4D (The Actual Installation): Write me a Poem.

This installation is far more successful than I thought it would be after the demoralizing critique!!!! And although the concept is simple, the most important criteria of having a successful installation is if people are willing to interact with it and they did!! I have been reading all the poems again and again. Some of them are written beautifully.

LOCATION

I chose the entrance because it’s eye-catching. You enter the library and suddenly someone – a stranger with no face – gives you a Quest. Will you accept it or nah? It’s like a video game; you have no expectations, just looking for some fun or actively trying to do something in your free time. The Quest just makes the whole experience more interesting.

SIDE-NOTE

I chose to put the box of materials on the floor because I wanted people to consciously make the decision, the extra effort, to write a poem, so as to filter out the trolls who just want to take advantage and vandalise a public property. (That’s why I had the acrylic boxes shifted on the other side of the New Arrivals shelves. Initially I had considered putting the box of materials on the acrylic boxes for convenience.) Of course . .. that was a little rude(!) to say out loud so I didn’t. . . It might come off as quite supremacist. No one person is better than another.

COLOUR PENCILS

To control what the user can do by a fair margin. Giving them ink might also dirty the school library, noting that only ‘covered drinks’ were allowed. Got to be considerate of the space you are using.

Writing in pen severely limits the no.of pages as ink seeps through. I still intend to use this private poetry diary no matter, and not just create one specifically for this purpose of installation – there is no intimacy of the artist and the users in that sense!

LIGHTING

I removed part of the easel to allow light to pass through and place greater emphasis on the poetry book. The easel is also angled to face the person entering the library, as if to greet them.

SIDE NOTE II

Someone clipped the top of the book so hard that even I couldn’t pull it out at first. I recall just setting the book comfortably on the two wedges, so you could actually lift it up and look at it really closely. I tend to do that a lot with all my books so I expected others might do the same. But. . . Someone with OCD must have found that highly annoying and adjusted it for me.

I personally found the inked text on plain paper rather enticing.

Almost everyone I knew noticed my installation if they had used the library. That’s cool!

These 2 poems, side by side, are magnificent. Because I “happened to be on duty”, I spied on the people who wrote in my book. They were not Singaporeans. Unfortunately our locals wrote poems that go along the lines of “Shit it’s finals. I haven’t Shower.” or “Roses are red, Violets are blue.. (blah blah something sarcastic)” (There are a few written like that.) I hope our education system will do something about the dead/dying poetic factor in our country. Let my installation be the first of few.

4D Installation: Library Part 1

Title of installation: The Soul Librarian
Installation Summary: The library is a land of imagination, but it has dwindled to become something restrictive, boring and even stifling. Thus, in exchange for a bit of your soul, I invite you to play in the library with words and what more. Be a word artist. Write me a poem about Play, and Your Life.

Description of Installation: A hand-bound A5 book sits on an easel, accompanied by a box of writing materials (chops, ink, paintbrush, markers, pencils) and an instruction manual. I will either hang this on the easel or place it on a nearby wall. This installation will be located with the “new arrivals”. The poetry book will contain some poems at the start so as to ease the tension between the poet and the book, as if to give the poet green light to vandalise the book.

4D Project 3: The Library, Part 1

I work as a part-time student assistant at the ADM library, so I am quite familiar with its layout and fixtures. Most people who visit the library for its study tables and printing services. Only a handful use the library for its resources, be it books or the cinema upstairs.

What I find interesting to explore:

That some books sit on the shelves forever, where others are always picked out and thus experience wear and tear. That some books have to be taken special care of. And others, we have restricted access to. It is a society.
The arrangement of every single book pertains to its call number, the immense amount of detail and thus work of a librarian that goes unappreciated by a careless library patron. It’s just a cell in a body.
How the massive windows show a big block of grass instead of a picturesque view whilst books show worlds beyond. It’s a portal.

*italics = idea for physical representation

Whilst I remain open-minded to more ideas for exploration, I would like to critique my own choices for now. No.2 will probably encounter a problem with the necessity of installing it in the library’s space. It seems like it could be independent from the library itself. No.2 may be too abstract for the viewer to relate to. It also suggests a very time-consuming detailed work that has to be made, although that’s not too much of an issue with me. No.3 is cliche, but it will be attractive and more relatable to the audience so it will naturally be more well-liked.

I’m very new to the idea of making an installation although I have been to several exhibitions featuring very good installations. In this sense, I hope to transfer a bit of my aesthetic habits to feel more comfortable in this new area of work, rather than trying something too ambitious.

Here are some interesting installations I might consider for my work:

3D Hologram installation

I do not think I can make an actual hologram in this stage without being exorbitant, so I might consider making something that suggests the nature of a hologram rather than an actual projection.

And if I did want to make a projection, I found a DIY video on it which I will link below. However, I would need a much larger screen to create this projection . . .

Something interesting: Janet Echelman’s work in Singapore!! 2014

Phoney sheep? That black fur and foreign looking woollen coat. . .

Suggestion of organic tomatoes with contradicting synthetic material

Amazing sculpture of a dinosaur, made with toys.

This is a rather perfect idea for me to capitalise on!!!!!! Subtle, inviting and connected to the space around it. However, this installation is actually a grave??

i love the details though

this took over 156 hours to build! Chandelier by Kevin Champeny

To be honest, I am very interested in quick and clean communication. Although a big composition is very charming to the artist, it does not always charm the viewer. After all, only a person versed in the skills will be able to fully understand the complexity of the required skill set in a work. As I was saying, I hope to communicate my idea more effectively in something very clear in denotation and maybe 30% connotative. Most of my work is highly connotative, and I would like to take a step back and explore something different in this sense.

As for where I would like to explore my work at, it will depend entirely on what I choose to make. I don’t think it is good to limit myself to a location in the early stages of my work. That being said, I can roughly imagine them to interact with the windows (at the book zone of the library) for the ‘portal’, the shelves with their backs to the walls for the ‘portal’ or ‘society’ or ‘cell of a body’, or simply a corner of the library for the ‘portal’ or ‘cell of a body’.

4D: Sg Story – Pastimes

Disclaimer: I’ve made 2 versions of this short illustrated podcast: 1 with a mono-narration and another, with narrated cuts. I tried out both methods and found that the second was more attention-grabbing and cohesive with the onscreen imageries.

I incorporated both whiteboard animation & illustrations done on my phone. So basically I drew them on a tiny screen with my index finger, which was quite gruelling. It was also pretty stressful as I was doing my best to meet deadlines for other projects, involved in UOC and church activities. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the process of making this project immensely.

I made about 108 illustrated images in total, as I originally aimed to make a more animated sequence. However, this was quite ambitious for a 1 – 1 1/2 weeks. As such, I cut down on the initial plan of animating it (since it was time-consuming to make the actions look natural and the frames to jump from 1 to another fluidly). I focused on illustrating what I was trying to portray, prioritising the development of a time sequence over visual stimulation. Given more time, I would love to take this project further.

Here are some cute jpgs from the sequence.

I chose to keep it simple, the concept being that of childhood, after all.

I am mostly inspired by children cartoons too, such as “Charlie & Lola” and “Peppa Pig”. These 2d animations are all very basic drawings, but are somehow very charming to the audience, even as they grew out of their youth.

Charlie & Lola, Lauren Child

Peppa Pig, Astley Baker Davies

Now, this is the narrated cuts illustrated sequence I’ve made!

P.S> Sometimes I wonder if my schizophrenia affects the way I speak.

Lum Renee: Singapore Story (Part 2)

As the video is way larger than the maximum upload size again, I would have to complete the entire sequence before uploading it to youtube and subsequently, OSS.

In the meantime, I shall drop in with some excerpts from the sequence to leave an element of surprise in my final presentation!

I am using whiteboard animation and individual illustrations on my phone for this project. This is to ensure my work is original, expressive and unique in presentation method.

The plot is still focused on my Dad’s childhood! However, as I have decided to do a better quality film, I have reduced the number of stories to 1.

Stay tuned!

Lum Renee’s The Singapore Diary, Task 1

3) Have a conversation with your family member, are there life stories, tradition or experiences about Singapore that you might find?

Account

My Dad used to go “fishing” with his brothers and friends from his kampong district when he was a kid. Even when it’s dark, they would grab their pails and nets, slip out of the house quietly and meet up at some dirty canal or shore, when they know it’s at low-tide. He had many stories about his late night “fishing” adventures, but one of my favourites took place at the cemetery which Grandpa would later be put to rest in.

There was a huge drain or canal in this cemetery, and fishes, shrimps and algae actually thrived in this unusual sanctuary. It was here Dad and his little brother caught an “electric eel” with a gaudy red plastic bag and brought it home to his mom with pride. However, they were both scolded and even punished for their naughtiness, although Grandma cooked up the eel anyway. When I was about 8 or 9, Dad brought me back to this canal to demonstrate how he caught the eel once again, but he slipped into the canal and suffered a cut on his knee. His sturdy nokia phone was also put to rest, thanks to this incident.

Dad built our childhood in such fishing excursions, with other his grown-up brothers and their children. We visited Sembawang Park, Pasir Ris Park and numerous other secret spots in Singapore to hunt for mussels, crabs, fishes . . really, anything we could get our hands on. I recall sitting on a bunch of rocks, trying to cook “mussel soup” using the stone campfire “stove” Dad constructed for me. And wading through muddy ponds at deserted fish farms. Letting bucketfuls of tadpoles nibble at my palms and squishing them to find greenish insides.

Even now, I still missed this way of life. The kampong culture has been replaced with the buzzing city life, where trips to the movie theatres and amusement parks erased the humble and quiet satisfaction that fishing once brought.

Approach

I am intending to draw live and record it. I would probably fast forward the video so it has quality drawings with comfortable timing. I would then narrate over the fast-forwarded video. I would likely narrate a couple of stories Dad talked about, and also include some of my thoughts.

Lum Renee: (Part 2) Home, As We Know It

This project was an ambitious one for me.

I always had this need to express the crazy things I’d imagined of, but am more than often held back by fear of judgement. But through a long series of events last December, I realised that this fear was as if I was punishing myself before others could decide if they actually want to punish me (with derogatory comments). That I ought to learn to trust myself and nurture what I personally thought was good. So this time, I went with my instinct.

It was a great hassle to gather what I needed: getting help from a third party, finding safe but cinematic camera angles, good recording devices, proper lighting etc. Then there was the idea of throwing my personal voice out there. To make oneself even more vulnerable. And having to edit and render the video till 3 a.m. since I did not own any adobe softwares.

I think it was worth it.

It may not yet be of the highest quality, but this is the beginning of what’s to come. I want to tap further into my mind and see what else I can do. Improve with time and practice.

But enough about my background story, let’s talk about the video! The title of this casual-style video presentation is “Home: As We Know It”.

I personally enjoy works that harness interactivity between the audience and the artist. Here are the videos that inspired me:

There was something charming about Alexa Chung’s unique style of fashion journalism. She invited the audience to join her on both her thoughts and interactions with her environment. Similarly, I employed the narrative technique and explored my video from a more intimate perspective.

Although this clip seems far-fetched in comparison to my work, I tested out various camera techniques from the awe-inspiring scenes of Great Gatsby, and achieved a few considerably successful cinematic shots.

Overall, I think I can improve in communicating my ideas more coherently , especially in the upcoming projects.