Category: Final Project

INTER- : HUMAN CANVAS

concept

I am curious to find out how people would react when presented with a human face as a canvas and having beauty tools and make-up as their art materials instead of the usual paint and paint brushes.

In addition, I would also like to see how the audience interact with the canvas and tools: will they erase anything on my face or continue on from the previous person’s work.

inspirations

Yayoi Kusama // Obliteration Room (2017)

Allowing audience interaction, Kusama’s work allowed for the audience to stick colourful stickers all over the furniture and walls of the white room. The white room acts as a canvas in which the audience are able to experience being an “artist” by placing their own “mark” onto the canvas.

As such, the free interaction from the audience was what I took from and implemented in my own work.

Marina Abramović // Rhythm 0 (1974)

Also allowing audience interaction, Abramović stands still while the audience was invited to do to her whatever they wished. They had the option of using one of 72 objects she had placed on a table. These included a rose, feather, perfume, honey, bread, grapes, wine, scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, and a gun loaded with one bullet.

Similar to Abramović, I will be laying out an abundance of materials for the audience to pick and play with on a table and will not allow myself to talk and let them experience the canvas freely.

pre-submission testing

In this experiment before the actual submission, I have allowed for multiple people to come at me and do my make-up as they please. I realised that with more people working on my face, they tend to ask each other if they are doing the right thing, which is something I didn’t want them to care about. However, I did get some interesting response on the canvas as people are more willing to be creative when there are many people doing at a go.

actual submission – the human canvas

Instructions:

Having the audience coming and working on the human canvas one at a time, it felt much more personal than previously where everyone ambushed at the same time. It also allowed me to interact and react to the audience more intimately in which they can take their time to scout the different tools before testing it out on me. In addition, it was also interesting to see how many of the audience chose to add on and not erase the previous person’s work as if they are afraid to ruin it.

 

PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY: SUBMISSION PIECE

According to Wikipedia, psychogeography is the exploration of urban environments that emphasises playfulness and “drifting” or “dériving”. Deriving meant that the participant would have to go through an unplanned journey through a landscape that is usually urban, in which they would have to drop their everyday relations and “let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there”.

The location that I got from drawing the lot was Citylink. Citylink is a mall and “link” that links the visitors to other shopping malls, the Esplanade, War Memorial as well as other offices in the Central Business District area. The mall is accessible by City Hall MRT or Esplanade MRT. I began my journey from City Hall MRT and ended it at Esplanade MRT. This place was almost foreign to me as the closest I would be to Citylink Mall is when I have to head to the Esplanade or Marina Square mall.

My aim for the dérive would be to get used to the layout and spot as many exits or “links” I could find and see where it leads me to as well as spotting any nice architecture or designs the interior had. Keeping in mind the people that visited and the time as well.

I started my dérive at 9pm from the entrance of City Link mall right outside the City Hall MRT station. Instantly, I realised that there were many office workers rushing into the station. As I walked into the mall further, I spotted lesser and lesser people. The first stretch of shops were mainly food and beverages shops followed by two short escalators up to the “second section” of the mall. This followed by a long corridor of neon lights and a huge store selling overpriced apparels. There was an atrium in which had a really beautiful glass ceiling.

The whole stretch of the second section were filled with apparel and lifestyle stores as compared to the first section where they had more food and beverage shops and kiosks. Before going up the long escalator to the last section, there is an escalator on the right going down to Esplanade as well as other offices and the War Memorial. The last section of the mall had more expensive restaurants and beauty shops as well as the exit to Marina Square, main road as well as the Esplanade MRT.

Pre- Submission

The pre-submission that I did was that I categorized the mall into the three sections as I have mentioned in the above paragraph. I have included icons such as MRTs, escalators, information counters and also toilets so as to convey my familiarity with the mall after dérive. I then added speech bubbles which depicted my thoughts when I walked around the place. I have also included dots on the map to indicate the speed that I was walking, more dots being the more time I spend whereas lessers dots meant I spent lesser time there.

Final Work

Title: NO ONE

Artist Statement:

Sad Lazy Frustrated Annoyed Pleasing Beautiful Long Shiny Short Exit Finally Bright Blinding Long Annoying Tiring Empty Excited Reminiscent Bright Sad Lonely Bright Dope Empty Deserted Stuffy Annoying Finally Cool Excited Dissapointed Satisfied Sad

This is my journey through a mall after its opening hours and how many other places it links to are at night.

Explanation

I decided to scrap the map I have created previously completely and rely solely on my images to “map” out the mall. I also paid closer attention to the amount of people that I see in the particular area and photos which are bigger in size meant that it had more visitors as compared to the smaller images.

I have used arrows as an indicator to show the direction that I walked. I have also explore the exits further and showed it in my map the links that the mall have and what lies after exiting the exits. I have also indicated my feelings at each place – red being angry or annoyed, blue being lonely, sad or disappointed and green being satisfied and happy.