Comparing to my fellow classmates, I might be slow in terms of conceptualizing. The sudden change of the final rhyme had me undone the thinking process I’ve gotten so far. Frankly I kind of lost in concept too.

I haven’t decide on the final nursery rhyme I am going to use yet, possibly due to my fading memory of the rhymes I grew up with. None of the nursery rhymes was ever been my favorite because every time I looked into any books of nursery rhymes, I was immediately attracted by the illustrations beside them. True story.

Most of the dingbats I created were based on the key words on each paragraph of “The road not taken”, and followed by an intense (not really) image searching in Google. Several internet memes came across my head and my screen which I found a bit of humor in them. Even some of them are the symbolic icons we all know like the David statue and the evolution of human graph. As I mentioned in the last post, what I comprehended about the referenced artist is that they used things that familiar to us to create something that are meaningful to them. So, why not try some of these icon to create the dingbats? We knew what they so we won’t be worrying about how we’re going to use them.

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I will never run out of materials thanks to the wide range of dingbats’ variety provided by my fellow classmates. Seriously, can you imagine how much space it would take up if I need to download them all?

Thanks to Mr. Lawrence’s crash course on Photoshop, I managed to create a picture by playing around my dingbats. But it will take me a longer time to adapt the style of modern abstraction like dadaism by walking out of the familiar picture compositing. Also, I need to be able to express my rhymes as well.

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My attempt based on the elements appeared in “The road not taken”. Yet the dingbats lack interactions between one and other.

However, the concept and style of my project will be clarified within this recess (clear throat) week and eventually be able to represent the nursery rhymes the dingbats will soon be depicting.

blue masksI have a habit of saving 9gag (and other interesting site’s) quotes on my phone so I can scroll the favourite part of my favourite site offline in hopes of using them the future. It’s a wonderful news that this project enables me to use my saves since it doesn’t specified the types of poems and rhymes. That means I can use modern poems which seems to be more relevant to our lives today.

 

I like the three poems on the sides as they are interesting enough to stand out equally with the modern song which are rhymes that is widely appreciated nowadays. Among all the choices, I’ll be using The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. It’s beautiful and inspiring, but long enough for me to have the other two as just-in-case.

the road not taken<Click picture for full size.>The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, illustrated by ZEN PENCILS.

 

Opinions aside, back to the topic– my searching on the reference artists and styles recommended by the notes given. The first impression I got from the styles I searched — Surrealism and Dadaism is visually impact and attract. In my opinion, The two styles sort of work in similar ways. They capture your curiosity with the images, collages, dingbats, forms, and photos we can resemble to, then the art hold them all together regardless of their habitat (where they supposed to belong.) forming something that what we (in the absence of knowledge of art) called abstraction. Similar to how impressionism is to renaissance art, surrealism and dadaism stood out of the crowd of expressive art.(Non-depicting and recording art.) To me, surrealism is more in the expressive side, but dadaism is more in a form of mockery. (what the artists said.)

The_Ghost_of_Vermeer

I don’t think Salvador Dalí wanted to mock Johannes Vermeer but probably to express his admiration to the artist in The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table.

Surrealism usually was explained as expressing the artists’ dream or non-reality on the canvas or just to express a purpose in an unconventional but still showing their skills in making art. (Modern art probably ditched the latter.)

Hannah Höch. German, 1889-1978 Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (Schnitt mit dem Küchenmesser durch die letzte Weimarer Bierbauchkulturepoche Deutschlands). 1919-1920 Photomontage and collage with watercolor, 44 7/8 x 35 7/16” (114 x 90 cm) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie © 2006 Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, © 2006 Hannah Höch / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, photo: Jörg P. Anders, Berlin

Hannah Höch. German, 1889-1978
Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (Schnitt mit dem Küchenmesser durch die letzte Weimarer Bierbauchkulturepoche Deutschlands). 1919-1920
Photomontage and collage with watercolor, 44 7/8 x 35 7/16” (114 x 90 cm)
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie
© 2006 Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin,
© 2006 Hannah Höch / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, photo: Jörg P. Anders, Berlin

Hannah Hoch, on the other hand, created her art with collage of images from paper publications. Seemingly this style of art appears to be closer to what we’re going to do in this project. Her art, instead of being symbolic in the components, portraits her ideas and criticize in the whole picture, like Cut with a Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany (1919). (A really long name though.)

This artwork is said to be referring to the decadence of pre-war German culture, metaphorically criticizing humankind’s lack of humanity. (theartstory.org) The mockery component of dadaism and Hannah Hoch can be seen by reproducing art with produced images.

russian constructismLater came Russian Constructivism. Which style was depicted by the google image results above.

First word popped into my head, communism. The soviet union used this style for so long that people from other parts of the world used as a style of art/ poster. Russian Constructivism attracts my eyes with sharp colors and lines, simple figures and dingbats, as well as the standardized font. The attraction is a success and can be continued with presenting their message. (Whether indirect or not.) Probably it is what sparks the idea of this poster.the-interview-movie-poster

In conclusion, what the reference artist helped in my creation:

  1. The images I construct don’t have to be direct or literal. The presentation in the structure don’t have to be conventional. (As shown in the student’s work.) It doesn’t  have to be like Dr. Seuss illustrations. My orientation is yet to be decided and attempted.
  2. Any dingbats from anyone can be used as long as it’s coherent to what I need to express the lines of my poem.
  3. Since it’s in black and white, so color of Constructivism can’t be imitated. However, its striking image structure is impressive.

Title: Rooftop

Summary: A girl invited a boy to find her at the rooftop.

Story structure: 3 arc structure

Genre: Intended to be Tragedy. Perhaps the acting in the beginning was assumed as comedy during screening. Though I am not sure how. (Serious.)

It’s started as a random short video idea as we don’t usually tell the whole process in a short video.

Now that I think of it, I may got influenced by the film I’ve watched during the time, Se7en. Se7en has a clue for revealing the real murderer in the middle of the film, where John Doe disguised himself as a reporter, and can be spotted portrayed by Kevin Spacey. Similarly, there’s a photo in my video which its duration intentionally shortened hinting the twist at the end. Please scroll to 1:10.

Hope that changes a tiny perception. Thank you guys for watching it through, although feeling cheated.

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Part 1: Me

I like visual arts especially moving images. The best activity to represent me is my love for watching movies. Watching movies is how I spend quality time with my dad as well, therefore it doesn’t matter how long it is, as long as it’s good, enjoyable, memorable, I will watch it, regardless the media I used. (Yup, so is downloaded files, which is quite a conflict to my future desired career.)

Speaking of career, I’ve always let myself run wild imagining stories. I determine myself to make a living out of my own creativity. Easier said than done, I am still working on writing my own style of creations.

Back in my high school years, I was always recognized as the cameraman. I’ll be glad to help anything that relies on camera and my passion for it is what brought me here to ADM. I like to stand behind the lens, documenting every moment for my families, friends, and myself. Sometimes, it even teaches me to cherish the moments with my senses, avoid missing any moments just because I need to set my camera.

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Part 2: My object

I chose my video mic by RODE as it’s one of the tools that get me where I am. I am able to expand my portfolio thanks to it providing my work quality sounds. It also enables me to gain trust and work opportunity from the people I’ve worked with by giving them the professional impression and professional outcome as well.  But fundamentally it’s a symbol of my starting point pursuing my dream career. It’s the proof of my dad approval for me to do what I love.

 

 

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Part 3: My world

When I was in my previous college, I worked for a research center as a repayment for my scholarship. That research center turns out to be a historical center for Nanyang University(NU), the predecessor of NTU. What was left by NU are the buildings and monuments shown in the photos. The Chinese Heritage Center is in fact the administrative center then while the tablet of NU is a replica of the real deal back in the days. I have working through all the historical photos back in college and now being able to see the real deal is quite an amazing experience. As for the last photo, I frame the representative building of both universities together to show how time can change anything, that’s how history works.