Hello Reader! I miss you. So today I went to the Tate Modern for an exhibition of Nam June Paik (1932-2006), a korean artist who brings gap of art and technology.

The artist made me curious in getting to know him for two reasons. Firstly, when I first encountered about his work below of a buddha statue looking at a television that is broadcasting the buddha back again in infinity loop. Since I’m also into spirituality, a pursue of meaning of life beyond physical forms in particular, seeing a buddha place in an art context draws my attention a lot. Especially when he is sitting in meditation pose, it reminds me of my own mindfulness practice that gives me a chance to introspect into my own thoughts and feelings. It has always been my question about how the relationship between art and religion. Can it go together?

Also, during the project three research, I also found this book called Spirituality in Contemporary Art by Jungu Yoon which I found interesting as I never considered about getting to understand about the relationship of the two before, so I would like to explore for more understanding. Inside the book, there is a section of artists who used multimedia art as their media which has Nam June Paik as one of the case studies.

I only managed to finish only around half of the exhibition so I planned to visit again on Thursday.

So far, alongside the exploration into his works and his motifs behind, I also tried to make use of my sketchbook as not only a drawing pad but also a tool to help my thinking through drawing. I also intended to bring back observational sketch of people back to my sketching practice as well.

Above work is about him following a Buddhist philosophy that everything is interdependent. This made me realise I could apply philosophy from Buddhism into my work as well, especially those teachings I found related in particular such as about the three mark of existence which are about impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and not-self. I am always fascinated to see artists do works around issues I’m interested in for so many years even before I was born, it reminded me how much I don’t know about this world, not only now, but in the past too.

This installation made me think what if there are no televisions, will the floor that is covered only with trees still seem interesting for an audience. Also, It’s interesting to understand ‘technology’ in the mind of people back in the past, how was their attitude or relationship to it since it might had been there for not that long comparing to people now.

Here are the sketches I did during the visit. What I fascinated about most is anything that is related to introspection or contemplation perhaps. The act of taking time to think deeply with oneself is very powerful to me. I also wonder why the artist found these act worth creating works about. There are also a lot of ‘screens’ involved in his works, which with the screen, there is an image or at least mental image behind. So maybe is it about how human is so into the act of ‘looking at something’. Why we are so addicted to looking at something, in this case, into screens which is also relevant to today’s age of looking into smartphones. Is it about us need to be distracted away from looking into ourselves? Maybe I could research or create something more about this question to investigate further.

Today is the day for the presentation of the Artefact project and below is my final film, “Unknown Terrain”.

After I finished the film, I since it’s very process-based, I formed up the meaning looking backward to what I have done. It ends up having both an abstract and a figurative storylines, between the abstract shapes from banana spots and the mysterious footmark on the moon. It tells a story of how we might make meaning from looking at objects within a gallery context, the reason I drew the pictures within frames and hung on the wall. I let the audiences transport through three connected universes, the abstract shapes, the banana and the moon to exemplify how we might come up with various interpretation of what we see and also to show that what we see might not be actually what we think we see and it might shows up when you give yourself sometime of contemplation into what you see it order to reveal any hidden meaning.

I feel satisfied with the sound I used which I created myself from a music room from my kind friend’s student apartment (thank you Pody) I thought of producing a mysterious sound to create an atmosphere that could stir your curiosity. I experimented starting from the piano to other musical instruments and then to the even the sound from interacting with the furniture inside the room.

For the things I could improve, one is the movement which I feel I could add more frames to create smoother transitions. Also, to be more clear into the direction of the communication whether I want the piece to have a particular meaning or open it for the audience to interpret I think maybe it’s not about having abstract art or moon concept that would limit the audience imagination, maybe it’s about I need to create a longer-contemplative-still-and-subtly-moving scene to let the audience think about it. I could also be more aware of the brief.

For the presentation today, Matt gave comments about the film became too referential to abstract art (and possibly the moon too?) which might make it look cliche and perhaps becoming not that much interesting I suppose. For the next project, I could find a more creative way into referring other inspiration but twisting it further more into something else.

Also, the most important point I received from him is about letting the object to speak for itself and avoid imposing myself onto the object. Perhaps, as Ian, my previous tutor also suggested, I could have go with the direction of photographing just the banana skin through time and observe how the pattern changed and use that ‘natural’ change as a story. It could be about I’m too worried in not having any particular message so I grabbed on to concepts or ideas that emerged like abstract art or the moon.

For Aleya, she mentioned about more research into the Banana possibly about social or historical contexts. It was something I thought of doing but decided not to. Now I understood that I can’t deny that the subject of my exploration is actually patterns on a banana so that’s why it might be give more objective backgrounds to the story rather than coming up with my own stories perhaps. Thinking about this in case I got a chance to redo it, It could be I pick up bananas from different location to explore hidden patterns (with no added up stories) and let the audiences filling the gaps in the findings? Maybe.

This project is really challenging in terms of breaking out of my comfort zone in both refrain from using my own character as a protagonist and also in working in a more improvisational approach by following what comes up along the process such as the concept of abstract art and the moon.

For the next step, in terms of animation practice, I would look more into sound making and animation software to study how to create movements so that I can use for my animation language. For precedents I would continue looking at experimental animators such as Oskar Fischinger or Jordan Belson which I still found really exciting in terms of the myriad possibilities in this form of art. I would also like to push myself further with the abstract approach, to be clearer in my direction whether or not I would like the audiences to interpret the work for themselves for example. In terms of my key idea in works, I would like to explore further into consciousness in art, and also about contemplation and spirituality.

I kept developed the abstract patterns until it reaches the point where I need to decide to end it somewhere, and I chose some big interest shapes to stay while morphing other details into nothingness instead.

Then I moved these abstract-figurative objects a bit to see how they look like moving.

Now I drew a storyboard to connect this back to the banana skin I started the film with.

Let’s see how it goes. Almost there!!!

I visited Tate Modern today and checked out the room where abstract art are shown to gain some insights. The piece shown below is from an artist Fernand Leger and the work is called Leaves and Shell. I like how juxtaposition are used in the picture, how natural shapes were placed along side geometric and abstract shapes, or how straight lines were placed nearby the curvy ones. The unrecognisable of any obvious meaning makes me want to find some interpretation from the work.

Below is a piece called Feb 2-54 1954 from Ben Nicholson which shows differenced texture, shapes and materials used which I found interesting in adding more layers into figuring out what does the artwork speak about.

Below is a piece called Swinging 1925 from Wassily Kandinsky that I also found really fascinating in terms of how complex the visual and techniques used. I like the variety in colours, types of edges, values of colours which could all become pieces of information into building up meaning or values that we might perceive. Looking at the artwork, I saw figurative images such as a prism, a UFO and hairs. It’s interesting how meanings are being hidden in the work.

I also did a very quick animation of patterns that morph into abstract shapes and colours shown here.

I’m still not sure whether the movement between each frame is too abrupt or not, I need to add more frames to figure that out. I might need some longer playing period so that the audience get to experience it enough to possibly respond to it in their minds.

Today I got a chance to attend a lecture from Kristina Cranfeld, an artist, designer and filmmaker who is also an alumni from the RCA. What I found interesting from the lecture are as follows,

• To draw attention to your message. She really is clear with her idea and beyond that she emphasises that idea to the audiences. It makes me question how much I understand my own message and how do I convey that message to the audiences.
• There are various types of research not only from reading from books and articles. For example, for her, she said she’s good with the visual aesthetics, so she would take a lot of photos and also use photos in her storyboard for film-making. It reminds me of how I tend to stuck in the writing and thinking too much comparing to producing something out in order to really see it and reflect on it.
• She said she prefers her later works that allows her to improvise since it brings up results she never thought of before comparing to when there’s a fix plan for everything.

Besides the lecture, I also got a tutorial with her showing my current work. She talked about completing the film and show it to people, to have conversations with other people and not just limited yourself with your work. That sounds helpful to me, since so far for this project I haven’t been sharing much of my work to my friends or strangers comparing to Navigator project which I went out to interview people.

Continuing from my own imagination seeing the pattern of the banana skin as if it’s a surface on the moon, today I went to the Science Museum in hoping to get inspired or get some information more about the moon and the space.

I bought a ticket to watch a documentary about the Apollo 11 which was a historic mission that launched the first human onto the moon. From the movie, I got inspired by the visuals and sound that I thought of using in my film, for example the sound of people speaking vaguely from the intercom or the shadow of the astronaut casted on the surface of the moon.

I observed the footprints of the astronauts on the surface of the moon and found it interesting to put into my animation to create linkage to the concept of the moon.

Here is my quick test on the idea,

I found it satisfying as to build up a small sequence to show how I interpret the visual represented here. I also thought of using my previous technique of drawing lines surrounding the black spots into forms for another sequence showing ‘abstract art’ that I got inspired by Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian painter and art theorist who is considered a pioneer of abstract art.

Here is my latest storyboard for the story I developed so far, it would tell a story of how I interpret the hidden meaning of the patterns I find on a banana skin, I would also show bare banana skin from time to time to let the audience imagine their own versions of images as well.

Today I had a tutorial with Jane, our new tutor and got introduced to this film called “Power of Ten” which is about a journey at everything ten times from distance outward into the space and inward into our body which I found interesting to a reference to my film. Maybe I could zoom in further inside the black spots and create another world inside.

Also, here is a test for my banana skin in black and white in order to replicate the colorless surface of the Moon which I thought of when seeing the pattern on the skin. I might come up with some story about exploring the unknown terrain of a banana as if it is a mysterious planet.

I also thought of this kind of music from the movie Interstellar which could go along with the film. I may use simple piano notes with long duration and pause to create mysterious ambience.

Today I used Dragonframe, the stop motion program, to shoot movement of zooming into a banana skin, as a test for possible opening sequence of the film.

Then I combined this sequence into my previous experiments on finding abstract patterns on the banana skin.

I don’t quite like the result since it doesn’t tell much about anything yet. I might also start the film from the closest distance first and then zoom out, so that the audience can get to form some interpretations of the abstract shape before telling them it’s actually just a banana skin. And, also I need to redo the image quality again since the last parts are too blurry right now.

I also thought of another idea of panning the screen from left to right at the closest zooming distance of the banana skin and then animate some forms out of the pattern. The inspiration for this comes from cave paintings in art history.

Below is my spoken critique in response to the beloved Netsuke, a functional yet decorative item used back in Edo-period Japan in 17th century. It was a real challenge pronouncing ‘properly’ in english within a minute, enjoy!

Yesterday, we had a group critique with visited lecturers, Cato and Kyung Hwa.

Cato shared about the importance of understanding the brief so I revisited it and reflected back to how have I achieved so far in incorporating the requirements into my current work.

In terms of “How a particular object’s quality or set of qualities could be innovatively re-interpreted in your discipline”, for this I believed I did transferred the qualities of the details, natural colours, variety and character into my current film, but still, I might haven’t achieved the quality of its scale yet.

I might have to show how the size could affect our perception more by possibly showing the zooming movement or pick a section of banana skin that has lots of small spots to better emphasise the scale aspect.

Also, in terms of its hidden function of the netsuke that might have been perceived differently when shown in a museum, I would like to test this idea out in my film with placing the banana skin into a frame, to form another context when we read its visual.

He also mentioned about the term, ‘affordance’, which is about the use or the perceived use of an object, which brought me back to think again about the possible usage of the Netsuke besides its functional value. I believe it is the quality of raising awareness and attention by it being so detailed and small are what I want to point out most from the object.