20160411_133634 20160411_133136(0) 20160411_133148 20160411_133215 20160411_133131 20160411_133143 20160411_133200 20160411_133228 20160411_133247 20160411_133300 20160411_133305 20160411_133313 20160411_133319 20160411_133346 20160411_133353 20160411_133400 20160411_133406 20160411_133419 20160411_133555 20160411_133603 20160411_133618

Mini Bookshelf Visitors (2016)

Junyuan Loo

35 Paper-cut outs with colored paper stands.

Inspired by Michael Lee Hong Hwee’s mini figures, the installation is made up of 35 papercut mini figures, secured with paper-stands. Each mini figure is unique, symbolizing the 35 weeks of being an ADM student. Most mini figures are designed to be place on the head of various books with their paper stands stuck between the pages. Viewers are welcomed to place the figures in other books to have them interact with different books and other figures. (While placing these figures, some require the selected books to be pulled half way from the shelves for a better effect.) If viewers are interested to the books that the figures are placed, please place the figure to a new book or relevant location as its initial state instead of placing it aside. This will help to keep the installation in its intended installment.

The installation explores the feeling of intrigued and curiosity a library visitors can get through browsing the bookshelves. When one is browsing the book spine’s title without any library number codes in mind, one can always find book titles that is enticing the viewer, with hopes that the book’s content could surprise more.  The installation was designed to engage similar thoughts and anticipation, leading the viewers with its quirkiness from one figure to another, discovering fun and interest within the shelves.


The work is accompanied by instructions to have the viewers interacts with the figures but handle them with care while doing so. Many fellow classmates reviewed that they might be blocking people who are seeking books or neglected by people who look for books by the code numbers. Therefore, I consider this installation as a social experiment of the relationship between installations and library visitors. Since most installations were installed at the side of people’s daily routine, what interaction will produce if the installation was installed between the visitors and their targeted books?

At the end of the installation period, 12pm April 15th, I went to the location to collect my figures, and the following scenery was discovered.

20160415_124842 20160415_124818 20160415_124808 20160415_124804 20160415_124744 20160415_124729 20160415_124715 20160415_124707 20160415_124656 20160415_124638 20160415_124631

As you can see, many of them were misplaced, pulled out, attempted to be placed back the original locations, roughly handled and placed aside. (Fortunately, none of them went missing.) The phenomena are sort of within my expectation except the one with the book “From Pinewood to Hollywood”. I was delighted as I saw the book was placed by one of the visitors for the walk-and-browse figure. Although this is the only positive outcome from the attempted interaction, I was still cheered from previous frustration. My interest towards this form of art was thus heighten again.

The Library is one of the most interesting I had in 4D module because I have never approached with installation art before. I am grateful to Mr. Michael Tan for giving us this opportunity to try out this medium. I had a lot of fun (while exhausted in the making) as mentioned by Mr. Michael. This will be another experience of the module I won’t forget.

fb page

PS: I thank NTU Library for sharing my work onto their Facebook Page, it’s a great honor and thank Mr. Michael Tan for informing the good news!!

Thanks for reading!

20160414_183151

The excitement is inevitable!!!! And that’s not a realistic printed pen.

It’s completed!! I screamed internally when I finished pasting every beautifully printed pages together. The end result of the printing are glossy but the brilliance of the colors still stands out completely. The vivid colors wasn’t dull but pleasing to my eyes.The papers I’ve chosen from Fancy Papers Ltd are gampi papers (covers) and thick papers with the texture of my visual journal. The papers works well and maintained its flatness throughout the pasting and logistics.

All these excitement aside, I’ll be guiding you through my zine page by page to give you a full view.

I chose the Jokerman font for my title as I want a memorable font to be the first thing shown into the readers’ eyes. The font shall also give the impression of light-hearted-ness for the entire zine in the beginning as well. Adding the red spiky eclipse to make the cover interesting was decided early before the paper was chosen. Surprisingly the design fits perfectly with gampi’s certificate-like texture.

Throughout the contents, I chose the Huxtable and Hurry Up font for both my narrations and instructions to give them a quirky tone. The two fonts are not linearly aligned which produce a non-serious component for the work.

Originally I wanted to use metal pins to attach the supposedly-leather-made pen holder. Unable to find the suitable pin to fit the colored-paper-made holder, I made a pair of “pins” with yellow color papers and paste the whole thing together. Thinking back the decisions, the pen holder, in my opinion, suited the overall style of the illustrations.

20160414_183414 20160414_183314

Initially, I wanted to place a pen-outline subtly in the main pages in the left photo, which will be visible when fully expanded. However, the Pen-as-Arsenals composition made the lines blended too subtly into its background, which unfortunately hidden my initial intentions for the compositions. Inevitable, it’s considered a pity by me. For the compositions in the other side (right), I connected them together with various factors, such as mirroring compositing and connecting backgrounds. With these decision, the pages were held together visually, showing their identities in the same narration, even though their styles were different.

20160414_183212 20160414_183216 20160414_183223 20160414_183231

[Click into the thumbnails to get a full view of each pages.]

As most of the composition are explained, I shall move to the third composition where I wished to included the occupation perspectives I eliminated from the previous project. I was able to revive following the perspective:

A PEN from the point of view of MONK is MEDITATION

A PEN from the point of view of DRUMMER is DRUMSTICK

A PEN from the point of view of PENTURNERS is ART (The main contributor of the page’s interactivity.)

A PEN from the point of view of LAWYER is GUN

A PEN from the point of view of POLITICIAN is WMD (Donald Drumpf inspired?)

A PEN from the point of view of SCIENTIST is CAMERA

(For this I supposed many of you might recognize 2 of the most entertaining engineers/scientist in TV history. I chose them to replace white coats as one of them, Adam Savage once said: “Remember kids, the only difference between Science and screwing around is writing it down.”)

20160414_183235

I left this page to be enlarged as I wanted to point out specifically my mistake on it. Due to my neglect on proofreading, The paragraph in the page had terrible typos and mis-phrasing. While being anxious before submission, I decided to cover it with a plain printing paper as the school’s printing shops didn’t allow me to reprint the words on the extra paper I bought before print. During the class presentation, just as I recapping my pages, I thought of a better solution for this mistake as I mentioned on my presentation:

Adding an interactivity which requires the reader to correct the mis-phrased paragraph, because this page is a tribute to the line: A PEN from the point of view of TEACHER is STICK & CARROT and A WAY TO PASS DOWN OUR WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE.

Lesson learned, always think through when fixing mistakes, avoid naive and stupid solution as well.

20160414_183255 20160414_183244

After the bad news, now for the good news. The back cover surprise turned up very well with the Pen-shaped compilation of PEN in various languages. When the zine is open as the right image with a pen the pen holder, a mirroring composition is formed and I was extremely satisfied with this outcome.

REFLECTION:

My fellow classmates like the illustration very much while Ms.Joy warned me about the consideration on font size. For instance, in the occupation composition, due to the fact that both instruction and narration are typed in the same font size, readers might confuse them over the similar font and take times to differentiate them via capitalization. Overall, the zine was regarded as nicely done. I am proud of it too!

This is the last project of the module Foundation 2D. Throughout the academic years, I’ve learned a lot from my classmates from different semesters and my tutor Ms.Joy. I got to challenged many methods of execution and styles for different themes. This is one of the modules I am glad I didn’t drop and I am looking forward to have the same excitement while being in my majors’ modules.

Thanks 2D, and thanks Ms.Joy for the guidance since 1st semester.

Thanks for reading!!

Since a zine is basically a magazine but smaller…… Is that what the MAGA means….????

(Definitely incorrect, if you did the research.)

Welcome to the end of our 2D journey, which I’ll repeat, the last project will be based on the recent projects we’ve done throughout our foundation year. My concept was officially announced as JOURNEY WITH PEN, a remake of my POV project but expanded and extended. I gotta to say that the whole process is crazy and fun as I’ve never rushed so many digital illustration within a short period of time before! The project reminded me the joy of my own hobby and while whacking the whole work out, I enjoyed every single pages of illustrating. Without further ado, let me lead you through the work, CHRONOLOGICALLY. Let’s start with the good old visual journal, shall we?

20160414_183510

My plan on my zine.

I thought of using 5 A4 papers to form the accordion booklet format I planned as it’s hard to find any paper that has the length to fit the width of 6 A5 papers. (Refer to the booklet figure in the image.) When I started planning the narration for the 8 pages given, I realized that I have the advantages of utilizing the Inside Cover Pages for both ends, because there’s no need to leave them blank for a zine. I’ve figured to give my zine a filling content, why not just include these inside cover pages as the space for my contents? Therefore I added a beginning or prequel to the main narration. This page included my line: A PEN from the point of view of CIVILIZATION is A TOOL OF COMMUNICATION.

20160414_183518

Following the first Inside Cover Page is the main contents of my zine. With the space to extend and expand my previous work, I’ve given myself the opportunity to include many of my eliminated ideas (due to the incoherent concepts. ) into the zine’s body content. During the planning, I found the contents are still lacking some excitement or attraction for the readers. Then an idea popped up as I pictured what if this is a mass publication? I then recalled the book “Wreck This Journal” by Keri Smith, a book series that is an extreme case of interactive books since “Where’s Waldo”. Yes, interactivity was what my zine needed. Thus, I added many instructions in the main content pages that won’t let the readers “wreck” my zine. (Yes, I am not that extreme for this.)

Soon after this, I start designing my zine front and back covers. I decided to keep the front simple to surprise the readers with the rich illustrations. With the same consideration for the back cover, I felt it would be too empty for it because I didn’t included any images in it. So I placed a little surprise for the back cover as well with the help of the glorious Google Translate.

20160414_183526

With a little drafting of my verbal narration and I’m done.

During the group consultation, Ms. Joy and my fellow classmates suggested me to consider more on the printing materials to ensure the bonding of the accordion booklet won’t influence too much on my zine’s final appearance. Thanks to the reliable paper distributor Fancy Papers and the kind people in Poster Connection @ Sunshine Plaza, my zine is completed.

To be continued……

Since everyone was so far ahead of the updates, I am gonna do a quick summarized update for my project 3 – The Library in ONE post.

Thinking of an installation art about the library is no easy task. This location is very common to anyone who has been a student, yet many of the library visitor has different perspective of the place. The ADM library is rather the most special library among our universities library. This can be due to its special layout design, use of spaces, functionality of different region, and also the research materials it contains. It’s pretty obvious for ADM library’s specialty so I won’t talk too much about it.

When it comes to conceptualizing, I’ve always like to start from my point of view. For me, the library is a place for homework, individual concentration, research paper brainstorming, and research materials searching. I always spend my extra time in the library. (only if I waiting for certain event to start and I have no sustainable leisure alternatives such as my laptop around me. ) What I like to do in the library is surfing through the shelves, and see if there’s any book titles on their spines that catch my attention. It’s kinda like surfing the internet without intentions but you do it in the real life.

SO most of my ideas originate from the act of surfing the bookshelves.

1. see through the shelf 2. obstacle 3. obstacle 2 4. I rather 1 5. I rather 2 6. blind search

(From top left)

I thought about the views we’ve missed when we search for the books, the layers of space formed by the holes that’s formed by the books and the shelves. And then there’s the inevitable obstacle set by people who were too focus on their chosen books and unintentionally blocked the pathways. The space I’ve mentioned in the first one also caught my attention and I wonder if I can express how certain series of books have lost their timeliness due to constant technological upgrades. I’ve also wanted to play with searching action by deliberately covering the paths to increase the difficulty of my “bookshelves surfing”.

The responses from I got from Mr. Michael Tan, is that these works can be improved in terms of directed perspective, importance, and relational attributes. Several artist works are also introduced such as Michael Lee Hong Hwee and Robert Gober,

Finally I’ve chosen the idea of placing little figures around the shelves that stimulates my idea of bookshelves surfing. The decision is based on removing the installation ideas that isn’t manageable, completely curated, and relevant to the whole 4D modules. The little figures concept is inspired by Michael Lee Hong Hwee’s work as he printed out many scaled down versions of him and set them “free to play around”. I wanted to try the concept with my own interpretation and context.

The challenges of the work is the consideration I needed to take on about the work’s detailed presentation. This includes the amount of the little figures, their presentations, and their consistent actions to fit my theme. I will have the mock ups completed within the following week.

Thanks for reading and please look forward to my updates!

Project Point of View is over and it’s been fun. To show how much fun I’ve been, let me show you my whole final work and progress. Click in, scroll down, do what ya need to do.

The theme I’ve chosen is concept number 3, The Journey of the Pen, with ME. The reason I chose this theme is not only it’s complete but also how thought-out the composition is. A hypothetical transition from the past to the future, categorized in 3 periods of time, two for each. This transition shows how the PEN has accompanied me over the years, and how I hope it continues to do so.

A traditional pen is hard to be replaced as long as handwriting is still cool. A traditional pen, sure, leaves the mistake on, but we are able learn from these mistakes as long as it stays appeared to remind us. IT shows our process of thinking, proving our humane improvement. Okay, I sounded like a person who denies technological advancement, but these pen still has its value until the day Apple pencil doesn’t need to be recharged.

Let’s start walking through my final work, shall we? So the first journey from the past of the PEN with ME, is being through my childhood.

A PEN from the point of view of A CHILD is PENCIL YOU CAN’T ERASED

20160320_165732

I won’t represent myself to everybody’s childhood, so I’ll just show my own version with my first meeting with the pen. After I learnt how to hold a pencil as a child, I love to doodle in the papers with my bad handwriting and my juvenile drawings. When I first picked up a pen, I was excited and drew so much stuff with it. My curiosity was shown in my naive strokes. I was shocked by the fact that how pen marks can’t be erased. If I make a mistake, it will be there forever. Thus I was very careful with the pen till the day I discover correction tape. However, I find correction tape ruins the papers so I started use strikethrough. Since, I have no fear while using a pen. (But we still can use our pens till secondary school years.)

A PEN from the point of view of STUDENT is ARSENALS.

20160320_165755

I got my inspiration from a popular manga called “Assassination Classroom”, which stated no matter what our ultimate targets or dreams are, we shall always have our “second knife (weapon)” ready. Even though I wrote “manga artist/filmmaker” countless in my essays, I was living under the hood of a rather strict-about-academics family. I’ve never regretted striving for good academic results as they’ve lead me far enough till now. University is the furthest a good report card can take us to, but I’ll never forget the hellish war we’ve been through in the examination halls. (I said it in the critique session, I’ll say it again. Our real soldiers fight in more hellish war and training, and they fight harder.) The pen is our only offense in exams, and we should never walk into the halls without extra ammunition (extra refills as shown in the illustrations.) Initially, I was going to insert textbook formulae into the white monster on the right, but then I decided, leave it to simplicity and imagination.

A PEN from the point of view of ME is MIND PROJECTOR

20160320_165846

Most of the time, my brainstorming only starts when my pen (especially my ARTLINE fine tip pen, as illustrated.) touches my visual journal. That’s how all my project started since the last semester. Not only it’s my motivator to my procrastination, it also made me take a look about what popped in my mind before revising. For instance, this gruesome composition popped in my head and my pen visualized it. Perhaps this is the best way to show how mind is projected through the pen, in terms of my style.

A PEN from the point of view of MY FACE is A FACE MASSAGER

20160320_165901

In present times, as ADM student like every other ADMers, I have tons of assignments to brainstorm, and my mind is not a firecracker that can pops idea every minute it burns. Therefore, there’s definitely times when my mind is as blank as a paper. What does it do whenever I can’t think anything? A face massager, of course, as it pokes every acupuncture points I can assume in hopes to boost creativity. Whoever learnt science here is going to confirm, it won’t work. Poking my skull through layers of meat definitely describes my current state as a learner.

A PEN from the point of view of MY FUTURE is A TEETORUM

20160320_165917

Why a teetorum? Pronouncing makes me giggle too. I doubt that I pronounced it correctly. Teetorum is the given name of a spinning dice. I chose spinning dice as it is a fate decider/diviner that resembles a pen with its stick-like figure. Thus I combined the two together and formed the one in the illustration. As I am unsure of where my future go because things don’t go 100% with plans. But that doesn’t mean I can’t control my fate of where’s my career heading. I believed not only the pen helps me determining my future, but also gives me the authority to do so. Many of my fellow dreamers might holding different version of pens, but I’m sure our ambition about fate will likely be the same.

A PEN from the point of view of FUTURE ME is A BELL JAR.

20160320_165930

The future is like a ball of unwove thread. Knowing myself the best, I believed my future will need a fortress of solitude under the possible pressure of my future jobs. Thus my own version of terrarium is formed. Even in my present days, I find my time-to-time fan art ink illustration meditating and relaxing. The pen shields me from all mental disturbance ever since and I hope it will do so in the future. And what’s not a better way than placing the pen as best inanimate buddy in the last panel to wrap this all up?

I decided to go with diluted acrylic because it greatly resembles the effect of water colors and acrylic is the most abundant art material I have. Diluted acrylics to me is like a pen to my childhood. Why? Acrylics can be corrected in its oily state but once a mistake is made in its dilute form, a saturated form is needed but it will then destroy the effect I intended. Fortunately, they all worked out like a charm. This is probably the first I resisted the urge of fully covering an illustration with colors because I found there is an effect of dragging attention to those blank space by not coloring them. The work also trained me well in using brush pen as the main inking tool.

Overall, my fellow classmates like my use of the thick and thin ink strokes. Even though I’ve used the character style of Adam Lurkam and the attempted imitation of Jacqueline Bissett’s strokes, the viewers in the critiques agreed that the work projected my personal attributes. Moreover, it does succeed the children illustration look I wanted. I am satisfied with the outcome and the traditional medium I’ve challenged.

I have to mention everyone else in my class did a splendid job in their work as well. I am going to miss the times we get to spend in such eye-opening critique sessions. Looking forward as usual to everybody’s zine works!

Thanks for reading!

Yes, the current progress I’m gonna show is my concepts. Through the brainstorming of the point of views, I found I’m easily restricted by the 18 points I brought up. Well, it’s the easiest to start from, which soon enough caused me some trouble.

types of pen

Selecting a suitable pen for each compositions.

Concept 1

First concept I thought up is based on the professions. After rereading my POVs in the previous presentation, I found some of them could not easily visualized with illustrations, especially from the subject RED. The PEN is rather visual to express as I compared it as other objects. Therefore I’ve filtered the 18 points into 8, not only because they can be visualized but also because that they are from my daily observations, comprehensions, and imaginations.

I listed out the following subjects and their POVs towards a pen that would likely to be in the final project.

  • A PEN from the point of view of CHILD is PENCIL YOU CAN’T ERASED
  • A PEN from the point of view of CALLIGRAPHER is MUSIC INSTRUMENT
  • A PEN from the point of view of WRITER is PAINTBRUSH
  • A PEN from the point of view of DRUMMER is DRUMSTICK
  • A PEN from the point of view of PENTURNERS is ART
  • A PEN from the point of view of LAWYER is GUN
  • A PEN from the point of view of STUDENT is ARSENALS.
  • A PEN from the point of view of ME is MIND PROJECTOR

Reason to select a PEN: A pen to me is ambiguous as it shows what I think. Either an image, a story, an answer, or a plan can’t be confirmed until the tip glides through the paper.

20160312_155745

Material contain spoilers. (If you can read it ;P)

I’ve paired them up in order to see if there’s any comparisons or contrasts shown, in such that

  • Children vs Students (They’re stages of growth everyone must’ve been through.)
  • Calligraphers vs Writers (They create things beautiful to the eye and the mind respectively.)
  • Drummers vs Penturners (One uses it not for its original purpose, the other made it as an art.)
  • Lawyer vs Me (This pairing make no sense, at all.)

The problem with concept ONE is it lacks a convincing theme, and it’s difficult to think of something to tie them together. Based on past experiences, it’s better not to push too much into a concept that can’t work or only work reluctantly. Therefore, I had to brainstorm another concept.

20160312_155649

Spoilers alert!

Concept 2

Perhaps I can direct the project into a narrative or transitional? This is what I thought. Ms. Joy suggested building my concept on current affairs, using pens a metaphoric medium. However, due to my lack of sensitivity on the mentioned theme, a self-exploring theme might be a more suitable theme that I am able to handle.

Focusing on stages of growth in the first concept, I based this concept on the object: CHILD, STUDENT, and ME. Thus, the new concept: EVOLUTION OF ME (Maybe) is formed. Why the bracketed maybe? This is because my current stage stop on ME, it’s only half way there. (NOT in terms of biological life-time.) The next half has to be hypothetical, hypothetical about what comes after ME?

I wrote ARTIST first under the obvious reasons. The word ARTIST is generic, it can be painter, designer, musicians, calligraphers, performing actors, and so on. Meanwhile, feeling the previous statement for ARTIST isn’t suitable, I came up with a new statement:

A PEN from the point of view of ARTIST is A SWISS ARMY KNIFE.

Then, I added WRITER in a generic term. It’s an alternate term for creator, any ideas: a film, a piece of music, literature, installations, or biopics, they all started with writing. Therefore, this stage of our creative career is the stage when we are creating our legacies, or masterpiece. The fun part is, this stage can coexist with the ARTIST stage.

What follows is TEACHER, an educator. Not only we’re leaving something behind, we have to leave our skills, ideas and wisdom, things that are hard to be inherited completely. What can we do about it? We teach, we pass it to the next generation. Thus:

A PEN from the point of view of TEACHER is STICK & CARROT and A WAY TO PASS DOWN OUR WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE.

However, even in such concept, there are some composition created aren’t consistent with the whole project. Some of composition created left me uncertain as I felt they did not do the statement justice. The uncertainty worries me, so I created another concept on the same transitional theme.

Concept 3: The Journey of pen WITH me.

A theme with a hypothetical transition for the future, this future is more realistic, and less philosophical. (Am I philosophical for the previous theme……?? HAHA) Parted with three time periods: past, present, and future, this theme focused more on myself personally instead of the generic profession. (Which kinda opposed to what I said in past posts.)

New components are added such as new object: MY FACE and FUTURE ME. With the new objects, new statement are formed:

A PEN from the point of view of MY FACE is A FACE MASSAGER

A PEN from the point of view of MY FUTURE-SELF is A TEETORUM

A PEN from the point of view of FUTURE ME is A BELL JAR.

The concept was said to be more curated, but the theme is still young and there’s a lot to think in terms of presentation and compositions.

I try to be secretive for my statement explanation as not only I try not to spoil everything in case the statements are selected, and also I wanted to let the illustrations speaks for themselves.

 

EXECUTION

For style, I’ll be referring to the artists/illustrators I’ve found for the previous presentation. I’ve experiment with the styles and with the tools I find interesting, a brush pen. I’ve would wanted to try different types of pens for the work too just to emphasize my works.

art style attempts

Art Style Attempts

The project will be a combinations of various artists’ styles that can be seen in first glance. I’d love to try an illustration with

  • Jacqueline Bissett strokes for the main character.
  • Adam Lurkam’s style for the main character designs, and Mia Nilsson‘s for the supporting ones.
  • Chrissy Lau and Rohan Eason styles with detailed background illustration.
  • Maguma’s or Alexandra Ball’s 2 dimensional compositing.
  • Andy Gellenberg’s solid coloring if required.

They either can be done with wet mediums or digital post production. Perhaps it’d be like the decision of my previous project, regarding mediums attributes.

20160312_155815 20160312_155822 20160312_155834 20160312_155848 20160312_155854 20160312_155811 20160312_155838

After the group consultation, some composition attempts, and the execution trials, I was advised to not adding too much complicated components in the works to make my main characters stand out more. Simplicity is the best brilliancy I supposed. We’ve also decided that computer scanned watercolor medium can be used to avoid any technical issues.

Next week, the project will be completed, so I have to keep it spoiler-free, but please look forward to my selected concept.

Thanks for reading!

It’s difficult to talk about a residence in a deeply manner without staying more than a day. In my case, however, a total of 4 hours after three visits is what I get. I can’t complain about the 2 hours of traveling which required switching between 3 transportation lines as this kampong is the subject I chose, and I have to find the theme out of it.

So I think the third trip kinda proofs that ideas will come to you by itself. I kept getting something new in every trip. When I try to investigate some aspect of the kampong, the kampong put me down at some point and came up with another point for me to make. Long story short, the idea for the video is born.

The whole video format is inspired by video essayists on Youtube who narrate their subjects and sometimes interact with what they edited. So, it’s my first self-narrating video, please pardon my tones and accent.

When a type place became rare, people are ensured to make a big deal about it. This is my answer to what I try to contribute for the kampong’s overdone status. This video focus mainly on one random interviewee, and usually the representative, Auntie Sun is the one who do the explaining. When a random villager has the same issue with their as what the representative said, this issue can be proven kampongwide. (Auntie Sun told the same zoom-in-to-a-grandma-house story on my second kampong trip.)

I hope that it came out sort of like a public announcement, not to leave them alone, but respect them as a residency of Singapore. They don’t mind their kampong is famous, but worried that their peaceful life style is affected for the rest of their retirement.

 

When it comes to 18 of them, which one should I add the s? POINT? Or VIEW?

How to think of 18 point of views of any subject? First, start with something not specific. Then, find something everyone can related to, so perspective ensured to exist. Followed by something I have different point of view from the common point of views. Thus, I came out with something I extremely relied on as much as my computer, le PEN.

My definition of a pen is, it produce lines of any ink, it can fill up any given 2-dimensional space, it has a hard tip for user-friendly, and it is not a pencil. Yeah, this is somehow a little unnecessary explanation but I just want it clear before I put out my list of POVs. Feel free to read and I’ll see you at the bottom of the list.

A PEN from the point of view of CIVILIZATION is TOOL OF COMMUNICATION

A PEN from the point of view of CHILD is PENCIL YOU CAN’T ERASED

A PEN from the point of view of CALLIGRAPHER is MUSIC INSTRUMENT

A PEN from the point of view of WRITER is PAINTBRUSH

A PEN from the point of view of MONK is MEDITATION

A PEN from the point of view of DRUMMER is DRUMSTICK

A PEN from the point of view of PENTURNERS is ART

A PEN from the point of view of CRITIC is SWORD

A PEN from the point of view of PHILOSOPHER is ENGINEERS TO SCIENTISTS

A PEN from the point of view of PAINTER is CHISEL

A PEN from the point of view of BUSINESSMAN is SEAL OF APPROVAL

A PEN from the point of view of LAWYER is GUN

A PEN from the point of view of STUDENT is BOW AND ARROW

A PEN from the point of view of GAMBLER is CHANCE

A PEN from the point of view of SCIENTIST is CAMERA

A PEN from the point of view of POLITICIAN is WMD

A PEN from the point of view of INVENTOR is IGNITION

A PEN from the point of view of MUSICIAN is ACRYLICS

A PEN from the point of view of PROCRASTINATOR is MOTIVATOR

A PEN from the point of view of ME is MIND PROJECTOR

Had fun? You may heard of some of the sentences as they are universal facts. What I am trying to do express is I focused on human occupations since pen is such an important tool to these particular aspect require a civilized system of communication we called written language. IT is fun to explore and conclude generically how such small tool can be a great deal when different users is holding it.

Since we’re in a course that emphasized on conceptual results, it’s never too troubled to think of another idea. I thought of the most used color in human civilization, or rather this continent of the world, RED. Due to how much man-made culture had utilized it, red is almost everywhere. As a matter of fact, RED is in our blood. So, spare some time to read through my POVs of the color, RED.

A RED from the point of view of KID is LEADER

A RED from the point of view of TEACHER is AUTHORITY

A RED from the point of view of CLOTHING LINE is UNISEX

A RED from the point of view of TECHNICIANS is DANGER

A RED from the point of view of PARENTS is VIOLENCE

A RED from the point of view of CHINESE is PROSPERITY

A RED from the point of view of ALCOHOLICS is WINE

A RED from the point of view of FEMINIST is STRENGTH

A RED from the point of view of DOCTOR is BLOOD

A RED from the point of view of NATURE is SEDUCTION

A RED from the point of view of ADVERTISERS is EYE-CATCHING

A RED from the point of view of CHEF is DELICIOUS

A RED from the point of view of DESIGNERS is FF0000

A RED from the point of view of EYE is ATTENTION

A RED from the point of view of FRUIT LOVER is SWEET

A RED from the point of view of FOOD LOVER is HOT

A RED from the point of view of SCIENTIST is 620-750

A RED from the point of view of LOVERS is COMPASSION

This time the POVs are covering different aspects in cultural phenomenon instead of focusing on human occupation. This is because I found RED was already part of the universal, therefore I inserted other object to interact with the color, like the nature and eye. I’ve also included specified groups of people like alcoholics, feminist, advertisers, and lovers to give it a different tone to the collections.

However, as an unspoken and unexplained law of the human mind stated, when you are able to think it, someone else must’ve thought it. Apparently, there are other fellow course-mates had the same idea. So, in order to let my work stand out, and not a “just-another-similar-thing”, the style of execution is vital.

20160228_153131

In terms of style, I’ve looked through the web with websites like 9gag and a modern artist related site call the Illustration Web, which is like a dating site, except, this is for freelance graphic artist/illustrators and commissioners.

(Feel free to google the names in the collages.)

stylised characters

The medium I have in mind are illustration, which was greatly (almost over-)used by everyone else. Perhaps it is because many point of views included human characters, and illustration is the most practical to express human figures. So, I would like to try some stylized designs of my human characters. The styles I found interesting is these particular artists, as they did their characters in an unconventional ways to prove their styles are unique and hope that they’re recognizable. Although like how classical art were considered common in their time, (I heard there are plenty of artist had the same styles as Vermeer in his period.) their names hardly stand out, but their efforts and attributes of creating a special characters are worth to learn.

attractive lines

Next I have to consider about lines and how to shape out my compositions. There are plenty of illustrators love to used insanely intricate lines to wow their viewers, and yet some of them can do by performing instant strokes to form a figure. Less is more? It can’t be decided objectively.

interesting composition

Compositions is the key to this project. There’s a need to be abstract yet able to communicate with audience instantly. Even if the work cannot show a literal context, it must at least keep the audience interested. At least, this is what I see from the art above.

unique coloring

Lastly, the color. For either subjects I had in mind, I planned to use different coloring methods. For PEN, I planned to use digital coloring, or the complicated coloring styles from the images. As for RED, I intended to make the compositions black in white and only color the red objects, or maybe VICE VERSA.

In conclusion of my research, there are still a lot more to test and possibly I can decide once I came up with the experimental drafts. My fellow classmates have given good advice that ended up into my explanation above. Since I love illustration works too so I am excited to see what will be the end results, or at least, end decision.

Thanks for reading and see you next time!

My concept for typography portrait has finally progressed and an idea worth anticipating is formed. YAY! My new concept is: CITY-BOY, where my personalities are shown in the forms of urban facilities illustrated by various traditional mediums.

City culture is one of the things that KL and Singapore had in common. It shows how far human being had advanced and how human community thrives for a better living. The city shows a more distinct variation of forms and views for me. Don’t get me wrong, I like natural sceneries as well but natural landscapes shows the trails left by the elements; cityscapes shows the trails left by the human society. Therefore I find the city interesting when you can deduce human nature in through their physical creations.

I wanted to explore subtleties again in this project after inspired by Ji Lee’s “Word as Image”. Subtleties wasn’t shown in my last concept even though Ji Lee was one of the artist I’m trying to refer. Therefore I want to make sure that his subtle manipulation of words was in my new concept. While doing so, I also want to try out more traditional mediums since the LINE project in order to step out from my photography media.

vernacular typography

Vernacular Typography

I searched for a few sites related to my new ideas. Most of the city/urban typographies shown are the ones produced by citizens for occupation/marketing purpose. Vernacular typography.com and The Journal of Urban Typography tumblr documented many handwritten signs, sprayed signs, billboards, and gold signs in NYC.

tjout

The Journal of Urban Typography (tjout@tumblr)

There’s a form of city typography created with special fonts on beautiful city photos. These Instagram-worthy photos did not fit my concepts very well. Later, I caught a glimpse of collage typography which impressed me with its dada-ish and constructivist style.

city typo 3 city typo 2 city typo 1

collage typography

Collage typography, advanced? version of Constructivist Typography

Some of the G-1 folks also gave me some instant suggestions. (As in what pops up in their head after hearing my title.) Since my arrival in Singapore, I’ve always feel that every outing trip to the cities is like going into a new world. There’s a different atmosphere for each city so I have to think of something that conclude my explorations along with traits I hope to show. I shall choose the aspects of the city that I approached the most. Therefore I picked the following aspects.

visual journal 1

  1. Street signs
  2. Public transport
  3. Architectures
  4. People
  5. The public paths: Pedestrian roads, escalators, and tunnels.

street signs escalator

These aspects are the ones that show up in every of my trips, and they represented some new traits I’ve never presented. I’ll explain their relevance in the future.

I match these new traits with the traditional mediums’ specialty. Collage making is paired with STREET SIGNS; Sharpie art with PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION; water colors will be the execution for PEOPLE; fine tip suits best with ARCHITECTURE; and print making is matched with THE PUBLIC PATHS.

visual journal 2

I wrote the properties for the designs only as I haven’t figure out the details until I have enough resources and experiments. Other problems included my demand of traditional materials, (tools and paper types.) how I plan the color choices, (again) and how to fit/cut my concepts into the newly announced 4-frame-format. Despite all of the above, trials and execution time will be the greatest challenge for this project. Perhaps my future post for this project will include a lot of my fails attempts. Hope not. (Crossing fingers.)

Thanks for reading my renewed conceptualizing stage. See you in my next progress post!

How This Is NOT My Home (Yet)

8 A4 size photos on plain papers.

So this was the original title I had in mind. Although not as far as from China, my hometown is far enough to stimulate homesickness. I adapted the hostel living with my own set of routine in order to help me stimulate how I lived in my home sweet home. Yes, home is a comfortable place, but is not always the most exciting place. To show and tell, I decided on using a first person view to let the viewers see what I see. I found using my most wide-angled lens won’t achieved the stimulating effect I wanted, therefore I thought, I should include my arms into the shots as we don’t always put our arms behind our backs. It also created the effect of impossible POV shots, which later responded during the presentation in January 18th.

 

DSC_0735

This is not my home because I woke up knowing my family members is not under the same roof.

DSC_0740

This is not my home because my breakfast is almost the same everyday and I can surf the internet while eating without being nagged.

DSC_0753

This is not my home because I am paranoid about whether if I locked my door. I invented a way to keep my future-self reminded by leaving a red mark that will last at least 30 minutes with the blades of my keys after I double checked my lock.

DSC_0744

This is not my home because this is not the most comfortable place for my personal business.

DSC_0796

This is not my home because I have to buy my own meals and definitely having people to eat dinner with isn’t guaranteed. Therefore buying a takeaway to my room is justification of the later.

DSC_0057

This is not my home because I get to see my friends whenever I wanted and tend to be more available for hanging outs. Friends have always been the family from outside, they’re the ones that get me through the strangeness in new environments.

DSC_0878

This is not my home because I don’t have to maintain the decent tidiness in my bedroom. I developed the habit of throwing my keys on my bed whenever I enter my room. Although it’s a small gesture, but this shows I’m gradually adapting this new HOME-to-be.

DSC_0894

This is not my home because taking a shower indicates the end of my day while at home, a shower is a preparation for a trip. A shower have became the moment to recap my day.

For task 2, I edited the photos into a slideshow, accompanied with sounds I’ve collected with my phone, in order to enhance the imitation of my life experiences.

However, there are many limitations in my work, such as what I described for my task 1 are tough to be seen in the photos noted composition without my presentation. In the video, the lack of variation of still images make it hard for viewers to stay through. I intended to show the silence I adapted with sounds but without further informative signs, it can be misinterpreted as showing my loneliness with daily life. I admit there was loneliness in the first few months but I later found being alone isn’t always an unendurable situation. Yet I was not able to convey this message through my slideshows, proving it’s not enough with simple sounds and limited amount of still image. There are many more signs to add for my video to be understandable. As the reviewing of my class said, “A layer of me, my context and content is needed.”

Thanks for reading.