Category: Research

Right after I got my project brief, I went to find different movie quotes from movies I’ve watched before.

Lion King: “The past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it.” -Rafi

Kung Fu Panda: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery,and today is a gift… that’s why they call it present” -Master Oogway

How to train your dragon 2: “What you’re searching for… isn’t out there, Hiccup. It’s in here. Maybe you just don’t see it yet.” -Astrid

Finding Nemo: “Just keep swimming.” -Dory

Saw Series: “Hello and welcome, I want to play a game.” -Jigsaw

Transformers: “At the end of this day, one shall stand, one shall fall.” -Optimus prime

 Titanic: “You jump I jump.”

Spiderman : “With great power comes great responsibility.” -Uncle Ben

300: “THIS IS SPARTA”.

Ip Man: “I want to fight 10 people.”

After much consideration, I decided to use the quote from SAW in 2004 “Hello and welcome, I want to play a game” for all my 4 compositions. In the SAW movie, “jigsaw” the ‘bad guy’ gets people who had done evil before to play a game. Though cruel, the game gives them a chance to reflect on their mistakes.

Concept

Hence I reflected on the various “evils” that we human beings have done in this world and to this world. What is it that we need to start changing?

Artist Research

Pawel Kuczynski, who graduated from Fine Arts Academy in Poznan, has been rewarded with more than 100 prizes and distinctions for his thought-provoking illustrations that comment on social, economic, and political issues through satire.

Here are some of his works:

His works are very interesting. The subjects are shown very clearly e.g. Twitter, Facebook, etc. And he shows how we human beings are being controlled by these subjects in a satirical manner. Drawing inspiration from this, I brainstormed on the elements I want to put in my composition:

• There should be a ‘game’ play at work to relate back to my quote
• There could be something that have us all controlled, whether knowingly or unknowingly or it could be something that we have done wrong in
• The composition should have a funny / satire feel.

Idea 1 (Human vs Technology) 

Before the start of the project, Pokemon Go was just released in Singapore and everyone was so crazy about it (including me). Then there were news all over the world about how people got into accidents, injured themselves and even fall to their death while playing Pokemon Go. It really got me thinking about how technology can control us.

Here are some images I found for my first composition.

Idea 2 (Human vs Human)

My second idea was inspired from the viral video of a boy who appeared dazed and calm after being rescued from the bombing in Syria.

To be honest, after watching the video I felt very angry and immensely sad at the same time. Why do we engage in war? Why do we not see the extent of harm it can cause to the innocents? Is it just some sort of game?

war => fight => compete => competition => Olympic games

Hence I came up with this visual of people playing sports. But instead of playing with a ball, they are throwing bombs at one another, mocking the purpose of war. Who is it that we are hurting at the end of the day?

Images I found.

 

Idea 3 (Human vs Animal)

I was browsing through some posters and came across some WWF posters. It got me thinking about the relationship we humans have with animals. We kill animals for food, for valuable items and even for leisure. We use animals for testing, for research. This is an ethical argument that has been going on for so long and I’m not sure if there is a right answer to it either. Similarly, I want to frame this issue like a game. So my intial thought was to frame the composition like a jigsaw puzzle, linking it back to SAW and how the movie is also like a puzzle.

After consultation, I noted that I should not make the composition too serious (the previous 2 have a more satirical feel to it) so I tried to add some fun elements to it. I had a composite image of a panda and a dog which was dyed in the same colours as a panda (once again the works of us human beings). Some may think it’s cute, but I find it rather cruel actually…

I also made further adjustments after my group consultation. I added in an image of a gorilla, with reference to the Harambe incident. I also removed the jigsaw puzzle element as my classmates find it makes the whole composition very messy. Thankfully, Gerald gave me a pretty good suggestion – why not make it into a computer game!

 

Idea 4 (Human vs Diseases)

After creating 3 designs, I was kind of stuck and is running out of ideas. I thought that so far I have been quite negative about the issues in discussion, focusing on the “bad” and “wrongs”. Maybe for the last composition I can do something more positive. On the way to ADM, I saw posters about Zika, how we should prevent it and fight it. That sparked the idea of human vs diseases, which Singapore has been doing really well, from SARS to Zika now.

Images used:

 

 

I did some adjustments after 2 consultations to create my final 4 compositions which I will be showing in my final post!