Research Critique: Please Change Beliefs (1997)

Jenny Holzer, Please Change Beliefs (1997)

Upon entering the site, I was quite confused at what was the site about with the website changing a new quote every few seconds and the title of the work “Please Change Beliefs”. After exploring around, I realised that this website is about truism and how the public can vote and change the truism they believe in.

After clicking on the truism, I was brought to the next page where I can vote for the various truism that I believe in.

After choosing the various truisms, I was brought to the results page where you can see the number of votes for each truism. I felt a sense of familiarity due to its similarity to various social media like Instagram where users can hold polls to engage with their followers and poll sites like doodle where users can choose a date that they are free in this coordinates in group meetups.

Looking at all the quotes, I can’t help but curate imaginary scenarios in my head to form up the circumstances of each truism and to judge the justifiability of the quotes. This work intrigues me to ponder over whether our beliefs are facts and does it really hold true to everyone. For example, “Even your family can betray you”. While I can’t relate fully to this quote as I did not experienced this before, I can imagine the circumstances that this can happen and hence, this truism holds true.

Adding on, I always see art in the form of visual, performances and audio. With people defining this metascape as a internet art, I was confused at how should one define art? Technically, it does put forth an idea and thinking that is truism and it engages the audience with its input of one’s own truism and voting system, which parallels with the idea of most artworks. But the unique way of representation of this art piece really intrigues me and challenged the boundary of our definition of art. In my opinion, I am still in a dilemma, not due to me disliking or rejecting this work, but I find it interesting and excited that I am trying to evolve my own thinking to appreciate and understand internet art and many different forms of art. I am still in the phase of picking up new things as I go along and understanding the concept and gist of the art scene.

References:

https://art.colorado.edu/hiaff/review4da6.html?id=116&cid=7
https://elmcip.net/creative-work/please-change-beliefs
http://gallery9.walkerart.org/midobject.html?id=10604

Please Change Beliefs: An Analysis

2D II Project 1- Que Sera Sera Final

FINALISED

Below are the finalised compositions:

Watermelon Farmer

For this composition, I used complimentary colours to represent that to be a farmer, it can tend to be tiring and demanding, but however, on the other hand, to be able to have a good harvest will even out the toughness of the job. Just like the colour wheel, although green and red, which is just nice the colour of watermelon, are on different spectrum of the colour wheel, they compliment each other well aesthetically.

Also, I have my text as LEE which is my surname as this job tends to be less interpersonal, hence, it is more common to address farmers by their surname. The text is tilted upwards to express that one needs to have a positive outlook and mindset to be able to handle the job well due to it’s physically tiring nature.

Having the stripes of the watermelon skin as a background mimic the scene of a plantation. Having the stripes down will countereffect the upwards facing text to create a balanced dynamic flow.

Cup Noodle Designer

I used illustration for this as designers will normally create an illustration of their designs before sending it in for publishing on the real object. I used triad colours here to represent the infinite possibilities and ways of designing or coming out with a design just like the three spectrums which covers the whole colour wheel. This also creates a balance in colour in the whole composition.

The utilisation of the decorative font type here is so that this can capture the attention of the viewer immediately due to the quirkiness of it and entice people to buy the cup noodle.

I used my English name, JAE, as cup noodle is very much international now and it will suit the international theme with an English name than my Chinese name, Yi Jie. However, I kept the essence of it being originating from Japan and using sakura flowers as my design on the cup noodle. Also, I transformed the chopsticks into paintbrush to further emphasize on the designer part and a “create your own’ concept. At this point, I felt that the colour scheme was abit unbalance hence I added watercolour(complementary with the paintbrush) as background with pink and blue to balance out the composition’s colour scheme.

Doctor

Using a cotton mattress(to signify patient) and a stethoscope as semiotic signs, this represents the doctor-patient relationship and hence letting the readers interpret that the job is being a doctor.

I used serif font here as serif fonts are normally associated with professionalism, formal and prestige which is also normally associated with being a doctor.

As the name tags of doctors are normally initials of the doctor, like E. Lim, I used this concept and have my initials Y.LEE. Adding on, we normally read from left to right, hence I have the letter panning from left to right. To further emphasize the reading pathway of the letters, I have Y in yellow as this is the colour which can grab the attention of viewers immediately followed by using red which will capture the secondary attention of the viewer. Thereby, this will force viewers to read all the letters Y L E E in order.

Plant Sculpture Artist

This is actually an experimental work for me other than normal techniques like photoshop and illustration. By having my name YIJIE, this evokes the sense of familiarity and closeness like how a plant sculpture works- to connect with the viewers so that they understand the whole form. The letters might be hard to see but I guess this also links to the sculpture industry where people tend to overlook in real life. San serif fonts are normally like to young, less formal and for personal use only. I feel that using san serif will create more impact with the viewers as this is more interpersonal and it creates more flow when viewers read the text (something to ease the difficulty in reading from the flower petals).

Reflection

This project gave me a good platform to try out different techniques and experiment new compositions that I have been wanting to try. Although some of them failed, but this gave me more exposure and experience nonetheless. Through this project, it really forces me to research more on the colour schemes and font types and how to relate them to your aim. I am also more sensitive to the orientation and dynamic of the whole composition after this. I also realised that I need to focus more on learning illustration as this is my second time using adobe illustration.

2D II Project 1: Que Sera Sera Process

Curating Ideas

Being someone who likes to try new things, when given this project, I found myself to quickly think of these few ideas.

Barista
Florist
Spy
Watermelon Farmer
Doctor
Culture Research Artist

Originally, I was very inspired by the Chinese and Japanese art culture and wanted to have all my 4 designs to be of the same job, Culture Research Artist.

However, after doing some research and thinking process, I find that I should incorporate more diversity into my designs and compositions. Hence, my 4 jobs are Barista, Florist, Watermelon Farmer and Doctor.

CUP NOODLE DESIGNER

My first thought was to do coffee art, hence I wanted my concept to be a barista. However, I have done coffee art before and least to say that it didnt work out well for me the previous time. Hence, I’ve decided to scrap off the idea of coffee art.

Moving on, I was quite inspired by this photo I came across online.

I wanted the milk swirls to form letters however, I tried to mimic the process with nail polish, but it turns out to be a mess and din’t work out too. 🙁

Therefore, I’ve decided to scrap off the idea of being a barista.

As I was thinking of a job to replace this, I had an idea one day while eating cup noodle and was quickly reminded of a cup noodle museum in Japan whereby people could customise their cup noodle according to their preference. Hence, I came up with the idea of being a CUP NOODLE DESIGNER.

I tried using watercolour for this but the colour didn’t turn out as well I thought.

Therefore, I thought of manipulating the words on the the and use illustration for this.

PLANT SCULPTURE ARTIST

My initial job was to be a FLORIST. But I must say this job took up the greatest time and part of my project and I spent alot of effort on this job.

I used mainly script writings initially as it has a more feminine and floral theme to it and gives the readers a more familiar feeling which is what the job entitles.

In the end, I changed my job yet again as the aesthetics of these does not meet up with what I wanted.

Again, I came across a moss writings online and wanted to mimic the style of it.

Therefore, I changed my job to PLANT SCULPTURE ARTIST. This time, I wanted to be experimental, hence, I bought some fake flowers and tried to create something using them.

WATERMELON FARMER

To create something out of watermelon was relatively easy to me as really like watermelons(HAHA) and I quickly have an idea on what I wanted to do.

However, after consultation with Shirley, she felt that I should emphasize the watermelon on the words and suggest I incorporate the text on the watermelon and I proceeded on to making some changes.

DOCTOR

As I was very inspired to do something like a top-down flatlay photography for this, I went to do some research on it. As I do not have a stethoscope, I used photoshop and collage style for this.

I did different text by hand and used photoshop to add into my collage.

2D II Project 1 Research

This project was fun for me as I was able to research on my dream jobs which I have been fascinated all along. My main source of inspiration comes mainly from pinterest and tumblr as both sources have a huge datebase of pictures and artist works. I am more of a visual person hence, I have a lot of inspirations photos.

Before I embarked on my project, I researched abit about font types.

1) Serif: Serif fonts have little “feet” or lines attached the ends of their letters. They’re generally thought to look more serious or traditional.

2) Sans-Serif: “Sans-serif” literally means “without serif” — these fonts don’t have the extra lines on the ends of letters. For that reason, they’re generally thought to look more modern and streamlined.

Though this point is often debated, it’s commonly said that serifs make long passages (in print) easier to navigate visually, helping move your eyes along the lines of text. However, because serifs are usually small and thin, they often don’t display as well on pixel-based screens (looking distorted and “noisy” rather than clear and crisp), so many designers favor sans-serif fonts for web use, especially at small sizes.

3) Script: Scripts are what we might think of as cursive- or handwriting-style fonts. They generally have connecting letters. You’ll find that script fonts come in many different styles, from elegant, to fun and casual, to hand-drawn.

4) Decorative / Display: When you hear a font categorized as decorative, display, or novelty, it all means the same thing — that font is meant to get your attention. They’re often more unusual than practical and should only be used in small doses and for a specific effect or purpose.

BARISTA

Finding fonts related to coffee was abit challenging as people seldom relate to coffee or beans regarding fonts and I was able to find much inspiration as seen below.

Hence, I decided to just source anything that I could make out from being barista and collate them together later on.

I was deeply inspired by the milk stains in the coffee.

FLORIST

I really like the aesthetic of flowers hence I decided to go forth with florist as my job. My first thought for florist was to paste flowers on my work. Hence, I did some research regarding and surrounding flowers.