Fiona_Chan

Statement of final work

For this assessment, I choose to continue the assessment two group work and topic Vagueness. I began with the comments we received after the presentation. From those single-word reflections, I found that people actually are quite interesting in the Cantonese we used as the doubling in the assessment 2's video. They feel so confused, lost and weird when they heard that foreign language. Some of them even start to guess what the meaning is. That shows people may feel vagueness when they face something they are not familiar with. Therefore, I decided to explore it further as the direction of my final assessment.

Firstly, I just wanted to play with Chinese letters and see what would happen. So I printed them on the paper and did some obvious things like cutting, sticking or rubbing. After showing that to my tutor, he gave me a very good suggestion, “why not draw those words on the body?” That sounded so good, and I started my experiments with drawing letters from that. At the beginning, I did only one of my arms and a part of my shoulder with the eyeliner pen. The effect was not bad, but the sense was not strong enough. (The letters also hard to remove.) Then, I did my whole face and two arms. But the clothes I wear with English sentence has influenced the feeling of the photo. DOCUMENTATION problem. With the help of my friend, the final experiment I did was drawing my whole back with letters and those letters could be as much as possible. Then this time, the sense was stronger and close to vagueness.

After four trials, I created a three - dimensional space with only Chinese letters for the final work. That feeling just like you are falling into the Chinese exclusive space. Moreover, I tried to integrate myself into that area with the body covered with words and did some movement. I used the photos and videos as the documentation of my final work. Then, combined them together with the doubling of Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), which express the characteristics like complex, improvisation, imprecision and so on. Finally, the scene once the light turns off also reflect the possibility of Vagueness.

Again, this time, I was doing the same kind of thing like last week and the week before last week, drawing the words on the skin. This time, I used the body paint color to draw my whole back with the help of my friend. This video is the documentation of the whole process.

Unlike the experiments I did before, I have no idea what would look like as the final result. Moreover, my friend who did the drawing actually doesn’t know any Cantonese. So, she kept looking her phone for help. We did the whole drawing about 50 minutes and then take some photos of the details. We moved to the bathroom for removing those letters and also took a video for documentation.

After this experiment, I actually gained a lot from that. Firstly, cause this time I become the model but not the artist, I have no idea what will happen on my back. But the result is not bad. Secondly, the body painting color work really well. It is easy to draw and also easy to remove. Just rush with the warm water, the color immediately gets out of your skin. The water flow to the floor is amazing. Thirdly, it does look better if you do more and more with the letters and the area of the body. The sense is strong and closer to an artwork.

But there also are some points I should mention in the final work. The documentation is not that good. For example, the black water flow to the floor didn’t be documented. And also the background is not clear enough for the document. Moreover, the more the better. Try to do as much as I can at the final one. The result must be good.

The topic of this week is repetition. Then, the class exercises are recording 5 minutes’ video in a group about keep doing the same thing. There are two people in my group, Charlotte and me. For doing more different things, we actually took two different scenes for each person. The result could be shown like this:

In the last experiment, I tried to draw the Cantonese letters on my body. But with the limited environment, I simply just draw my left arm and a part of the shoulder. That is a nice start but not crazy enough. So, this time, I do my whole face and two arms with letters and see how it works.

And then, I removed those words which wrote with eyeliner. Some mixed liquid came out on my face. That is a little bit messy and dirty. ><

When I saw myself in the mirror, am idea suddenly came to my head. Why not play with those “removed letters”? So, I got a piece of A4 paper and put it on the face in order to transfer that messy liquid as much as it can.

Then, a drawing came out, which looks like this.↓

Those removed letters become the color that could be used to draw things. That’s cool. Because this paper is not the common copy paper, its material gets the feeling like plastic. Anyway, there are some changes in the next few days.

The second day.↑

The third day.↑

The forth day.↑

The fifth day.↑

Weekly topic： failure

combine two objects and make them lose the original function.

visualizingLast week, I talked to Mell my idea for assessment three and the little experiment with lighting and Cantonese letters. Mell gave me a very good thought, “why not try to draw the letters on your body?”

Yes, I like this idea and I am going to do it as my second experiment for our final assessment. 

Here are some photos showing the process:

As you can see, I started with only one word in my hand, which is the name of Cantonese, YUE. Then, follow with that, I wrote all my left arm with those Cantonese letters by using my eyeliner. The effect is not bad. So, I continued my writing on a large part of my left shoulder and the front of my neck. Love that final visualizing. I even wanted to finish the writing on my face. But I quite like the feeling that the words seem like my original skin but not kind of painting. Therefore, I stopped at that point.

using the words that we received last week make write a paragraph. 

like an awesome advertising everyday HK drama which is dreamy, excluded, curiosity, trapped, confused, cringe, angst, but the well-edited and professional video also make the feeling like engaging in the daydream which is intrigued, comfortable, insightful. Em... I want to drink bubble tea, too.

Some works based on that.

week 9 class exercises  

For assessment three, we are going to explore further with the same topic of the group work in assessment two. The weekly topic we choose is Vagueness. And our group’s final work is a five-minute video. Then, with the feedback from the classmates after the presentation, the Cantonese we spoke in as the background dubbing seems like more being interested in. Lots of people get confused or lost with that, but also some of them quite enjoy and like that kind of foreign language. Therefore, as the beginning of this final assessment, I am going to start with the Cantonese character and just play with that, see what will happen.

Firstly, I just print a small paragraph of our dubbing text in four A4 paper and using the lighting to play with that.

Superposition of characters. One layer to the fourth layer.

Create the effect like lighting box.

Some pattern with random placing.

This week is the due week for the assessment two, five-minute time-based group work. Moreover, we do the presentation with the other class which in the next door. As the outline of this assessment, five minutes is the only time for each group’s final work’s presentation. The classmates will write down one word as the evaluation to the group, and the discussion could be started by choosing the word. That actually is quite fresh and stimulated for me, which also make the class time more efficient and interesting.

For our group, the final work is the five-minute video. Therefore, without any explanation or introduction, we just play the video and receive the words after that.