameras. The cameras will subsequently capture the audience in 4 perspectives, ideally emulating a 360 degrees view. The targeted audience’s frontal, back, and side view will be captured by the 4 cameras respectively. Upon capturing the target’s appearances, it will then trigger off the music player, which will select the appropriate track matching the person’s attire. The speakers will then blare the music selected, while the person walking in will be able to see himself or herself captured on the screen, and on the floor. The screen will be displaying his or her frontal view, while the floor will be depicting a large projection (emulated by 3 projectors) displaying the person’s left profile, backview and right profile from left to right respectively. This gives the impression of both a grand entrance and 360 degree mirror. The attention the person receives from the giant projections and loud music will make him or herself more self conscious, eventually taking closer look at their own appearances.

 

3rd Part: Identifying types and accompanying soundtracks

We decided not to complicate things too much. Hence, we started out with 8 different types of outfit, and did research about what kind of personalities they would usually emulate. Then, we paired a mini soundtrack to each appearance to match the atmosphere the people give when they stalk in. It is to note that this is merely an example, and that it may not entirely agree with your taste buds. After all, we do not have professional surveys and research undertaken. Should this project be pulled on to a larger scale, more variety of appearances and music should be researched.

First, we have someone with glasses with covered shoes and long hair. The impression given is usually someone who is clever, smart and disciplined. The soundtrack we have selected is Star Wars’ Imperial March.

Next, we have someone with Glasses with covered shoes and short hair. This person usually emulates qualities of being quiet and reserved. The soundtrack we have selected is Harry Potter’s Theme Song.

For someone with no glasses, covered shoes and long hair, we associate qualities of being outgoing, jubilant and cocky with them. The music we paired with these qualities is Ouverture by Carmen.

Someone who has no glasses, covered shoes and short hair is usually adventurous and humorous. Hence, we used the Pirates of the Carribean theme song to portray this.

We identify someone with glasses with non-covered shoes and long hair with being not very sociable yet easy-going at the same time. They are also usually gentle and soft. We decided to go with Studio Ghibli’s Kiki’s Delivery Service’s song; If I’ve Been Enveloped by Tenderness.

Someone who has no glasses with non-covered shoes and long hair are usually more sociable and easy-going. We paired the Tom and Jerry Theme Song with these qualities.

On the other hand, someone with glasses with non-covered shoes and short hair are identified as being determined and firm. We paired the German Song, Guren no Yumiya with it.

Finally, someone who has no glasses, non-covered shoes and short hair is usually sporty and loud. We paired this up with the song Jump Up, Super Start! By Super Mario.

To conclude, paying attention to what we wear is usually something that has been taken for granted a lot of times. Little do people realize how much self-image and appearances matter to our society, especially these days. Hence, we want to bring attention to how impressions are important in socializing with others.

 

Note Improvements that could be made:

  1. Use actual mirrors instead- more personal touch.
  2. Let people select their own music and play it, while the one the camera identifies also play its own music. Compare differences.

Final Project: Rube Goldberg system

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For this project, we were required to make a Rube Goldberg system based off the most significant scene in a narrative that we picked. I selected The Picture of Dorian Gray, a classic by Oscar Wilde.

The Story of Dorian Gray:

It is a story where a painter painted a portrait of the beautiful Dorian Gray, who later meets an aristocrat with a hedonistic worldview. He declares that beauty is everything in this world, yet is not immortal. Dorian Gray truly admired this perspective, and sought to sell his soul to the devil. In exchange, he would be able to commit any sin for eons without his appearance changing at all. Instead, the portrait which he keeps locked up in his own privacy will age and fade in his stead. After committing a lot of sins, Dorian Gray decided to repent and do charity in an effort to make the portrait revert some of its ugliness. However, the portrait only becomes uglier and it is at this where Dorian realizes that wanting to make up for his sins was another way of his vanity and curiosity. In order to end things, he decided to stab the portrait once and for all. In the end, the portrait transfers its age and ugliness onto the real Dorian Gray, while reverting back to its previous, flawless beauty. Dorian Gray then dies on the spot.

Rube Goldberg System Video:

There are two sides of this project, separated by the Acrylic piece. The first side represents the Portrait, while the second side represents Dorian Gray.

The Portrait Side:

The Portrait is represented by the white marble. It is white because it was still pure and beautiful until tainted by Dorian Gray.

First, the structure starts off with books. Leather-bound, but faded. Books portraying good qualities too (Diligence). This represents the aristocrat Dorian once was, which was also expressed in the painting. It is faded and tattered, because it is already beginning to be tainted by Dorian’s sins (reflected on the portrait as a result).

Next, the foam stairs. It is the descending of the portrait into ugliness and sin, based on what Dorian has done. The material Foam in a sense is tough yet malleable at the same time, which shows that it can be molded and shifted based on the amount of force exerted, in this case Dorian’s sins. Hence, it ‘melts’ or ‘sinks’ lower and lower. Each “step” is a representation of each major sin committed by Dorian; selling his soul to the devil, hurting people and finally, committing and triggering multiple murders and deaths.

The cup represents how the portrait is overloading with sin and ugliness. It spills over, unable to withstand the quantity of the sins. This is also when Dorian Gray wants to end everything soon.

Then, the Wood Trial. Wood has multiple meanings to it. According to the Bible, one of the first times we see wood is when man is committing sin and making all people born sinners. Then, we see wood being used to save man in the Great Flood. The Ark of the Covenant was also made in the desert as Moses was instructed. In it was the law. The Law brought death, serving and acting as the Ministry of Death.

The Ark of the Covenant contained the Law and Jesus contained the effects of the law when he was crucified as us for our sins.

On other words, wood represents salvation, and the humanity of Jesus. God in His infinite wisdom and use of irony has turned bad into good.

In other words, the wood represents Law, Justice and Karma crashing down on Dorian Gray. It is the “Gates of Justice”, where the portrait, acting as the punisher, reforms Dorian and punishes him for the sins he has committed. This setup ends in a black test-tube, representing that it has now turned ugly in a sense because it punished Dorian.

The Dorian Gray Side:

Dorian Gray is represented by the black marble. He may have stayed beautiful, but innately, he is ugly and warped.

This starts off with a long winding trail of aluminium path. The path is unobstructed because Dorian Gray never suffered the consequences of his actions. It is all reflected on the portrait instead. hence, it is shiny and silver-clean. However, it is crumpled. The wrinkles represent the stains on Dorian’s personality. Even though his outer appearance remains beautiful (credit to the portrait), his personality gets more and more warped, something the portrait cannot salvage. Hence, the wrinkles represents Dorian’s innate ugliness while the clean silver represents his beautiful outer appearance.

The comb is representative of Dorian’s Seduction. He uses this Charisma to get away with all his crimes by seducing people to believe in him.

Then, we have a toilet roll. Toilets are usually associated with uncleanliness i.e. you would not go there to eat if you could choose to. A toilet roll is also something that is usually discarded, hence being a waste material. This represents how dirty Dorian becomes due to his sins.

Finally, Dorian wants to end it all. He stabs the portrait, signified by the knife being plunged into the picture of the portrait. It is to be noted that this happens at the same level as the Portrait’s Judgement i.e. Judgement by Wood (on the other side). Judgement is delivered as Dorian stabs the portrait. Same as the portrait’s marble, this marble undergoes the same twirling effect down into a test-tube. However, this time, the test-tube is white, signifying that he is now the victim.

By both the portrait and Dorian gray’s marbles undergoing the same twirling effect in the end, it is representative of how they have exchanged places. The opposite colours of black and white interchanging (marbles into test-tubes) also reinforces how the portrait and Dorian gray have now traded places.

It is also to note that both marbles end up in a test-tube each. This is to sum up the entire experiment, highlighting how in the end, Dorian’s life was simply an experiment he has orchestrated himself in order to explore how far human limits can go (inspired by the decadent French novel À rebours, by utilizing the portrait.

Final Project: EGO Final Outcome

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Little Snippets of Joey

Little Snippets of Joey by Joey Chan- EGO Project

My Project, Little Snippets of Joey, is modeled after the small but significant parts of my childhood memories. Hence, I decided to use 1) Paper Cuttings 2) Monochromatic Colours 3) Children Picture Book Style to emulate the idea of childhood. Paper cuttings are things that we do when we are children during Art and Craft as a form of play and entertainment. Monochromatic colours are easy for young children to identify (Blue = Sadness, Green = Nature, Yellow = Cheerfulness, Red = Something fiery) compared to other colour harmonies.

1st Panel: Blue Hues

My first panel consist of blue hues. Blue is a colour identified with tranquility, peace and comfort. It is also identified with sadness. Hence, I chose to use this colour to represent how thinking about my late hamster through memorabilia music comforts me when I am being sad.

2nd Panel- Green Hues

Green is identified with revival, nature and relaxation. Hence, I used it for this panel since I take comfort in the cat lifting my spirits.

3rd Panel: Yellow Hues

Ah, yellow hues. This was a particular challenge for me since yellow seems to blend in so much with each other. Yellow is a colour for cheerfulness, energy and vitality. It can also be used for excitement. Hence, I used it to express the eagerness I have in watching my favourite series (One Piece :D).

4th Panel: Red Hues

My final panel is the red panel. It is a colour for extremities; violence, adventure, anger, passion, etc. I used it to express both the adventurous spirit I have when I play action games, and my anger and despair when I lose in that game. It is to note that the first and last panel are meant to look chunkier in paper cutting, because they represent the in-game screen (to differentiate the reality and in game).

 

And these, lady and gentlemen, are my EGO Project representations. 🙂

Project 3: Ego Process and Research

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For this 2D Final Project, we are supposed to come out with 12 frames (4 panels) of stories. While many decided to go with digital media, I decided to go with traditional media, mainly using mixed media paper cuttings.

However, I did not go for newspapers or magazines, where I felt that it did not suit the theme of my project.

My project is entitled ‘Little Snippets of Joey’.

It basically revolves around the little happenings I had in my life in my childhood. Hence, I chose to use paper cuttings, along with mixed media textures (acrylic, coloured papers, and gouache). These were more suited if I went for a style alike children storybooks and picture books, as compared to intricate and complicated styles.

I had my inspirations from mainly two artists;

  1. Eric Carle

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Eric Carle

Eric Carle uses a lot of different textures and simple paper cuttings to emulate his own style. His texture is very obvious and distinct, made with different paints. It is very special, and makes ordinary paper cuttings seem overly simple. I made use of his style to bring out the main details of my paper cutting, while keeping the rest of it simple.

2. Paula Marten

Paula Marten

Pier – Paula Marten

I was secondly inspired by Paula Marten. She visits many different places to do paper cuttings and paintings of them. She uses many different colours to emulate illusory textures despite her works being mainly in 2D. She also uses overlapping to create the implied depth in her work. I also like how her paper cuttings, while being intricate, feels free and undefined. It is as though she is cutting at free will and without a fixed direction and detail in mind. Yet, it still appears so natural and at home. It is truly unique.

 

Draft 1:

4 Seasons Colour Wheel

I tried to make use of the 4 Seasons to emulate the 4 situations I would portray myself in based on my old memories. However, I realized that the 4 seasons had too many colours and hues defined in their nature. It create a mess of colours which were hardly harmonious, and became a bunch of confusion. The main focus could barely be identified clearly, and as a result I scraped it.

Draft 2:

My Process

Instead of going for Analogous colours, I went for Monochromatic colours instead. After pondering for a long time, I realized that Monochromatic colours matched my idea of portraying a child’s picture book. This is because children do not have such in depth analysis of colours, hence relating better to feelings when they are placed in simple and common colour tones.

However, my design turned out being too simply without any depth. Everything was messy as they clashed together on the same level.

 

Final Draft:

For my final draft, I made use of foam tape to create depth. I also simplified the colour tones such that they will not clash as much. I minimized overlapping, and ensured that the main details meant to be focused on will stand out.

Project 3: Research and Development

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For this project, I decided to go with the idea of a Nightmare, since we had to start with waking up and end with going back to sleep. While analyzing the concepts of a nightmare further, I found myself discovering that all my nightmares were usually based off senseless things; sequence that did not make sense, or things that were mundane yet should not happen at all in reality. I wanted to create the same kind of distortion in my work, where the main character cannot comprehend what is going on, yet automatically embraces the situation and somehow knew what to do about it. It is as if his dream is lucid. The environment was meant to be dark, acting as though it is a void. This suffocates the dreamer, and creates more tension and loss in his feelings. This is in reference to my own nightmares, which I notice were soundless to the extent it rings in my ears and makes me feel as though I was drowning in air. A nightmare also has to be haunting; so much that he has to get rid of the root cause in reality to ensure that it will not come back to haunt him.

Nightmares:

Image result for Nightmare

Nightmares are lengthy, elaborate dreams with imagery that evokes fear, anxiety, or sadness. The dreamer may wake up to avoid the perceived danger. Nightmares can be remembered upon awakening and may lead to difficulties returning to sleep or even cause daytime distress. Isolated nightmares are normal, but when dreams that bring extreme terror or anxiety recur often they can become a debilitating sleep disorder.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/nightmares

Noh Masks:

Image result for noh mask

Noh Mask (Onna Men)

Noh Mask is classified as the most scariest and creepiest of all Japanese urban legends. Noh Masks are masks that are used in opera performances.

The appearance of these masks is creepy because half side of the face has crying expressions while the other half is smiling, but even scarier is the fact that mask has the power to absorb the negative aura or energy (anger, hatred, anguish) from the owner. After begging the owner to wear the mask, Noh Mask then control and consume the negative aura until the owner begins to rot. The Noh Mask switches the body once the owner is dead but it doesn’t leave the corpse behind. It sticks the old body onto the new body, which makes it the most dangerous legend as well.

When kept in the house, the masks are said to draw in negative energy from the owners till they get completely consumed by the mask itself, and their soul trapped in a different dimension of pain.

 

Project 3: Sequential Thinking (90 Images)

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Project 3: Sequential Thinking (90 Images)

Title: The Cursed Mask Ft. Mark Tan

Location for photos: Pioneer Hall

Storyline:

This is a project about the cursed mask, where Mark wakes up and goes out to get Breakfast. However, on the way back, he spots a weird-looking mask lying on the ground. Despite the mask making him feel uncomfortable, he is nevertheless intrigued by it. As a result, he takes the mask back to his dorm room.

Back in his room, Mark spends some time scrutinizing the mask again. However, its creepiness was haunting him. He decided to put it aside and focus on his studies.

Night falls. Mark is done studying. He glances at the mask beside him again, fearful. Then, he decides to forget about it and go to sleep.

A nightmare happens. Mark finds himself in a completely dark environment. He has no idea where he is, nor what is going on.

When he turns around, he sees the same mask in a distance, unaffected by the darkness. In a flash of darkness, the mask disappears, and then reappears, now closer. This repeats.

Mark panics, and decided to make a break for it. When he turns to his front, he sees that there is a distorted and messy crayon path forming in front of him. Following his instincts, he opts to run down the path; anything to get away from the creepy mask. Whenever he turns back to check, the mask only follows him closer and quicker.

Suddenly, Mark spots a door in the distance. It is the door to his dorm room! He hurries to grip onto the door handle, but not before turning back to check on the mask again.

The mask is right in his face this time; it starts to morph into something scarier and more haunting with each black out. Mark slams the door open and jumps into bed, huddling in a ball, willing himself to believe that it was all a dream.

In his unconsciousness, the mask appears in his vision once again. He is startled awake, and looks out of the window. He realizes that it is now day time, and he has made it through the night. He is utterly relieved. Glancing at the mask on his table, he decides to toss it in to the dustbin, before settling back into a dreamless sleep while smiling to himself.

Project Analysis:

For this project, I decided to go with the idea of a Nightmare, since we had to start with waking up and end with going back to sleep. While analyzing the concepts of a nightmare further, I found myself discovering that all my nightmares were usually based off senseless things; sequence that did not make sense, or things that were mundane yet should not happen at all in reality. I wanted to create the same kind of distortion in my work, where the main character cannot comprehend what is going on, yet automatically embraces the situation and somehow knew what to do about it. It is as if his dream is lucid. The environment was meant to be dark, acting as though it is a void. This suffocates the dreamer, and creates more tension and loss in his feelings. This is in reference to my own nightmares, which I notice were soundless to the extent it rings in my ears and makes me feel as though I was drowning in air. A nightmare also has to be haunting; so much that he has to get rid of the root cause in reality to ensure that it will not come back to haunt him.

 

Final Project: Evocative Projects- 2 favourite sound installation art

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Murmur by French Artists

Murmur by French Artists

The first sound installation art which I really appreciate is Murmur, a video and sound installation which translates sound waves into visuals. The audience can talk into Murmur’s ‘echo chamber’, and a direct visible interaction with the visuals on the walls becomes visible. In a way, the exact sound waves and its configuration can be displayed in a visual form. I feel that it is really unique because it has some sort of a personality in it. Every person’s voice differs whether it is in octave or pitch, which makes every sound wave produced especially unique.

 

Oscillare; An Interactive Dawn

Oscillare; An Interactive Dawn

The second sound installation art which really inspired me is Oscillare; An Interactive Dawn by Oscar Sol from Electronic Performers. It is an interactive multimedia dance performance. Four accelerometers, a gyroscope and a wireless video camera capture the movements of the dancer, which are used to generate and influence the sound and images on the screen. I really like it a lot because alike the effects of Murmur, every person’s dance and movement of their muscles is different, which makes every sound generated different. It is a presentation where static technology meets the moving human body. The interaction and link between movement, sound and visuals are also very clear, which makes the installation especially incredible.