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youaretheplastic

At last, I have finished the short clip so far, I called it “Causality”

Here’s the link:

https://youtu.be/c79c5MptZqo

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Tomás Saraceno

In the latest reading, it is also mentioned the Argentina artist Tomás Saraceno’s one of the artworks from Aerosolar Journeys series. It is an installation using recycled bags to make a hot air balloon. Without the use of artificial fire to let the artwork flows, he used the heat from the sun to make it ascended from the ground (Caro, 2015). He shows the power of reuse and the use of sustainable energy to create art. It kind of connect to my animation as I try not to use too much materials to create the animation, that’s why I use digital software to create the work. But compare to him, he knows what he is using to create art.

“Saraceno lives and works in and beyond the planet Earth (2018).” His works is innovative and informative. He uses his art to communicate the world and beyond. He succeed a fully-solar manned and broke the world record, he also worked with different scientific universities and recreate the only three-dimensional spider web collection (2018). His artworks, similar Mandy Barker, they do the actually scientific researches and investigation to solve the problem in an artistic way.

Saraceno, T.S. (2018) Studio Tomás Saraceno. Available at: https://studiotomassaraceno.org/about/ (Accessed: 16/4/2019)

Caro, C. (2015) Tomás Saraceno Deploys Installation Made of Recycled Plastic Bags. Available at:  https://hifructose.com/2015/07/09/tomas-saraceno-deploys-installation-made-of-recycled-plastic-bags/ (Accessed: 16/4/2019)

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Shifting Awareness: Recycled Plastic Bag Art

The text mentioned on how teachers engaged students to use plastic to create school works and art in order to raise awareness. It described the process of having different sessions with activities and talks to make students to learn and realise the issue. It is like a lesson plan for teachers who wants their students to learn the same thing. The project was taking place in Bugwon Girls Middle School in Wonju, South Korea (Song, p.39) Professors would introduce and explain different ecology artists. Students seemed to be amused by the fact that artists are doing environmental art as most of the ecology news they had heard were from scientists and researchers (Song, p.37). In the article, Song (2017, p.34) said the people who engage with environmental art cannot neglect the issue anymore. Showing that students showed more awareness and empathy to the environmental problem through art.

During sessions, students reused picture frames and filled them with arranged plastic wraps and single-use plastic to make it looks aesthetic and nicely. 

As some of them felt pressured to make aesthetic art because they do not have a proper art technique, those activities motivated students to do some art pieces with random shapes from plastic wastes and they feel more comfortable to make them. Moreover, the pieces they made helped them to discuss the problem outside school into their neighbours, and it will also raise awareness in the local community (Song, p.38).

Song, Young Imm Kang (2017) ‘Shifting Awareness: Recycled Plastic Bag Art’, International Journal of Social Science Studies, 5(7). doi: 10.11114/ijsss.v5i7.2399.

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causality

Using this word is to show the reason and the effect on the things we do. 

As we are consuming plastic, there are many plastic wastes go to the sea and they break down into micro-plastic, and they come back in a form of food. As marine lives will eat the micro-plastic and they chase up to the food chain and come back to us.

At the end of the short animation, the phrase “you are the plastic” appears. Indicating that you are also the destroyer and “the victim” at the same time.

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Aesthetic plastic, yet deadly

Mandy Barker associates a lot of her works to plastic waste in the sea and raising awareness since 2000 (2019). Therefore, the theme to my project is very close and relevant, though we have a different approach and medium on the topic, our goal is to raise awareness on the plastic waste in the sea. Her works have been published in a different worldwide magazine such as TIME magazine, National Geographic. Having her exhibitions all over the work from the East to the West. (2019) In her introduction on her website, she mentioned: “I make are based on scientific fact, essential to the integrity of my work. The impact of marine plastic is an area I have documented for more than 9 years and am committed to pursuing through visual interpretation, and in collaboration with science I hope it will ultimately lead to positive action in tackling this increasing environmental problem, which is currently of global concern”.

According to Staugaitis (2018), she use Photoshop to move the objects into the natural from of how ocean works and using it to create a captivating pattern to attract audience in order to create a personal connection with the viewer and the images. As she said once in an interview (2018), 

“Science is not subjective as it is factual, with no room for aesthetics or emotion, so in that sense the work of an artist and a scientist are opposed in approach, but in some way are seeking to achieve the same outcome.” 

Art connects people and motivates people to improve in the science aspect to improve the circumstance. 

Moreover, I admire the fact that she team up with scientist to try to research and solve the problem. She joined a research expedition in 2012, traveling from Japan to Hawaii to examine the Pacific Ocean. And she was part of the Beluga II Expedition in 2017 and research for plastic debris in some far island in Scotland so that they can try to recover the sea. This year 2019, she continues her journey into different places to collect and examine more plastic wastes (2019). She inspired me to take action to try and change the situation, that is also one of the reason I join the Reducing Plastic Campaign in Middlesex University and try to make a waste-free campus.

SHOAL 33.15N, 151.15E © Mandy Barker. Included in trawl: tatami mat from the floor of a Japanese home, fishing related plastics, buoys, nylon rope, buckets, fish trays, polystyrene floats, shampoo bottle, caps, balloon & holder, petrol container.

STAUGAITIS, L. S. (2018) Artful Swirls of Plastic Marine Debris Documented in Images by Photographer Mandy Barker. Available at: URL (Accessed: 26/3/2019).

Bolger, T.B. (2018) Plastic Art: Mandy Barker. Available at: https://www.port-magazine.com/art-photography/plastic-art-mandy-barker/ (Accessed: 26/3/2019).

Barker, M.B. (2019) Mandy Barker Available at: https://mandy-barker.com/project.php?gallNo=1 (Accessed: 3/26/2019).

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Mandy Barker

“Hong Kong Soup:1826” by Mandy Barker (2019) collecting rubbish from 30 beaches in Hong Kong from 2012 and photography them. The “1826” (tonnes) in the title means the amount of plastic waste throws into the landfill in Hong Kong every single day. Each photo shows the culture of Hong Kong in a beautiful way, as it shows the controversy of how plastic contaminates the ocean and beach site, in biology and aesthetic way. One of the pieces in the series is Lotus Garden, with the dark background, it contrasts out the nicely craft flowers and leaves, except they are all plastic-made. Those flowers are also blooming in a different season, it shows the reason why some people will buy artificial flowers rather actually as they would not bloom at a particular season. People buy them as it lasts forever, so it is popular in Hong Kong. The Chinese name is 香港湯 (SOUP), the plastic waste is like soup ingredients in the sea which stays there forever as making soup you need to put food and spices in the water and boil them for a long period of time. Especially Cantonese soup requires a long to make the soup into something very flavour and thick. Same as the plastic wastes which stay in the sea and pollute and damage sea life in a very long period of time. This series of photography will give audience appealing and stocking responses as the audience can relate to them and have a second thought when they consume any plastic products. 

Barker, M.B. (2019) Mandy Barker Available at: https://mandy-barker.com/project.php?gallNo=1 (Accessed: 3/26/2019).

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Ways Forward

I continue to read Decolonizing Nature as I find it is really interesting and intriguing on different environmental aspects. I have read the last chapter entitled “Way Forward”. It discussed how the government should react to the problem despite the political consideration such as economy and policies. It is stated that if the government had spent money to solve the issues now, the issue should not have required more resources and money to solve as the problem will grow bigger and bigger. (Demos, 2016, p.261)

Also, it discussed whether art is necessary to fight for the environmental problem. Art is an expense for the environment as there are international biennial and festival, people travel to different places to have a discussion on ecology and emission a lot of CO2 at the same time, as air travel release a lot of greenhouse gas. It is stated that a transatlantic roundtrip flight would use up someone’s entire carbon allowance for the year. (Demos, 2016, p.268)

I think the art industry and the environment influence each other, no matter in a good way or bad way. It makes each other to grow, art makes people take a look at more problem of the environment and artists can relate themselves to the environment and inspire them to do more. Therefore, I would not think it is an expense as it makes something to process and create a platform for people (community) to engage and try to solve the problems. And the government should be the one to consider the impact of the ecology regardless of the amount of money thrown into solving the environmental issue.

Bibliography:

Demos, T. J. (2016) Decolonizing Nature. Berlin: Sternberg Press.

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For my project about the plastic use awareness, I used fully digital without any physical waste like use a lot of plastic just to “waste them for the sake of art.

The illustration and small clip are intended to give people an uncanny vibes and make it looks like a horror animation.

Until now, I think the effectiveness of my project is not potent compare to Project Stockholm which using actual material to create contradiction to raise awareness. It is more like an experiment clip to see if people are aware of what they have been doing. However, the text also shows a lot more examples that are really creative and useful for the environment which art solves real-life problems and it is not an ideal anymore. To conclude, I support more on artists who do works that are helpful for the environment and archive the idea of art/aesthetic at the same time

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¡Ya basta!

For this presentation, I have chosen Decolonizing Nature by T.J. Demos (published in 2016). It is a critical analysis on the topic of connecting art and ecology together with real-life examples and evaluating them. As the subtitle for the book is Contemporary Art and the politics of Ecology, the book discussing how artists engage the environmental issues in their works and link them to politics and beyond.

And within the book, I have read chapter 4, ¡Ya basta! (Enough Already!), which is about the ecology politics in Mexico. First, Demos started out the chapter directly on stating different artists worked on projects to express the environment problems in Mexico. From painting, land art, pop art to performance art. And it links to the effects what Mexico was facing such as NAFTA, which cutting down the tariffs between Canada, USA and Mexico (improving the economic condition), and worsen the environmental problem within Mexico (Demos, 2016, p.143).The chapter ends with the indigenous’ ecology and Maria Thereza Alves’s Return of a Lake, a mixed media installation discussing about Lake Tláhuac-Xico (Demos, 2016, p.157).

Metzger, G. M. (1972/2007) Project Stockholm, June (Phase 1). Available at: http://sharjahart.org/sharjah-art-foundation/projects/project-stockholm-june-phase-1  (Accessed/downloaded: 12/03/2018).

The text is interesting as it indicates a lot of intriguing examples such as Seascape by Minerva Cuevas, Prure Murder Del Montte Criminal and Project Stockholm etc. Take Project Stockholm by Gustav Metzger as an example, the project took 120 cars and opened the engines for two weeks, their extraction pipes are connected to a huge plastic “greenhouse-like” area and the artist will ignite them which led to explosion.  The project received a lot of criticism as it had released a lot of unnecessary gas emission (Demos, 2016, p.141). But at the same the time, according to Metzger (Demos, 2016, p. 142), this installation forced people to look at the problems, as the attitude of people towards environment issues are usually failing to give proper attention to them. Then the controversial from the project will raise awareness and create discussion and hopefully, people could do something to it.

For the extended passage, Demos (2016, p.151 – 157) stated the cultural and political issues on the indigenous people in Mexico. From the extract (Zapatista Ecology) in the chapter:

“Integral to the Zapatistas’ politics of aesthetics has been impassioned displays of revolutionary collectivism involving music and speeches, as well as carnivalesque parades and protests, and Indigenous craft traditions and mural painting. Going beyond their Chiapas-based manifestations, they have also developed online media platforms and networks to disseminate political messages and news, and to link with activists, NGOs, and political organizations worldwide. (They have drawn extensively on the potency of Marcos’s appearance, which resonates with a powerful revolutionary iconography in Latin America of charismatic rebels such as Zapata and Che Guevara.) Extending their international reach further, the Zapatista’s multifaceted political appearance is frequently referenced and idealized in international art and cultural discourse, especially in relation to socially engaged art, where the Mexican rebels function as an exemplar for artist-activists in other contexts. For instance, curator Nato Thompson writes: ‘There is no way to conceive of the protest in Seattle in 1999 as anything but inspired by the Zapatistas’ use of the carnivalesque, poetics, the Internet, and social networking culture. This is to say that over the last twenty years, we have seen the integration of cultural manipulation into its most poignant social movements and accompanying forms of activism. Certainly the antics of the Yes Men, who poke fun at corporate power through their numerous appearances on television and in print media, positing of resistance manifesting itself in the media-sphere via the manipulation of cultural symbols.’ Yet while the EZZLN clearly remain a powerful ideal for those outside of Chiapas the terms of neoliberal capitalism, such a comparison also potentially fails to take seriously the expansive scale and radical ambition of the Zapatista rebellion on its own terms. There, art becomes nothing less than a politico-aesthetic means of building an alternate revolutionary world whose anticapitalist, sociopolitical, and ecological elements define a holistic and sustainable form of life.”

Grupo de Investigación en Arte y Política (2014) The farewell of Subcomandante Marcos Available at: http://www.seismopolite.com/poetics-and-aesthetics-in-zapatismo-the-farewell-of-subcomandante-marcos (Accessed: 12/03/2018).

Demos, T. J. (2016) Decolonizing Nature. Berlin: Sternberg Press.

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Art and Ecology Now

The text that I have chosen was “Art and Ecology Now” by Andrew Brown, it was an introduction for the whole book. It introduced the incline of artists use environmental issue as a subject to create art recently and compared the difference between this trend and Land art which use nature as a medium. The reading evaluated different issues around the topic of environment and nature. As my project is aimed to increase awareness on reducing the use of plastic, the reading is retable and I can develop about it.

The text is about artists use nature as an inspiration and medium to create art for a long period of time, even from the beginning era of human on Earth. Ochre, hematite and charcoal forms pigments to create millions of paintings. Spaces and shapes inspire artists to create innovative works. (Brown, 2014, p. 9) Also, nature connects scientists and artists together and work together as one. Due to the fact that artists’ works raise awareness of the audience and get more funding than scientists themselves for researching on environmental problems as art brings the issue to a larger audience.

Therefore, the connection between art and environment is very close and they influence each other from the beginning of time.

Bibliography:

Brown, AB. (2014) Art and Ecology Now. London: Thames and Hudson. Pp. 9

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The Plastics age

As Luke recommended, I borrowed this book “The plastics age: From Modernity to Post-modernity” by Penny Sparke from the library. The book is edited from a collection of articles about the history of plastic products and how it gets popularised in the perspective of art.

After reading some of the essays inside, I learnt that celluloid, the first plastic, was once a raw material for art rather than inexpensive items (R.F., p. 25). Unlike the present, plastic is see as a cheap and easy items to create and we can throw them away after one use, the golden age of plastic has passed which people did worship it as the German shepherds (Polystyrene, Polyvinyl, Polyethylene) (R.B., p. 25). 

Moreover, Barthes also saying that a lot of things are getting plasticised, from utensils to medical and scientific tools, even life itself since they were making plastic artery at that time (n.d., p. 111) The article was categorise in the 90s section of the book, so the idea of plastic taking over the world was already here. And it connects to my project as my idea was about human becomes plastic as a horror film, it enforced the idea on how I want to finish my animation, Plastic Ghost.

Reference:

Friedel, R.F. (1983) 'Pionee Plastic: The Making and Selling of Celluloid Wisconsin', in Sparke, P.S. (ed.) The plastics age FROM MODERNITY TO POST-MODERNITY. V & A Museum: The Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum, pp. 25

Barthes, R.B. (n.d.) 'Plastic', in Sparke, P.S. (ed.) The plastics age FROM MODERNITY TO POST-MODERNITY. V & A Museum: The Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum, pp. 110-111

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(Rabbit's Blood, 2017)

On 1st Dec, I went to one of the viewings of London International Animation Festival 2018. The theme at that night was about Absurd to Zany. One of them was Rabbit's Blood, directed by Sarina Nihei. The bizarre and weirdness of the whole animation left a confusing and terrifying experience when the short animation finished. It caught my attention on how I want to put this feeling into my work.

Nihei is Japan-based animation director and illustrator. Her works are mostly hand-drawn and having a surreal content (as she is inspired by a lot of Estonian Animation). She graduated from London's Royal College of Art after she had graduated from Graphic Design from Tama Art University (Fulleylove, 2017). In Rabbit's Blood, she used acrylic paints, ink and pens to create traditional animation about two rival groups battle for survival underground.

As Estonian Animation are focusing on traditional and puppet animation, it is so different from what I am working on now as I am fully animate on computer. However, the touch of organic and roughness that always present on traditional animation are imitated by using chalk brush and texture within my animation. I will keep it in my way as I intent more on creating the bizarre feeling that the animation presented. The numb and emotionless faces, rapid movement and silence and horror sound effect give people an unsettling reaction. It kind of echoes to my animation that I have finished so far with the elements of those, however, I want to develop more on experimenting the sound effects and the timing of the animation as they will definitely affect the experience of the audience on the flowing of the story.

One of the hold-back of her works was too ambiguous for me as my work needs to deliver the idea of reducing plastic or plastic is a ghost and it is bad to just toss them into the sea. Therefore, I will try to manage the dynamic of my animation into more story-based with a strong meaning behind the story.

Rabbit's Blood. (2017). [film] Directed by S. Nihei. UK/Japan: Random Acts. Fulleylove, R. (2017). Sarina Nihei creates hand-drawn animated music video for Tom Rosenthal. [online] It's Nice That. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/sarina-nihei-fenn-tom-rosenthal-animation-060917 [Accessed 11 Dec. 2018].

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Last week in Barcelona, I went to CosmoCaixa (formerly the Science Museum of Barcelona). It is a series of works around the theme of sea life, so there were some works about sea pollution. They are informative and work really well on delivering the idea of reducing and recycling waste (especially plastic) in a literal way. Nevertheless, maybe the target audience are mainly for younger children, the information is pretty direct to the point which there are lack of artistic execution and approaches. For example, there was a simple poster which contains some nice graphic design materials on it. It is good to be direct to the point and clear info people, but it does not look appealing that make people to take a second look over it.

But, regarding the position of works in the exhibition, I like how they put the fish tank full of plastic waste next to the informative poster because the fish tank installation catch the attention and curiosity of the audience and people will read the poster next to it to raise awareness on protection the environment. Also, there are more installation about phone and electronic wastage.  They are so far away from the plastic waste fish tank make it not as important as the sea pollution.

To conclude, the exhibition was more on the theme of sea pollution which touch a little bit on my project. It gives me the idea on working on informative piece after finishing the animation I am currently working on.

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In the first 6 week (Block 1), I create a 30 secs clip of the first part of the animation. I could not put on here because the size of the file was too large. Therefore, I put some sectors from the animation on here. 

I tried to keep them uncanny and bizarre in a way to make people slightly uncomfortable in order to spread the idea behind using those toothpastes with micro-beads inside. Continue to the Block 2 section, I finished my storyboard for the whole animation and want to experiment and try more on AfterEffects. So, I started using 3D camera and CC particles world inside the application. The image below indicates that I put the fish in the plastic flowing sea (black dots). Showing the pollution that affects the sea animals and affects us in the end. Slowly, people eating them will become plastic and become a trash.