He is…

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Overarching Concept

The idea of a crime scene through a series of investigative photographs allows the audience to be immersed into the work as the ‘detective’ themselves and I want to use the ‘detective’ in this work as a metaphor for judgement. We judge people like how we judge photographs ; one look and one impression is enough for us to form an opinion about someone and most of the time it’s negative. By using these series of photographs I want to poke fun and sort of ridicule the terms placed upon me and how there are always two sids to the story. I also wanted to use ironic imagery with the typographic words to further enhance the message I woud like to convey.

Setting : Home

I wanted to create a space through photographs so that my audience has an idea of the space around the death of the persona I wanted to convey through the narrative. I chose to set it in a home environment as I felt like a house is a safe place for a person, sort of like a sanctuary where one can feel safe and where we could really be our true selves. I wanted to flip the idea of home being a safe sanctuary and turn it into something sinister. Where the character( my exaggerated persona) could be himself but at the same time hate himself. I borrowed one of my relative’s house which is quite empty to shoot this project.

Evidence E :

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He is a Vegetable Murderer ; I am a Vegetarian

This was my favourite 2 sided one to work on as I liked playing with the idea of changing a positive trait into a negative. This was inspired by sarcastic comments made by people growing up as a vegetarian. ‘You’re a vegetarian but you kill vegetables so you still kill’. I wanted the setting to be in a kitchen and turn a simple routine  such as cutting vegetables into a murderous scene with ‘blood’ and ‘gore’. For this I was in a dilemma of whether to do a neat and tidy typography of my name or to keep it messy and not too obvious. The thing is I didn’t want it to seem like it was done haphazardly but my concept was that it was a messy scene and I wanted the audience to really look closely to actually be able to find my name, kind of symbolizing the idea of analyzing someone closely before we could actually find out who the person truly is. In the end I decided to go with the ‘messy’ look as I felt like it conveyed my idea better. By using tomato sauce (mixed with some watercolour paint to get the blood-like texture I wanted), I wanted to show that things may not appear as they are. Although it may look like blood at first glance (Vegetable murderer), upon closer inspection you can tell that it’s actually tomato paste (Vegetarian).

I also tried to make a blood dripping effect on the edge of the chopping board and applied some sauce to the edge of the kitchen knives to enhance the intensity of the scene. I actually used all my favourite vegetables and chose some disgusting ones like lady’s finger and long beans that have like a hollow inside with seeds on the inside that I could mimic ‘organs spilling out’ so that was fun.

Extra thoughts :

Out of the 4 I really didn’t enjoy this one because it was SOOOO SMELLY. Because I wanted varying colours and not everything to be vibrant I actually put the chopping board in the freezer so that some of the vegetables could lose their green and I could layer fresh vegetables on top but I shouldn’t have wasted time and just photoshopped the colour because the smell stayed for like a day and it was the most horrible smell ever.

Evidence O :

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He is a narcissist/ I am trying to look my best

I wanted to have the cracks on a mirror spell out ‘Leo’ which is actually the origin of the name. Being named after the ‘Lion’ horoscope, a Leo is supposed to represent strength, confidence and courage but I wanted to play with the traits of a Leo in this work. So to crack the mirror I wrapped it in clingfilm and just stabbed it continuously with a screwdriver and I was so happy to get the cracks to somewhat spell out ‘Leo’ in my 2nd attempt. I lined it with lipstick to symbolise how I try to piece the cracks together with superficial products and to conceal my flaws and also to emphasize the ‘Leo’ on the mirror. I wanted to have the reflection of my medication on the mirror as this was an important aspect of me. I took weight gaining pills and acne pills so that I could look better and to boost my confidence and so the reflection sort of symbolises what I see in the mirror now.  It was really hard for me to frame the reflection of the pills because the shadows and the different angles of all the shards of mirrors showed different parts of the table so I had to position the camera at one angle and arrange the pills accordingly so that every shard of mirror had the pills in them.

Extra thoughts :

I had to break 2 mirrors for this because the firsto ne completely shattered L That is 14 years of bad luck on chinese new year somemore. I asked my mom for some cheap red lipstick but she said she doesn’t use random cheap lipstick(what a snob) but she cut off some of her estee lauder for me but it was brown so I had to mix some watercolour again. I was abit heart pain to use expensive stuff for a cracked mirror but oh well I loved the outcome.

Evidence N :

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He is crazy ; I was a monk in my past life

I feel like I was a monk because I’m such a kind-hearted person. Joking.

Honestly all joking aside I really sometimes feel like I was a monk in my past-life because sometimes I have dreams of being in a temple and I just feel so zen and positive most of the time so I’ve always felt like I was probably a monk in one of my past lives. For this I wanted to create an altar where my persona is paying respects to an ‘ancestor’. Again, seeing that it was Chinese New Year I didn’t want to go too far and make my mom too angry because she was already pretty pissed that I broke 2 mirrors during CNY. So I borrowed 2 prayer candles and photoshopped the flame in, used a cardboard box cover as my name tablet and photoshopped by chinese name in and I wanted to do a portrait of me as a monk with my thumbs and to mimic the texture of incense ash as I wanted to imprint my thumbprint using incense ( Allowing my identity to be imprinted with something that used to be physical such as the ash so it’s kind of like merging the present and the past). I also wanted to lighting to be extra dark and creepy in this scene as I had the idea of having an extremely creepy feels for this one.

Extra thoughts :

Printing my thumb constantly on a wall was quite tiring and aching and sometimes the ash doesn’t stick and then I press harder and then it’s too dark. But I am really happy with the outcome.

Evidence L :

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He is weird/ I am always standing out

When you look at someone who is completely white in colour you would probably think he is weird. And when someone is weird what do we do? We outcast and ‘kill’ them. I wanted all the other 3 ideas to sort of form this weird persona which is me and to make me seem really weird. For this scene I wanted to create a dead body scene and lay the different evidences around me as things to make me who I am but at the same time they are the things cause the judgements to kill me. For this I lined my body with caution tape and painted my body white and layered greys on top to create the effect of standing out from the background. I asked my mom to paint the lines according to the tiles on the floor as I was inspired by this artist Liu Bolin who paints himself to blend into the background. I laid different characteristics of the previous evidences around my body such as a monk bead bracelet, pills and vegetables. I had my face, arms and legs white as I wanted to sort of symbolise innocence.

Extra thoughts:

This was my favourite one in terms of concept as I loved the idea of the spelling out my name using the evidence plates. The paint was a pain in the ass as I was so dumb I went to use acrylic paint because I didn’t want to waste money but I totally regretted it because once it dried it was so hard to get off. Some of it is still stuck in my hair until now. This was also the hardest in terms of camera angle. I didn’t know where I would want the camera to be placed because it was such a huge space and I didn’t know if I should do top-down or angled or just flat on the ground. I am happy with the results though!

Overall it was tiring but fun!

He is… ( Process )


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So for this project I went to research on crime scene investigations and I waned to mimic that high contrast + flash + angles in the photos. I also wanted to have like a really creepy feel throughout all the photos.

Evidence 1 : He is a Vegetable Murderer/ I am a Vegetarian

 

I started testing out printed fonts such as this and I was in a dilemma about using the space. Should I fill up the letters with vegetables and the space around it with the ‘blood’? or should I do the inverse. IMG_8998

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Experimenting with different formats

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Colour change

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Placing the printed letters and taking note of the kerning and size

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The colour was too brown for me before, I mixed the watercolour in to give it that bloody pop

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Smearing the first layer of background onIMG_9016

Put the first layer in the freezer for a day so that the colours die down and so I can layer another layer of fresh vegetables on top so it has depth.

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Setting up the camera angle

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before I added blood to the knives and the blood dripping

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So after I got the perfect shot I increased the contrast through photoshop.

 

Evidence 2 :

He is narcissistic/ I am trying to look my best

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Clingfilm and screwdriver to smash the mirror

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glueing the shards in place

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Applying the lipstick in the cracks

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Evidence 3 :

He is Crazy/ I was a monk in my past life

For this one I wanted to create a creepy altar space. For this I used incense to create a caricature of me as a monk using my thumnprints with paper ash to mimic incense.

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I don’t know why I can’t rotate this pic on oss but anyway I tried to do a caricature of me without hair

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Burning paper to create the ‘incense’ ash smudging effect

 

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Thumbprinting which was tiring and painful but loved the outcome

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My ash past life portrait

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Look at my mom’s face she was PISSED

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the moment the photo was taken she went to wipe it all off

 

Final Evidence :

He is weird/ I am always standing out (Unique)

For this final photo I wanted to create a dead body scene with me covered in white. So for this I had to paint my body white and wore white clothes and I also wanted to blend into the background.

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Inspired by this artist Liu Bolin who blends into the background

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Using my mother to paint my body

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Miscelleneous initial compositions :

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First ideas ever of 1. I am a vegetarian 2. I am Sweet

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Initial orbituary idea for I am Leon and I am dead inside. Scrappeed the idea because it didn’t fit in

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The first murder of vegetables (experimentation)

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Initial idea for Hi I am Leon and I am Sweet. (Idea of how I seem sweet but when you get close to me you might die

 

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Pill Ideas for : I am Leon and I am trying to look my best

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Typographic Update

 

After consultation on Monday I have finally settled on an overarching concept. I want to play with irony and sarcasm and to just take the traits which I see as positive into how some haters might see it as negative and to poke fun at myself. I feel like I’m a positive person but always misunderstood. In this project I want to address the names in which people have called me eventhough I feel they are positive traits. In the beginning of the project I started off a mess and just jumping from concept to concept and having totally different ideas for every single typography and no consistent flow but excited to finally settle on one.

Using sarcastic comments of people towards me in this project to kinda show that words only hold that much power in affecting you and that I can turn hurtful words into something positive and light-hearted.

Mediums :

For mediums I will be experimenting with photography and mediums which i feel would be able to convey the message of each trait the best

2D Research

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Typography :

I am really interested in using what we’ve learnt about the colour wheel last semester and apply it to Project 1 this semester. I feel that Dada works play a part in this project as Typography art also has a sort of arbitrary yet controlled way of placing and combining various subjects together to form an overarching concept through similar styles and tints and hues whereas typography uses the font design, lettering, colours,  and placement to create a sense of flow when composition is seemingly arbitrary.

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For example, in this composition, I felt like there is a flow in the composition eventhough every word uses a mutually exclusive font. However, all fonts possess a certain ‘casualness’ and fun in the sense where the fonts are ‘messy’ and seemingly random. But what I can take away from this is that the kerning plays an important part in determining the balance in the entire composition and that there can still be a sense of system and flow in a typographic composition with  entirely different fonts and sizes and colours and designs for every single word. The background also brings the whole typographic composition together.

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        Another form of presentation of typography includes photography of live hand-made types. This allows the background and text to become one whole composition. For example in this work, the submerged text in water allows a blurry texture to be created which emphasizes thee word ‘delirium’ which has a ‘blurred’ conotation behind it. This shows how the background and the natural textures it creates in real time can be incorporated into the work itself.

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I am also interested in words forming images as it incorporates traditional realistic styles with typography and allows the image formed and the words within the image to converge to convey a message.

 

Overall the things that I have learnt from the research include :

  • Background and text can come together to form an even more impactful and clearer message
  • Take note of the balance within the composition and to ensure that there is a sense of consistency even in inconsistent elements. To allow everything to flow.
  • Space(Kerning) between letters also can affect the neatness and the overall look of the typography.
  • The font visuals and mental relationship has to be coherent. E.G : a formal invitation with comic san ms font would be inappropriate. Well, actually comic san ms on anything would be inappropriate.
  • Words that require emphasis could be visually manipulated by altering the size, colour and fonts and the background.

 

 

The ‘I am’ that I have decided to go with are :

Psycho

Vegetarian

Impulsive

Vain

Adrenaline Junkie

Rule-Breaker

 

I am still finalising on the concepts and sketches and will be updating more over the weekend!