Initial Dingbat Creations :

Initial dingbats were based on materialism. Inspired by modern day pop songs, I wanted to use superficiality to create something which had deeper meaning as I felt that ‘in your face’ materialistic dingbats could be used to create better impact in whatever concept I was going to settle on.

 

 

Initially I thought we could combine rhymes so I wanted to combine both London Bridge and Rock-a-bye Baby as both nursery rhymes contained elements of falling and I wanted to expand on that as initially I wanted to emulate Rene Magritte’s falling effect. I felt like it gave the work a surrealist and impactful look. I thought his work also managed to achieve spatial depth by playing with scale and so I wanted to emulate this effect initially.

 

But I felt like it was too ‘in your face’ so I wanted more symbolism in the work. So I tried to explore the tree motifs and how to take one object out of it’s context to form another object and to bring out a deeper meaning behind it.

 

I also was inspired by Hannah Hoch’s style of dismembering and reassembling to form a whole new form. I also loved how she played with scale and how she juxtaposed images of different sizes to form a coherent image.

 

 

 

For this project I felt that experimentation on Photoshop would be better for me so I did fast sketches for ideas and did the rest on Photoshop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some collaging that I did :

 

 

Works That Didn’t Make It but were initial ideas on Photoshop :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rock-a-bye Baby

Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall
And down will come baby, cradle and all

 

 

 

Final Work :

First Line : Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop

The first line really stood out to me as I felt that it conveyed a sense of security for the baby. Singaporeans in the 1960s felt that children provided a sense of security as they could take care of them when they got older and thus, having a child was a great priority and babies were placed on a pedestal with families wanting a child to provide them with a sense of security. I represented the baby in the form of a rattle and a crown to show the importance of having a baby. The rattle is framed by the lion and the tiger (Representing the lion and the tiger on the Singapore coin) and how Baby = Money. The ‘Japanese sun’ background was inspired by propaganda posters as I wanted to give emphasis to the rattle in the middle of the composition.

Use of classmate’s dingbats :

Ziyaad’s Crown : Representation of how people back in the 1960s regarded having a baby as ‘king’ and providing financial security for them

 

Second Line : When the wind blows, the cradle will rock

I interpreted the wind as Singapore’s economic development and how it caused people to grab money and live the luxurious life. I saw the cradle as Singapore itself and the baby’s position as a priority in people’s lives. The ‘cradle’ which is Singapore, being a safe haven for the baby, has now put the baby in a precarious position and now people are weighing the advantages and disadvantages of having a baby and leading to the intervening of the government who introduced schemes such as baby bonus in  to persuade people into getting a baby. But having a baby came as a form of ‘credit’ as the baby would contribute to the future of Singapore’s economy and also as a form of credit for parents who would raise the child as they would have to use money to feed and raise the baby. I also explored the contrast of the Singapore flag as the background as I wanted to show the nationalistic idea of how the state promotes birthrate for their own economic progress.

Use of classmate’s Dingbat :

Cloud : Giving Lee Hsien Loong an identity of a ‘higher being’ in the clouds trying to tempt citizens to have babies.

Jun Yuan’s Justice Scale : Showing how Singaporeans started to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of having a baby and that the baby bonus caused them to reconsider pursuing their careers instead of having a baby.

 

Third Line : When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall

This line stood out to me as Singaporean’s thought of throwing away the idea of having a baby. The cradle, being a safe place for babies, has now been broken and is now leading to the decline in Singapore’s economy. This work shows the draining out of babies as well as the economy due to the falling birthrate. It also shows the panic and fear in Singaporeans’ faces. I wanted to use the Merlion dingbat to represent our social culture and how, with the declining birthrate, will all go down the drain. The storks (symbol of delivering babies in popular culture) are now trying their best to carry the entire nation, hoping to be able to cling on to their jobs of delivering babies. The arms are now holding up the country as now there is a decline in economy due to the birthrate.

Use of classmates’ dingbats :

Line’s Merlion : Representation of Singapore’s society and culture and the pipe attached conveys how our economy and birthrate are going down the drain.

Shannen’s Panicking woman : Representation of our society’s panic when we realise that our society is deteriorating due to the diminishing birthrate.

 

 

Fourth Line : And down will come baby, cradle and all

I interpreted this as the future of Singapore when economy is deteriorating with an aging population and society still wanting to chase cash and monetary items, placing the birthrate at a precarious position. The hands are in the shape of an hourglass which showed that time is running out and his situation was caused by our own hands and that regret is too late already (shown by the crying woman on either sides). I added wings to the baby because if this situation continues with the declining birthrate, it’ll be hard to get out of this situation and it resembles a trapped butterfly in a web. Even with wings it would not be able to escape. The flames at the bottom show how the economy is dying as the birthrate continues to plunge.

In this composition I used elements of my classmates’ dingbats as I felt that it conveyed a sense of darkness and death.

Clara’s Skull : Conveying death. The future is now bleak with the declining birthrate and it represents death of society, culture and economy.

Clara’s Money : Showing how the force of money(materialism) is pushing the baby down the hourglass.

Shannen’s Gun pointing at the baby : The baby is now in a precarious position as it clings onto the mid-section of the hourglass shape and the last baby is now falling into the pit of death.

Fire : Burning of our economy, society and culture

Shannen’s Woman by the side : Representation of regret and how it is now too late in the timeline to turn back

Wings on baby : Even with the slightest amount of hope for the baby to escape, it is still trapped and death is inevitable

Hands : Time is in our hands but yet we(society) are the ones who caused this (in our hands)

 

LAYOUT :

 

I had 3 ideas for the layout in mind. The first one being a cyclical pattern (suggested by Joy) to show how it is a cycle where birthrate declines when a society’s economy progresses. The second one was a timeline format where each composition represents a certain time period in Singapore ranging from the 1960s to the future. The third one being that the first three pieces flowed in order while the last 4th one dropped (symbolising the baby ‘dropping’).

After thinking about it I felt like the second layout would fit the best because the last composition talks about the future and I felt that this layout would be the most fitting.

 

 

 

I wanted to arrange it in a timeline format so it flows from one era to the next. I left a gap between the 3rd and 4th composition as I wanted to show the 4th one as a concept in the future of Singapore.

 

Arrangement

Arms : The arms are a consistent motif in all four works as I wanted to show how this situation was caused by our own greed and desire for self-progress in this economic society. In the first work, the arms are reaching out for a baby( showing desire for financial security for themselves). In the second work, the arms are now weighing the financial costs needed in raising a baby and questioning if corporate progress was more important. In the third work, the arms which caused the plunge in birthrate is now realising the situation at hand and are now trying to support the country, hoping to be able to save it. The final work shows that time is running out and caused by our own hands and that once ‘the bough breaks’, it’ll be too late to salvage.

 

Tree : I wanted to create a tree motif for the first three works as I wanted to reflect the poem’s main subject of the tree (other than the baby) as the tree represents (to me) the cradle in which the baby could safely rest and in this case it was Singapore. Thus, for the first three works you could see that the main centrepiece is in the shape of a tree. For the final work, I wanted to break away from the tree motif as the cradle has now been broken and the baby has already fallen off, and thus there’s no safe haven for the baby now.

Symmetry : I wanted to have balance in all works so that it not only flows but also able to guide the viewers’ eyes to the centrepiece which is the main focus on all 4 works.

Propaganda : Inspired by propaganda posters, I wanted to inflict the same effect across the four works as I wanted strong contrast to show central figures and also give a sense of nationalism to reflect the whole nature of the concept revolving around economic, personal and nation interests. I felt that the propaganda posters convey a sense of ‘selfishness’ as it showed how a group of people want to convey a message for their personal benefits.

Overall I actually really enjoyed this project because it allowed me to experiment easily with collaging and mistakes could just be ctrl z away(If only we could do that in real life). I’m really happy and now it’s time to move on to the next project! 🙂