Faces-Final

Final Video

Progress

As a development from this demonstration render, we decided to look into details. In this case, more elements have been added into the composition, such as the silk and background.

At the same time, we cleaned up the outline of the main character to fit it in the flattened style that we want to achieve. 

After finalizing the look of the main character,  we came up with a background that suits the style better. 

In order to compile the main character with the background better, we made some changes of its color scheme and some of its patterns.

Last but not least, after the test premier, we realise the clouds were pixelated on the big screen, so we vectorized them to prevent pixelation.

Faces & Opera Mid-Sem Progress

Early ideas and layouts

After the first test, we found that the colour scheme is too bright. It might distract the audiences when it comes to the big screen. So, we decide to shift the background to dark red.

The mock-up

The Second Update

According to the feedback, we added more details to the face, hence made it more decorative and graphical-looking.

Instead of ink drops, we decided to use elements like curtains and clouds which are tidier, hence, the face will be differentiated from the background.

For colours, we realised that changing the outline from white to black will make the face more outstanding comparing to the background.

See the test renders:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IEJgWFowVPes_RNH3BDO_H3EdxlvPttK?usp=sharing

 

[Inspiration and Mood Board] People: Colourful Faces

Traditional Chinese opera (Chinese: 戲曲; pinyin: xìqǔ; Jyutping: hei3 kuk1), or Xiqu, is a popular form of drama and musical theatre in China with roots going back to the early periods in China. It is a composite performance art that is an amalgamation of various art forms that existed in ancient China, and evolved gradually over more than a thousand years, reaching its mature form in the 13th century during the Song Dynasty. Early forms of Chinese theater are simple, but over time they incorporated various art forms, such as music, song and dance, martial arts, acrobatics, as well as literary art forms to become traditional Chinese opera.

There are numerous regional branches of traditional Chinese opera, including the Beijing opera, Shaoxing opera, Cantonese opera, kunqu, lüju and etc

·—Contents—·

 

·—Color Schemes—·

“A Sense of Spirit in a Picture is Essential” – Jane Dwight on Chinese Painting

The Autumn Mountains Jane Dwight Chinese Watercolour, 2015

The Girl with the White Boa Jane Dwight Chinese Watercolour, 2015

Waxed Golden script on tissue Jane Dwight 2016

·—Styles—·

·—Motion and Emotions—·

 

·—Techniques—·

 

 

4D Foundation II Installation: A Tree In 3016

Artist statement:

Wang Ruotong

A Tree in 3016

How will the world look like if there are only humans and their technologies, but no more other lives and four seasons on the earth? Ruotong uses projections and a mobile phone to show her original story about a ‘tree’ 1000 years later. The tree hides in peoples’ phone in the form of a virus and it is able to talk to people via messages. Inspired by TeamLab‘s installation works, Ruotong creates an animated tree using computer graphic and projects it in real size in order to give the audiences a realistic experience. The artist expresses her thoughts about the relationship between human civilization and nature through this work.


Documentation:

The Video

Installation mockup:

Loopable background:

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The tree:

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Textures of leaves and flowers:

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Use particular plugin with layer emitter for the random placement of the flowers and leaves:

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With the use of layer emitter, flowers and leaves can grow up from the branches.

Particles without texture:

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Texture added:

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Do the same for flowers:

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The whole composition:

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The Messager:

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The Ending:Screen Shot 2016-04-23 at 6.14.15 AM

Setup

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Proposal

Objective:

This project is aiming to raise the awareness about environment protection, at the same time, invoke the public to think about the relationship between humans, nature and modern technology – modern technologies can enhance the quality of our everyday life, but at the same time, will it also benefit the nature and other species? Even if endangered species can be cloned digitally, will it still be the same as their original forms? Will we still enjoy our everyday live if there are no other lives but highly developed technologies?

Rationale:

Industrialization developed rapidly all over the world during the last hundred years, however, at the same time, the nature was destroyed badly. Environmental issues such as deforestation and global warming begin to catch the attention of people worldwide.

Target Audience:

Tertiary students or young adults aged between 16-25 (main)

Or

General public (sub)

 

Plot:

In 3016, a world with no other lives alive, a girl receives a message that contains the spirit of a tree which was transformed into a virus by a scientist after its death. The spirit escapes from her phone and grows into a real tree on the ground. The girl was shocked by this amazing life and gets to see a tree for her very first time.

 

Format:

This project combines installation and stage performance together.

There will be two projections on the ceiling and the ground and a mirror projection as the vertical background. Two messages brought by the tree and a growing tree will be featured in the projection. Three videos will be rendered from three different directions- a bottom view of the canopy for the ceiling, a top view of the ground for the ground and a front view of the branches for the vertical screen.

Also, there will be a short video played on the actors phone to showcase the tree spirit escapes from the phone.

The actor will act in the first part of the artwork before the tree escapes from the phone.

The background music will be originally composed for this installation. The genre would be electronic or epic.

 

 


Research Paper

As a continuation or a ‘special episode’ of one of my previous stories, Niantao, this installation I want to create is about a virtual ‘tree’. It lives in the year of 3016 in the form of a mobile phone virus carried by SMS. In the world then, there is no other form of lives – there are only humans and their highly developed civilizations. I aim to make an installation that is able to not only showcase the characteristic and beauty of the tree, but also communicate with the audiences.

Towards this direction, I reference TeamLab’s installation work, Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together – A Whole Year per Hour. It is an installation consisting of a walkway and a large open space that appears to go infinitely. It shows the life cycle of flowers from budding to death. (TeamLab, 2015) From their official video, I can refer that the projections are not only on the vertical wall, but also on the ceiling and the ground. Hence, the audiences are fully surrounded by the projection. With the appearance of the huge and three-dimensional projection, audiences can be easily influenced by the artwork, and it is more convenient for them to get the feeling of the environment that the artist wants to feature. Also, instead of pre-recorded videos, these flowers are all real-time rendered by a computer program. (TeamLab, 2015) hence, the artwork may have more randomness and the outcome will look more realistic. Moreover, real-time rendering makes it possible for the audience to interact with the installation – the flying butterflies will fall down after they are slapped.

Another artwork that I reference is Nirvana. It is a recreation of two traditional Japanese paintings, Birds, Animals, and Flowering Plants, and Trees, Flowers, Birds and Animals. (TeamLab, 2013) The artists converted the original paintings to pixelated motion graphics, so that it becomes closer to our modern life.

So, for the art direction of my artwork, in order to feature the big tree, I decide to make use of the space and create a ‘three dimensional’ projection on the ceiling, the ground and the vertical wall. Hence, my audience can be more involved in the environment and the tree can be fully featured from its canopy to root. Unfortunately, I am unable to apply real-time rendering in this project due to the lack of technics, but I use the trapcode particular plugin for flowers and leaves of the tree, so that they can grow up from the branches randomly and hence more naturally. Moreover, as the worldview is a highly civilized world with developed modern technologies, and the tree featured is not a real tree. So I create this tree in flattened style, which is normally linked to terms that is related to modern technologies such as user interfaces of softwares and motion graphics.

Also, after several discussions with the tutor, I realized that it is important for me to pay more attention on the story development. The artwork will be meaningless if there is no any main theme or takeaway for the audience no matter how nice the visual is. It is still important to do some story and character development, although the duration of the final outcome might be very short. So, I decide to add some performative elements into the installation as I have some experiences in the stage art CCA club. At first, I came out with a story about a teacher teaching her students about how to plant a virtual tree using her phone. However, after some critics with my tutor and classmates, I realized that this story is not meaningful, and the message is not strong enough. As a result, after referencing the plot of several anti-utopia stories, such as From the New World, Psycho-Pass and 废墟台湾 (literally translated as ‘Ruined Taiwan’), I realize that the most impactful way to pass the massage is to set a situation whereby humans are questioned or even threatened by their own creatures. So I decide to give the tree a personality and make it a smart phone virus created by a scientist. I hope a stronger message about the conflict between human, nature and modern technology can be passed to the audience via the interaction between human and the intelligent tree.

(709 words)

References:

TeamLab (2015). Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together – A Whole Year per Hour. Retrieved on 20 April, 2016. Url: https://www.team-lab.net/works/flowerandpeople-wholeyear

TeamLab (2013). Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together – A Whole Year per Hour. Retrieved on 20 April, 2016. Url: https://www.team-lab.net/works/nirvana


Reflection

By doing this project, I know the importance of story and character development. My habit is to come out with the format or style first,  followed by the plot as I am more used to make music videos which usually have a fixed theme or storyline. However, for an original video, doing so might waste a lot of time if there is a need to change the story. So, I will try to change my habit by confirming the storyline before thinking of art directions.

Also, I failed to book all the equipments a week before the presentation, and it is a big challenge for me to set up an installation with three projectors and two curtains individually in a very short time. However, I got over confident and I believed I can finish setting up in a very short time after I was acknowledged that I can borrow the projectors from the previous groups. That caused a big problem – I could not get everything settled before the presentation as it is harder than how I had imagined. It taught me a lesson. I learn that it is very important to manage my own time well and it is very important to ask for help from the others. Next time when I am facing a similar situation, I will try my best to get everything settled as soon as possible instead of waiting until the presentation.

Semester 2 Journals – Museum Visits

Singapore National Museum

Date: 12 Mar 2016

Exhibition: Treasures of The World

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I visited this exhibition for our Presentation with Longfei and Ying Xiang. We have seen the amazing screen from Japan, which we have shown during the presentation. At the same time, we also appreciated a lot of amazing artworks from all over the world. There is also a lot of contemporary installation artwork. My favorite piece is The Book from Sky. It is a big book that contains 400 plus Chinese words created by the artist.IMG_3909 IMG_3911 IMG_3912 IMG_3913 IMG_3914 IMG_3915 IMG_3920 IMG_3921 IMG_3922 IMG_3924 IMG_3925 IMG_3927 IMG_3928 IMG_3930

 

We visited this museum for our artwork response. During This trip, I, POOT and VAL have seen several different types of art works from all over the Asian.

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Art Science Museum

Date: 29 Mar 2019

During the trip to the Art Science Museum, I have seen the installation that we researched on for our presentation. It is a response to a traditional Japanese Screen which is rendered real time and contains interactive elements.

 

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Reflection for the Visual Response Project

 

At our first discussion of the project, I came out with a brilliant idea about the National Service and terracotta warriors, as both of the terms are about soldiers. However, we found it is hard to find an item that is related to the terracotta warriors locally. After consulting with Ms. Sujatha, we went to the NUS Museum to look for a contemporary art piece in the Shards Gallery. During that trip, we went around the NUS Museum and a lot of items have caught our attention besides the Shards Gallery. In the end, after several discussions, we changed our scope and picked a terracotta figure and a painting for our response. However, after doing research, we found both of the two items are not from China, India or Japan. But luckily, we found another interesting item, the Vajradhara and Prajnaparamita Nepal in the Art Science Museum. We find that how normal people understand this piece is always totally different from its original meaning. Hence, we thought it is interesting to give the audiences a ‘surprise’ by telling them the real meaning of this artwork. At the same time, it is important to let them give up their misunderstanding towards Tantra Buddhism. After several discussions, we came out with the idea of making a censored motion poster of the yab-yum position with the truth covered under the black bar, and also a reaction video that features the point of views of the general public.

I am in-charge of the motion poster. The original idea was to find two actresses to act for this poster. However, due to the nudity, we were unable to such a pair of actresses. So as an alternative, I was trying to convert the object to pop-art style, as it might be as attractive to the audience as our original idea. Before starting, I did some research on pop arts and find that most of the pop art works contains vectors and vibrant complementary colors. So I decide to ‘vectorise’ the photo artwork with shapes of flat colors. It is a hard time for me to copy the sculpture onto illustrator using vectors and consider the color scheme at the same time. In the end, after several adjustments, I conformed the shapes and their colors, then I animated it using After Effects.

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Working process for the motion poster

It is an interesting journey for me. By doing this project, got to know two of my amazing teammates – VAL and POOT better. I also learnt that it is important to understand the requirements of task better unless it is very easy to get lost – at first we did not realize that the objects must be from China, India or Japan and reconfirming the objects had taken us a lot of time. Also, I understand that it is important to make use of what we are good at when doing the teamwork and the importance of cooperation. And last but not least, I start to enjoy visiting the museum and study on the history of these objects.

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Artist statement – Wang Ruotong

Planting a Tree in 3016

What will the world be like if there are only humans and their technologies, but no more other lives and four seasons of the earth? Ruotong uses projections and a mobile phone to show her imagination on how people plant a ‘tree’ 1000 years later. Inspired by TeamLab’s installation works, Ruotong creates an animated tree and its four seasons by computer graphic and project it in real size in order to give the audiences a realistic experience. The artist expresses her thoughts about the relationship between human civilization and nature through this work.

Assignment 2 – Point of View

Final Outcoms:

Cats to the POV of dogs are enemies.

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Dogs to the POV of cats are enemies.

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A cat in the POV of an animal cartoonist is a gentleman.

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Cat keepers in the POV of a cat is a maid.

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Cats in the POV of Schrodinger are experimental material.

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Schrodinger in the POV of cats is a murderer.

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Research and developments:

The theme of this set of works is supposed to be humorous and absurd. So I choose to use the style of Early American comics…

… and also futurism.

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According to these two styles, I came out with my first set of draft design.

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I tried to combine the character design of American comics together with the color scheme and set designs of futurism. But the characters are too cute and their emotions were not featured well through my drawings.

So I changed the proportions of the figure, and made my second draft.

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But in this draft, the background is too messy, and the composition is not impactful enough.

So I decided to change the compositions and the style of drawing figures.

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However, some of the designs are still not impactful enough, and some of the compositions cannot communicate well (eg. The file named ‘maid’). So I redesigned some of the characters and compositions.

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When refining my drafts, I also looked for some picture references for my character designs.

Coloring:

Compared to neutral colors, colors with maximum saturation make the designs more powerful and lively.

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I also did some experiments on the color scheme.

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Also, I tried to add color halftone effects to my designs. But I found the pictures turn blurred after test print.

So I printed the final outcome with sharp outlines instead of with halftone added.