Week 1-5 (Research Project)
Week 1
The first class provided a refreshing overview of the unit and helped me understand how to approach animation as a subject. The idea of “view finding” stood out to me during this lesson. Looking back on this lesson, the emphasis on perspectives helped shape how and where I look for inspiration. Among all the references and artworks discussed today, one quote stuck with me after the session:
“Drawing is the waste product of looking”
This quote helped me understand that inspiration can come from anywhere, and helped me realise that I must look for and document scenes from everyday life. This also went hand-in-hand with the idea of not being precious with my work and simply making art. This way, I do not have to focus on whether a concept is “bad” or “good” and simply create ideas, and refine them after.
Week 2
I focused my 20 photographs on capturing the contrasting architecture in London which was fascinating to me as an international student. The 4th and 5th pictures from the second row may be my favourite photos from the entire set, as they have both modern and classic buildings in the frame. The rest of the images captured either classic or modern styles buildings, which were often directly adjacent to each other.
All the photos were taken on the same day, when I hopped on the top deck of a bus and simply started capturing each shot. Being on a bus limited my perspective of the building, and limited me to capture them from the same perspective. Additionally, as the bus was constantly moving, I was able to get out of the habit of planning and taking my time with each picture. This way, I could “not be precious” about my work and simply enjoy making art. I truly feel that this assignment conveys my perspective of the world, and specifically my view of London.
During this weeks lecture, keeping in the theme of a collection of photographs, we looked at artists and artworks centred around objects and collections of objects. Although we covered plenty of artists during the session, these artworks reminded me of Mark Dion’s Tate Thames Dig installation at the Tate Modern. I felt I really connected with this artwork, not only because the work was made mostly of everyday items but due to its interactive nature. Being able to open the drawers and doors of the large cabinet felt like scavenging new objects myself. Having been to the Tate Modern several times now, I discover something new about the installation every visit.
Week 3
The third lecture helped me understand how curation and framing can help give meaning to images. Although I had thought about the order in which I presented my photographs in my first assignment, this made me question how the story could be changed by shifting the images around. Perhaps I could have curated them in the order in which I encountered the buildings, or even by grouping similar frames together.
One of the things that stood out to me during this lesson was how an image can capture concepts. I became more familiar with how time, perspectives, relationships and marks can be infused into photographs. Martin Parr’s work particularly stood out to me due to their natural and candid nature. Each of them tell a story of a simple person with an ordinary life, and highlights this. Parr captures people one can relate to and puts them in familiar places, making the audience truly connect with the pictures.
Week 4
For the group assignment focusing on exploring artists in one of London’s many museums, I chose to explore the Tate Modern with my group. When the assignment was first introduced, its focus on objects was interesting to me, and I remembered that the Tate Modern had an exhibit following a similar theme.
I found several works that we could analyse for the assignment before we settled on our favourite:
Finally, we settled on Ming Wong’s Life of Imitation.
Ming Wong’s Life of Imitation is a multi media art installation using video media and a series of paintings introducing the films. The videos show the artist’s re-imagination of a scene from Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life. The artist remakes this scene by casting three males, one for each of the three major ethnicities of Singapore: Chinese, Malay, and Indian. These three actors change roles throughout the film, and the casting is different in each screen.
Most of this piece deals with the idea of “passing” for another race. Passing refers to how a person can be recognised as an ethnicity different to their own due to their features. This is effectively conveyed how the actors seamlessly take over each others roles throughout the scene. The content of the scene itself also heavily deals with the same concept.
The artist’s choice to cast male actors dressed in drag rather than women highlights the absurdity of how roles for women are often melodramatic. This is also parallel to the concept of passing. In content of the scene conveys the idea of passing as another race or ethnicities while the male actors pass as women. This could also be a comment on how more opportunities are presented to men than women.
This piece truly connected with me as I lived in Singapore for a few years, and was familiar with the themes of the piece. Being in the city for a short time acquainted me with the tensions between the ethnic communities, so I was able to imagine how this could apply in professional environments like filmmaking (which was directly referenced in the film).
Week 5
Among the artists discussed in this lesson, one of my favourites was Racheal Whitehead. Specifically, her work Untitled (Stairs) stood out to me. The work reminded me of MC Escher’s Relativity.
The similarity in setting of both works helped me understand how places and settings can create a mood and influence the emotions of the viewer.
Following the theme of places, today’s lesson emphasised how places can influence people. This was an interesting concept to ponder as an international student. I have always held the belief that spaces not only influence people but also define them. This is why the psychogeography activity was particularly fun for me.
Being new to my neighbourhood, I was not acquainted with most of the area. So naturally, the large part of my map was dark to indicate their ambiguity. I labelled the map with what I associate each place and direction with, for example “to Nando’s” and “to Underground.” Since the view from my window is blocked by a building, I can only associate the space behind that with a sunset. I colour coded my map with how I feel about each area, with more saturated colours for places I am most familiar with. Although I like the end result of this assignment, I would like to repeat this activity with more time to explore and make a more detailed drawing.
Collaborative Workshop
For this activity, my group tried to brainstorm ideas about how Elephant and Castle while exploring the area. Each of us had a different approach to the story, and we became more interested in what other people had to say about the name. We started by asking people to tell us the wildest story of how they think Elephant and Castle got its name and recording their responses. We then chose the best responses and thought about how we can turn it into an “artist’s book”
Simon Cutts’ Mr. G. White, of Messrs. Green & White inspired the form of our artist’s book. We were intrigued by the idea of cards, and we wanted to describe the people’s appearance behind their stories. However, we instead chose to make a deck of cards with illustrations depicting the stories. We felt that this would be a more creative approach to conveying the stories.
Point of View Film
My group partner and my brainstorming process started with this animation of William Kentridge. We were intrigued by the idea of animating against a natural background.
Since this project was to be done with a partner, we were both thrown by how to work with someone that you are not well acquainted with. We decided that the best way to approach this assignment was to familiarise ourselves with each other’s points of view. We did so by going through each others favourite photographs and looking at the differences. We used these to our advantage and decided to create an eccentric mood.