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Assessment 3: final work

Our project is designed as posters published on 22nd April for Earth Day on the topic of ecology, human and animals. The posters based on photographs of three installations we made. We have four stacks of trashes that when a light is positioned in a key spot, create shadows that each represents a species that is endangered due to human interventions.  They are: penguin, Hawksbill turtle and rhinoceros.

Sometimes human activities caused serious ecological problems. Which negatively affect the environment, the lives of other species are threatened. According to the IUCN Red List, “More than 26,000 species are threatened with extinction. That is more than 27% of all assessed species.” This loss of wildlife is startling, and people are at risk, too. Without action, the Earth will become much less hospitable for all of us. A shared understanding of the link between humanity and nature is essential to making profound changes that will allow all life to thrive for generations to come.

Therefore, we tried to make a link between human and nature&animal. We stack wasted trashes, man-made materials and arranged them to certain shapes so their shadow under light makes reminiscent of a certain endangered animal. As most of the trashes are produced for the commercial reason for human society, we think it's a perfect medium to imply human and human intervention to the earth. Moreover, each of the four animals stands for an environmental issue caused by the human. 

Rhinoceros: Illegal wildlife trade

penguin: Global warming

Hawksbill turtle: White pollution

Our idea is inspired by artist Diet Wiegman’s shadow and light sculptures. Where, by illuminating a pile of waste, a highly detailed shadow of man-shape would appear on the wall. This gives us a very powerful way to build up that link between human and other species.

Reference：

1."The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species". 2018, <https://www.iucnredlist.org> [accessed 25 October 2018].

2.Diet Wiegman："The shadows steal the spotlight away from these bizarre junk sculptures as they create a spectacle behind the actual art”. 2018, <https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2299167/Diet-Wiegman-The-shadows-steal-spotlight-away-bizarre-junk-sculptures-create-spectacle-actual-art.html> [accessed 24 October 2018].

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Group Assessment 3: ideas, experiments and process

For this project, we investigate on the weekly topic, ecology. We want to do something that links between human and nature, animals. Inspired by Dutch artist Diet Wiegman, we wanted to use the medium of light. So we decided to use trashes to create shadows of animals.

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class activity 2: collecting raindrop+mixing

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weekly activity: glitched song remix

original song: Power Up by Red Velvet

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Rationale:

To begin with, the question I chose is: “Contemporary art and design often look at the idea of constructed binaries, how can art and design interrogate these binaries and offers new insights?”

In my previous attempts, I explored the binary of art and non-art. Critics of contemporary art make me curious about this question: “what can be defined as art ?”. Contemporary artworks might be something that would not be welcomed in the old times. But then, the conventional standard of what is art was being challenged. It’s okay if it’s not beautiful, it’s okay if it is just a piece of paper or a bottle of water. The idea, the meaning it brings under certain context is the primary, and it follows that its form and techniques are secondary.

Paper, a man-made material that we take for granted was the primary subject that I experimented with in the last poster assessment. Following with my previous attempts, I tried to further explore the paper materials. 

However, though the paper, as a material, shows its various potentials in art. I still decided to explore material other than it. The paper is perfect for the poster project as I need a broad idea with simplified elements. This time, I shift my focus on those inconspicuous sounds around us, some of them might be ignored more than the paper. In addition to my interest in music, I came up with an idea that to regard all these random sounds like instruments and compose them to a beat/melody/song. My project is a music remix of the random sounds in daily life. 

While my audiences are listening to my audio, I hope they will be curious about what those sounds exactly is. An interesting point is, without providing images or videos, even those sound frequently occurs in our lives, it is not that easy to guess the completely right answer with no hesitations. From this experience, I get to explore a wide range of sounds around, and I realised there are infinite sounds with various tone, pitch that make them sounds similar, but still, different. Like paper. That’s why I gave up with the idea to provide a video which corresponds to each sound.

If you have finished listening to the audio. Here’s the answer. 

There are basically 7 sounds in my audio project : 

bottle lid dropped in the water; 

pressing ballpoint pen(accelerated); 

spray bottle;  patting mattress; 

shelf being closed; 

a pen dropped to the book; 

Glass knocked by 2B pencil; 

stretch a rubber band(create higher pitch when stretched long, vice versa)

Reflection: To be honest, the final work doesn’t reach my expectation. Mostly because of my incompetence in the audio software: GarageBand. There is some effect I wanted to create however failed. Besides, it’s difficult to match the beat, especially pitch correction. I was only able to create some melody using a rubber band. I should keep learning skills and knowledge to support my production.

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Assessment 2: 

Experiments

I followed to further explore my previous subject, paper. Personally, I don’t know why, but I particularly like images that without certain features, merely colour, form, lines. They are the most basic but still festinates me a lot. I have collected hundreds of images in Pinterest, every time I look at the album I feel relaxed and happy. Probably that’s why I’ve been interesting on investigating topics like uniqueness, randomness. Therefore, in this experiment, I crumpled up the paper like before, the wrinkles of the paper is the best “stamp” for me to transfer the colour. I intentionally chose the three primary colours: red, yellow and blue and get this painting. A painting comprises random shapes.

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WEEK 5 CLASS ACTIVITY

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Rationale:

My work “trash or art” explores the relationship between art and non-art. This is a topic that is being widely talked about. Indeed, when I am trying to answer this question myself, I realized it is almost impossible to give it a clear boundary between these two terms.  

Critics of contemporary art lead us to the question: “what can be defined as art ?” Contemporary artworks might be something that would not be welcomed in the old times. For centuries, artists enriched society with their works of astonishing beauty. The aesthetic value of an artwork is an important standard for artworks. It has to be beautiful to be regarded as art. But then, the conventional standard of what is art was being challenged. It’s okay if it’s not beautiful, it’s okay if it is just a piece of paper or a bottle of water.  The idea, the meaning it brings under certain context is the primary, and it follows that its form and techniques are secondary.

I believe everything has its profound meaning because everything is unique in its time, social and cultural context. To research about the idea,  I started by looking for ordinary objects that we are accustomed to see——paper. It is the man-made material that seems to be a very repeatable thing with identity. I tried multiple methods to challenge this idea, to make the paper an artwork. Through experiments, I explored the possibility that how special can paper be by working on its color, placing it in a special context, etc. I found the easiest way is, balled it up. You will never get two same paper balls no matter how hard you try. Each of them will have a unique form and shape, which I found particularly fascinated. Therefore, I made a poster saying “trash or art, you decide”. I intentionally made the poster as simple as possible, avoid using stand-out color and complicated elements as I want the audience to focus on the paper.

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Final poster-idea

I experiment with the possibilities of how to turn a normal paper ball into an artwork. It proves that even an inconspicuous matter has its own beauty by applying technology. Well, we are in an era of technology now, why not? We are also available to experiment with different social, cultural and political contexts for our subjects. Art or non-art, it’s up to you.

Therefore, I would like my poster to deliver this idea. However, the previous experiments I did, like those ones combined with famous paintings, are too specific. While I would like people to focus on the originality of the paper, as there are endless ways to transform the paper into artworks, countless standards of beauty. I don’t want to narrow it down into a specific form.

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Experiment 3:

The previous experiments focus on the aesthetic aspect of the paper. These experiments explore ways that paper can be placed in different contexts to be given meanings. I did a collage, the texture of the paper inspired me to make it a mountain. And I integrate the paper into famous painting. It is no longer a simple piece of paper anymore.

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Assessment 1

experiment 2:

Photos above were my attempts to make the original photo “different”, to reveal how we can transform, distort simple objects into new forms and shapes and increase its aesthetic value.

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For my first assignment, I chose question No.4:  Contemporary art and design often looks at the idea of constructed binaries, such as man/woman, soft/hard, straight/gay, dirty/clean, organic/synthetic. Considering the history of these ‘pairs’, how can art and design interrogate these binaries and offers new insights?

To start with, I started to brainstorm all the binaries I can think of. I quickly decided which pair I would like to research upon---art and non-art. Topic about what to define as art is being widely discussed. Many argue that modern art is trash because it challenges the norm of classic art that artworks should be aesthetic, that only special, elegant objects can be used in artworks. 

Therefore, the first step I did is looking for something that’s really common, too normal that we won’t pay too much attention to. I thought about, air, water. But what I decided eventually is paper. I balled up the paper because I feel this is an easy way to make paper unique, special. See how paper exhibit texture and depth by this simple method.

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CLASS 2 ACTIVITY 1

Week 2 - Class activty - Collaboration & Community

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WEEK 1

Chosen question: Make a skyscraper out of inappropriate materials.

We deliberately chose the type of fountain that Duchamp used.

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Experiment : editing I crop a part of the photo I took and edited it so it's more abstract

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Assignment 3-Vague

Final statement:

To work with the concept “vague”, I started by thinking about what is vague and what can be defined as one. Vague is obscure, uncertain, indefinite. It is about possibilities and experiments to create without the struggling of a perfect outcome.  

When thinking about vague in the art world, I feel like it’s something that would not be welcomed as art works in the old times. At that time, art creation is more about a precise depiction of the real world. The old masters put their attention on how to draw, paint, sculpt the subject in a vivid sense. But the rapid development of technologies transforms the way we perceive world. It’s not necessary any more to mimic the reality as camera can literally frame the world in still images. To some extent, it seems like there is some connection between vague and the term ”abstract”, the opposite to the traditional art intention. Drawing, painting without precise goal, that must sounds crazy to those old masters. But we have accept the value of those art and found meaning through them.

Therefore, I started my projects by doing experiments exploring vague art creation, which is vague drawing, vague sculpture and vague photography. In my vague drawing I use pencil to draw random curves in paper without looking at the pages, the lines and curves are beautiful. Then I fill some shapes black, an abstract affect was created. For the sculpture, I use used papers, crumple them to random forms and use stapler to stick them together. The vague photo was achieved by lowering the shutter speed so the camera will document the traces of light movement. The photo is also the one I like the most because camera was invented to capture precise scene of the world. It was the camera that shakes the art world in old times.  Now I use camera to produce vague, abstract image, interesting.

All my experiments turned out well. Since they are all my attempts to approach vagueness, It should be even more vague if I mix them together. So I was thinking about the best way to combine them together. I cut out the shapes that I filled black in my vague drawing to see if I can piece them together to make something, but it was not easy. But then I looked at my vague drawing, which was incomplete after I cut it, I put it on my vague photo and they two looks amazing together. The beautiful light patterns can be seen through the blank shapes and it makes people wondering what exactly is behind it. That give me an inspiration so I use photoshop and make my final work, combining my vague series together.

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Vague: Experiment 4 Vague photography Following with my previous experiments, I shot a vague photo. By setting the shutter speed of camera very slow, so the travel traces of light is recorded.

Audiences might question what is the subject of this image, one of my friends think it is a painting. I guess it’s because camera seems like a technology we used to archive memories, document the scenes in reality. It should present precise, distinct subjects, my photo plays with that idea and I think it successfully creates a vague sense.