Traces – Artist Statement and Reflection

Individual Artist Statement

The artists use videos and physical space to highlight the concerns on the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Employing the appropriation of footages and news reports on the nuclear meltdown, the artists manipulate the materials by clustering similar news reports in chronological order to recap on what happened in 2011. Drawing reference from “Don’t Follow The Wind (2015), the installation portrays a deserted Japanese home left the same as it was before the evacuation, bringing attention to the ongoing situation that the Japanese are facing. In addition, the space was decorated with overgrown plants, contrasting the relationship between mankind and nature over time.

Individual Reflections

Through this project, I enjoyed myself very much, pushing the limits of what I thought I couldn’t achieve. Initially, upon receiving the project brief, I was kind of lost as to what I was supposed to do and what I should do. As usual, Yi Wen, Debbie and I decided to work together, more brains and resources should be able to come up with something better. We all came up with various different ideas, ranging from various different mediums and topics. I wanted to create an immersive space as I felt that it is most representative of 4D, to sort of capture time and space. I felt that immersive space would appeal more to audiences also by providing a richer experience that could appeal to different senses. On the other hand, the issue was how to carry it out.

Through our brainstorming process, we then came across this issue of Fukushima, and that struck us to come up with our installation where we slowly added in the details that we wanted. We took pretty long to settle on one idea, which was quite worrying at the start. However, once we settled down on this, all three of us were quite focused on the topic and progress was pretty good.

Nonetheless, execution was definitely not a smooth journey. We basically had hiccups wherever there could possibly be a hiccup. For location booking, we went between Candy and Bharat several times, as both kept telling us to check with the other, until we finally confirmed that there are no lessons and we could book the critique room at B1-13. Then, ADM told us that we could not loan any projectors as they have loaned out everything. We tried calling other schools in NTU, but they did not allow loaning to students not taking their courses. We even went to the extreme of wanting to rent for the installation, before we finally contacted a senior who was fortunately able to help us loan from the non-foundation year side of the equipments department. This was a heart attack as without the projector, our project was so much less as the video would play a very important role. We also spent a lot of time on the set decoration, making our own partition so huge it required all three of us to move it at the same time, making a bed frame from scratch and the list goes on.

Nonetheless, the completion was so satisfying it felt sad for us to take it down after the critique. Not just me, but in fact all three of us. Our efforts could be seen through the small little details in the installation, and we had so much feels for it we felt so reluctant to take it all down after we ended. Personally, I felt that this was a really enriching experience. I never thought that we, or maybe just me, could achieve something like that. I never thought we could really come up with a well-done installation like how we see them when professional artists do it. Although far from being perfect, I was really amazed at what the three of us had achieved. This was definitely the fruit of our effort and this team effort truly cannot be expressed through words. I am so glad to be able to work so well with this two other girls, to come up with something that we couldn’t have achieved without the effort of every single one of us.

This project had really pushed the limits of myself, allowing me to come up with the installation that I felt was impossible from the start of the semester when we were first told about installations. Though there were some mishaps along the way, overall i enjoyed this project a lot. I have definitely benefited from this than I thought I would. If I, or we, had more time and resources, I am sure our teamwork and effort can make this installation even more perfect, working on the flaws stated during the critique session.

Assignment 2 – Sound and Image

In task 1 that I haven chosen, I will be telling 2 stories using nothing but sound effects. The genres I have chosen are “War” and “Horror”.

The first genre that I chose was “War”. “War” came to mind immediately because it has very distinct sounds that make it sound like war – all sorts of guns firing, explosions, bullets, grenades – all these make up a basic structure for “war”. Nonetheless, with all these typical sounds making up a war scenario, it might sound repetitive and cliche, and even to the extent of boring and a drag if the sounds simply keep repeating. I watched several snippets of war scenes on youtube, including Lone Survivor, and also TaeGukGi : The Brotherhood of War, and listed out the sounds that I wanted for my project.

Above is the Lone Survivor, and below, TaeGukGi : The Brotherhood of War.

Key ideas for "War"
Key ideas for “War”
Sounds used for "War"
Sounds used for “War”

For my scenario, it goes like this:

“A bunch of soldiers were walking through a sandy terrain, when suddenly they heard guns firing. They hastened their steps to find cover, cocked their weapons and returned fire. It was distinct that the enemies and strong fire power, with continuous firing from different weapons. Bullets drift past and ricocheted, until the protagonist gets shot. As he witness he comrades go down, he tosses a grenade over towards the enemies. The firefight continues and he runs out of ammo, when a sudden explosion hit so near he was deafened by the ringing in his ears. With no ammo to fight back, he heard footsteps inching near. The last thing he saw, was a machine gun pointed at his face…”

 

Next genre was “Horror”. To me, I like “horror” as creepy, psychotic, and those that sends chill down your spine, instead of simple jump scares. Jump scares do work, but seem to have little substance to it, and doesn’t give a lingering scare like scary storylines do. As such, I started to imagine a scenario and pulling out bits and pieces of memories of horror films and some creativity instead of referring to existing ones.

Key ideas for "Horror"
Key ideas for “Horror”
Sounds used for "Horror"
Sounds used for “Horror”

Here’s how it goes:

“It was a stormy evening, where she drove past and stopped at a house for shelter, hoping the rain would subside before she continues. She walks fast across the puddles, and knock on the wooden door. There seems to be no response, until the door squeaks open with an eerie crack. She walks in, with her heels hitting the wooden floor. It seems deserted to her, with mice running along the edges of the room. All of a sudden, she feels a knife stabbed into her from behind, she could not make a sound. Warm blood gushed out together with the exit of the blade, as she fell to the ground motionless. In the kitchen, a man with bloodstained hands and shirt sharpens his knife in the gracefulness of that traditional chinese love song, waiting for his next victim… 我等着你回来…

 

Most of the sound effects for both scenarios are gotten from youtube clips, and because of that, the volumes varied greatly. Quite a substantial portion of time was spent on adjusting the volumes and making use of the volumes to create a more dynamic and 3D space.

One problem faced was during the production of the scenarios, my Premiere Pro crashed and could not launch half of the time. I tried all methods of resolving that I managed to find online, updating video driver, renaming files, but all to no avail. It was on/off and this affected the time taken a lot.

Another challenge is to tell a proper story without the help of visuals. With visuals, silences could help tell what was happening but without, it creates a suspense. As such, I could not leave too much silences or else the sounds would scenarios would sound very vague.

Nonetheless, the making of this project was fun and interesting, and allowed a lot of creativity and freedom in the building up of the scenarios, as well as how individuals can have a slight variation in interpreting the sounds heard.

Project 1 – Alter Egos

In this project, we were supposed to come up with a list of characters that have values which hold a special affinity with us. This list would include characters from fictional references, public figures, and also people that I personally know.

Here’s the list and some details of the more important characters that I had in mind:

Project / Exercise 1 – Alter Egos

Fictional Characters Public Figures People I know
Katniss Everdeen Sylvester Stallone Father
Scott Lang (Ant-Man) Michael Jordon Mother
Ip Man Mike Tyson Maternal Aunt
The Joker Barack Obama Sister
Tony Stark (Ironman) Lee Kuan Yew Yu Jie

 

Katniss Everdeen

At the age of 16, volunteered to be a tribute in her sister’s place in the Hunger Games, where the risk of dying is very high. She also wanted to overthrow the rulers then to stop this event, and to save her district as well as the others from poverty. Her selflessness and care for her family as well as others make her a very prominent character worth learning from.

 

Scott Lang (Ant-Man)

Was an ex-convict for burglary, but after his release made good use of his forte of breaking-in to do good. He needed money to be with his daughter again, as his wife could not stay with him because of insecurity. He had to find ways to get back his family, and ended up with the responsibility to fight a supervillain. His ability to make use of his specialty to do good is his plus point, but his indecisiveness and turning back to burglary after his release is a bad example.

 

Ip Man

Ip Man is a very righteous man and a legend in Chinese wushu history. Since the first movie of Ip Man, he has been portrayed as a down-to-earth righteous man. Despite having very good kungfu, he makes good use of it to protect rather than misuse it to bully. He talks sense into people rather than using his fists, and uses them only when he has no choice. He is very loyal to his friends, always helpful to them and his neighbourhood, including strangers. However, he does at times neglect his wife, and only started to cherish her and spend quality time with her when he found out she has terminal illness. Nonetheless, he devotes all his time to her from that point on and even went to the extreme of forgoing his reputation of Wing Chun just to keep her company. I chose to categorize Ip Man as a fictional (movie) character rather than a public figure as he is from a long time ago, and media exposure has been very different. I have only come to know him after the movies were made.

 

Sylvester Stallone

Was a very broke man, couldn’t afford food and housing, so bad he had to sell his dog for $25. Came up with his script “Rocky”, offered from $125 thousand to $350 thousand, but he did not want to sell because he wanted to be the main lead, the company did not want him. He finally sold it at $35 thousand and secured the role as the main lead, and bought his dog back at $15 thousand. His perseverance to pursue his dreams despite being very broke, as well as his concern and love for his dog is very inspiring.

 

Michael Jordon

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Jordan was rejected by his university basketball team as he did not meet the required height when he was young. He did not give up his dream and love for basketball, but played and trained every day without fail, and finally making it into the university team after he grew by 10cm in height, and his hands were also big enough for him to perform slam dunks by then. His passion and perseverance is admirable.

 

My Father

My father is a hardworking man. We come from a not very well-to-do family. My father used to be the sole breadwinner, until my brother and sister started working. Nonetheless, things did not get much better, especially when my father suffered a mild stroke in late 2014. Despite being poor, my father has never complained about his tough work under the sun, and has always tried his best to provide us with whatever he could. He is also rather selfless, and sometimes offering to treat friends and family despite being tight on cash flow. This is a dilemma as it is both a good and a bad trait at the same time, giving our financial status.

 

My Mother

My mother is a housewife. Being married to a man not rich enough to pamper her with luxuries that others could enjoy, she seldom complained about all these. She has been contented with our family and did not ask for more. She did not yearn nor ask for holiday trips, branded bags, spa, massages and manicures like other tai tais, but focused on taking good care of all of us. She is an easily-contented woman.

 

From the list above, I have chosen to do an alter-ego of Ip Man.

Initially, I wanted to do a scene from the latest movie, where he cried after his wife asked for a photo with him before she passed away. He cried because he had been neglecting her and the fact that even such a strong and calm man cries brings about a strong emotion. In fact he did not burst into tears, he held back his tears so hard that it became heartwrenching. It was also relevant to me has I often spend too much time on work and gaming that I tend to neglect my loved ones. The thought of what if it becomes too late hit me when I saw this scene.

However, I could not find this scene / movie online, and was unable to do more research into this scene. I also could not find a co-actor for this and decided to make a change to display another trait of him.

I have been fascinated by his down-to-earth characteristics, and his attitude towards life. He was always helpful to anyone, be it whether he knows them or not. In the movie series, he was often fighting for a reason, and those reasons make his fights acceptable and “heroic”. He was righteous, standing up for what is morally right and in protection of his loved ones or friends.

In the first movie, he was a very simple man, living peacefully but due to economical reasons and the Japanese occupation, he had to work as a coolie with little food. He witnessed his friend get shot after giving up a fight that would let him have rice if he wins. This triggered his anger and intolerance towards such inhuman acts, and he decides to fight, in revenge of his friend and co-worker.

This is the scene from the movie:

After which, I decided to make an adaptation to this scene, but removed the fighting scenes as it was not the main focus of the message I wanted to bring across. I had to give the contextual knowledge of his friend dying, and at the end showing that he did not fight for the reward or reputation, it was for his people, the Chinese.

 

Throughout the video, there is a slow sad music playing in the background to give a melancholic feeling, showing that he was sad and had to fight because of no choice, rather than because his was good and wanted to show off. After he said his “name”, the music instantly changed to an upbeat trademark music for “Ip Man”, to give a “heroic” and righteous feeling to the video.

Some challenges that I faced was that it was hard to make the video interesting without the fight scenes. Watching “Ip Man” without fight scenes seemed kind of boring, but I wanted to bring the message across within the time frame of a minute. I also focused more on the body language with some frame cropping out the face, to explore how body language plays an important role in bringing across the message.

It was also too awkward to be shouting “I WANT TO FIGHT TEN” in public. People would be thinking I’m crazy. I decided to film a video without making any sound, and dubbing over it back in my room.

It was difficult to find a location suitable to bring out the “darkness” of the scene, as well as enough characters to complete the scene. Thus, some of my shots were closed up to have less emptiness in the surroundings. I could not find a metal grille gate suitable enough as well, thus resorting to the use of staircase railings to film.

I also had to research on appropriate background music, attire, sound effects, and arrange the timing and volume to create the atmosphere.

Throughout the filming process, I had to use a tripod as friends were busy with their own schedule, and this made it harder to adjust the framing and focus of the shots. I was also quite new to Premiere Pro, making the editting process very tedious and hard, and turning out to be less of what I had imagined. Nonetheless, it was a fun experience and learning to explore what emotions I could bring across was interesting.