Design Workshops

Exploring the different styles of calligraphy, I used a slightly drier brush. This allowed me to make cleaner lines, deciding not to dilute the ink helped me retain the inks natural opaqueness creating a bolder effect on the words. This process was new to me, keeping control of the brush strokes was something I needed to be aware of.

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Crossing over to more of a symbolic description of calligraphy, I began to play around with the the material of the ink. Linking to the Chinese poem 'A tree in blossom' , I attempted to experiment with the versatility of the material.
In calligraphy the weight of the strokes are connected to the overall composition of a piece, with the tree on the left being mostly thin shades of grey it didn't take away from the main section which was the poem on the right. The black section on the bottom right was designed to mimic the poem above, shifting the focus over to the right side of the page.
Overall calligraphy taught me a lot about precision and timing especially when working with mediums like ink.




                                                                                                 

 

 On Tuesday we worked on a motion graphics workshop, step by step showing us how to use various Adobe softwares. In one exercise we created a moving animation of the letters of our names then began to play with moving shapes and making the balls bounce. It opened me up to new possibities of  presenting my work, exploring more with motion graphics.

Inspired by the Chinese poem 'A tree in bloom',  I took the key sections from it and chose to use the last two lines as I felt they made the biggest impact.  I transferred the words onto Illustrator, and used the Apple Chauncery font as it looked feminine and suited the romantic theme of the words. The final words are enlarged as it summarises the underline message of the entire poem. 

Choosing between various materials from black thick cardboard to wood panels I finally went with a thin block of wood with a white layer above it.  This was because in prototyping I was going to use the engraving machine and the contrast of the materials would make the words stand out. 

To make the words fit the material, I used the sawing machine.

I decided to pick out one of the final words from the Chinese poem 'A tree in bloom' as it had a powerful ending that was very visual yet romantic in nature. An interesting thing that was shown on the final product was the jaggedy effect of the font. I felt like it was another way to represent a withering petal (it appeared as if the font itself was withering). If I could improve it, I would add more visuals onto the board of floral shapes maybe. 

Turn

 This week we were put into groups and were presented with a theme. The word Turn was mind mapped in our sketchbooks, looking for visual and metaphorical ways to describe our given word. Key phrases such as Rotate, Transform and Cycle were brought up, after seeing past videos done by previous students we had to tweak our idea. Initially the group planned to create short animations surrounding the key word Turn, however to extend the film length to 2 minutes there needed a more complex plot line. The idea of taking your turn resulted in a short story about 3 figures being trapped in a dark room forced to play a visual game of pictionary to survive. This was a much more developed idea from our original one as we were able to incorporate the stop animation alongside the film work.

My role was the camera man, I had to use various angles to relay different kinds of information to the audience. On the left is a still from the opening scene of the film, showing the killer entering a dark room. What is visually powerful is the ominous hooded silhouette ,which is brought closer by the simple form of light coming from behind them.

Before filming the group needed to scout for a location ideal enough to create a dark atmosphere in. Eventually we stumbled upon an empty room with a curtain able to leave the room in complete darkness.

What worked well with this idea of masking the antagonist was the mind tricks it could potentially play on the viewer. The scary thing about it is the audience are able to picture their own idea of a scary figure, most picture people they know in real life. In this way the masked figure with no identity becomes more life like to an audience.

 Another still from the film shows the 3 victims from a high angle. From this view point as viewers we are able to see all figures with the addition of the game at hand, linking back to the project title of 'Turn'. Due to the fact that the ceiling lights were too bright to create the right mood for our scenes, through trial and error we discovered that multiple flash lights from our Iphones made a spot light effect.

Alongside the video work and the inbetween stop motion animations, photographs were also taken. This was to make sure the group received a variety of material for the final product. In this camera angle, the audience see close ups of the contestants faces which creates an emotive link with the actors and viewer.

 This still shows a time lapse from the film, to create an effect that the figures have been trapped for a while. This was a great way of showing the effect of time but also providing further information about the key features in the film such as the dice and board game. The idea of Turn is therefore continuously being repeated throughout the film, the sound effect of a ticking clock was added in the final cut to emphasize the passing of time further.

Tension was built through the characters stiff and worried body gestures. Also the board game, central to the figures, was chosen for its colourful appearance. This was meant to be ironic as the setting is quite dark and serious while the game is childish and vibrant, I found that the two elements juxtaposed each other nicely. To add the hooded killer overseeing the game was seen in red which compliments the board game but also contrasts against the figures playing, reinforcing the figures are doomed to end up in the shadows. 

This was the final outcome to my movie poster, taking a still from the film and manipulating it to create a digital like effect. I wanted to take the audiences' first sight of the hooded killer as the movie poster because the moment when the antagonist emerged from the light was a strong first impression. Trying to keep the same vibrancy seen on the game board with the bright red of the killers hoodie, a pixelated ray of colour blends into the darkness. In addition the typography I chose is thin and skinny as it has a more digital and impersonal look to it, highlighting that it could be anyone's turn next.

Link to the final video: https://youtu.be/Nhapd0qeJ78 

Personal Manifesto Part 2

 For the second part of the manifesto I researched into the teachings of Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Naht Hanh and his theories on Interbeing.  The idea of self does not exist, material possession and the perception of 'mine' is an illusion. Interbeing delves into methods of everything is co dependent on each other for survival.

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With this concept in relation to my project with family, without the presence of the father there can be no son. Human survival link to inter being philosophy, to visually represent this I decided to experiment with different typography fonts. The words that I picked are meant to connect with the philosophical teachings and imagery of connection (like tree roots)

Otac is the formal word for father in Serbian, I chose to connect the words together to emphasize the cyclical concept of father and son.










The are 14 precepts of Interbeing I compacted the teachings to 3 main ones that spoke to me the most.
-Possess nothing that should belong to others
-to not avoid suffering when you see it
-to leave behind hatred

Keeping with photography as a visual medium, I took this photograph of trees to develop the idea on inter being further by finding imagery that presents that.

Through photographic manipulation I tested out negative effects on the original picture I took. Which resulted in an almost ethereal look with the absence of black, the blue hues dominated. This could potentially be an ideal background for my personal manifesto 2.

Continuing with a much more colder colour scheme, Ive abstracted the leaf shapes further and added more circles into the image to highlight the symbolic link to cycles and co dependence of my manifesto. This time playing with white it acts as a method of emphasizing the shape of the branches, setting it apart from the other sections of the blue background.

In this final draft Ive decided to give it a less intense effect, which compliments the warm tones from the writing below. The words state the three main precepts of Interbeing which I believe are words to live by, to not live in hatred, turn away from suffering or hold things that don't belong to you. In addition to highlight the centre of image the edges have been darkened which has also softened the general look of the final outcome.

Personal Manifesto Part 1

Part 1 of our manifesto week, had us looking at our own family heritage stories, to create a visual response. Manifesto is derived from the Latin word clear, the purpose of one is to inspire and put ideas out that would create a form of change. A medium where your present self can have a direct link with your future self. As a starting point I looked at old photos of my past relatives, what stood out to me the most were the black and white ones. The lack of colour created a different kind of atmosphere, setting the people in another time, this was something I wanted to portray in my final outcome. I began to de construct the figures and focused on the relationship between fathers and children.

 Asking my father about his earlier childhood memories I began to look at other ways I could symbolically present this. The oak is a natural motif of age and family, the acorn could represent a child while the developed tree the father. These are preliminary sketches to that idea,

Combining the outline of an image from an old photograph with organic forms found in wood, creates a continuous line shape figure. Developing further from this I tried to fragment the forms to represent the broken process of remembering past memories.

The colours used in one of my Photoshop developments plays with soft subdued warm effects. The yellow patches of colour act as the images focal point, highlighting the importance of the figures. Through past sketches, I experimented with the contrast of negative spaces and wanted to incorporate a duplicate of the actual photograph. The shapes are blurred to compliment the light colours. 

Through photographic manipulation, the shattered effect on the sides of the image are meant to symbolize the process of remembering distant memories. I kept it black and white to keep the traditional monochromatic format of the original black and white photo. The centre remains the least warped with the hands and trees in the background . 

 

A balance between the last two photo manipulations, there remains a warped like effect with addition of patch colours. A bright contrast between the figures with an emphasis on the negative space, in the top right corner the bushes resemble the top section of an acorn. The use of a more cold blue like shadow is meant to create a more of an nostalgic effect.

Exhibition Trip

Bedlam:the asylum+beyond:
The exhibition being held at the Welcome collection featured artists like Eva Kotatkova, who used her personal experience with asylums to create visual responses. Through her collages she emphasizes the communication of the patients with their surroundings and the constraints that they felt.

Something that stood out to me the most was the concept that a few patients were experiencing signs of phantasmagoria, about the shape or surface of their bodies. The degree varied with each person, some believed to have spines sticking out from their sides while others believed themselves to be so fragile that even a long stare could harm them. The thought of somehow being incomplete and having a different perception of reality directly influenced my project,

Memory and remembering events or people from the past can be fragmented and broken. Through photographs, the missing parts can be found. In my own project I looked to past photographs of my own family, seeing great grandparents and faces I hadn't seen in years brought back fragmented memories. In a similar way that Kotatkova portrays her work I focused on black and white photography and presenting it in a fragmented format.

The patients realities varied, some believed they were completely alone and the doctors and nurses were merely phantoms. While others expressed fear over the phobias and anxieties that they felt would physically leave their bodies and fly across their rooms. The way in which they dealt with such perceptions also varied but remained in a similar pattern, repetition of writing lists of their phobias to writing lists of the contents in their rooms gave them some form of relief and peace.

 Autumn Lexicon:Serpentine Gallery
 Looking at Marc Camille Chaimowicz 1972's exhibition piece 'Enough Tiranny', was brought back recently to the Serpentine Gallery. His work focuses on the concept of time and the act of repetition and identity. The artists wanted to show how time is an abstract concept for the audience to recognize 'that it can fold on itself.'  He saw this was the only way people could understand how fluidity of time, in the term that events from the past could still feel so recent and vice versa. Visually he achieved this by creating a 'de ja vu' appearance through the use of scattered objects across the floor. With the use of soft warm colours, Chaimowicz managed to make the room come to life, as if there just had been a party.

Fluorescent Chrysanthemums: ICA
The final gallery we went to was the Institute of Conceptual Art. It was another past exhibition from the 60s brought back for another time. Commemorating one of the first European exhibitions on Japanese modern art, the posters and graphics were very fluorescent and geometric in shape. Almost minimalistic in design however they still managed to incorporate a sense of traditional Japanese influence. Such as the symbolic shape of the chrysanthemum, it was continuously brought up in various art works and articles regarding the original exhibition.