Tienyu's graphic notes

At first I want to do a time lapse of flower dying and I try to recorded it everyday but it is too difficult, so I gave up this idea.

I wrote the script with the metaphors data I collected, it took me a while to think how I should order them. I wrote it in a poetry kind of style(I never done that in English before.) ands Viviana and Debra helped me to check if it’s correct and make sense.

After that I drew a really rough storyboard and started to preparing props.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w4rvrkp22vw

I really like the idea that Jess tang the astrologist said : liquid kind of metal. But it is really difficult and dangerous to melt allium, also the equipment is hard to get. So I research online: kids experimental melted metal and some tutorials came out and suggested me to use gallium which is a metal will melt above 35 degrees. It look like a toy version of allium, and I absolutely love it. So I found it on amazon and ordered it to my house, there’s only few markets that has that.I also ordered other props online because I dont think I have time to go and search everything.

Also, I started to find some visual reference that I think those would inspired me to help me inform my idea of how to play with objects and photography.

As soon as I got the props, I set up a studio near my window again, where is my favourite space for photoshooting.

Sunlight is the best!

I had most of the footage with the objects and I need someone to hold the moonlight. And Viviana is the best friend who fit with the aesthetic of moon. So I asked to do model for me with the darker scene in my film.

Using a narrative and metaphor combination of film and zine to define what people think femininity is, to bring attention to oppression towards the value of femininity. The society is still working towards masculinity. Femininity is depreciated and undervalued, moreover, the traits of the feminine in people are seen as more negative images and impression.

There are still many people suppressing themselves to fit in this more masculine world, especially teenagers when they are still confused with their body and identity and trying to fit in groups.  When they are getting to know themselves, the society has put an incorrect direction and way of thinking towards the younger generation, which will cause the consequences of when they become adult, they couldn’t truly love and express themselves from the inside. It is also one of the reasons that gender equality are fighting for:  “the freedom of owning their body.” Therefore, We should restore femininity and balance with masculinity together to create a more equal society not only between men and women but also different gender traits of people.

This project is seeking the values and both positive and negative impression of  how people in London and Taiwan think femininity is through survey. Discussing how stereotypical image that society has put on being feminine and suppress the value for it. Also, within the lack of seeing femininity’s value, it causes the unbalance of society. Using this project to explore the beauty and values with a film and editorial to make the audience more aware of the importance of femininity in everyone.

Pink or blue?

I really like this film, the poetry way of comparing male and female stereotype in the society and pointed out the problem clearly. This is a really smart way of story telling. Audiences will be very impress after watching this film. 

I made this survey in English and Chinese so I could collect both data In London and Taiwan.

I wanted to collect people’s impression and even stereotype of femininity, and also to see how this meant to them.

I got 50people in total who helped me to fill this survey and I got many interesting ideas and answers through this survey.

I want the aesthetic to be like the moodboard I made: a muted tone and photos without faces.

So I started testing out some ideas and objects to see if it will work. I went to new Covent Garden flower market to buy varies kind of flowers. It only open until 9in the morning so I went at 6, and they are already closing soon.

I really enjoy looking through different flowers and plants, the aesthetic of nature is just brilliant.

We went to Berlin in during the easter for 6 days. Berlin has a amazing vibe for graphic design  since  Bauhaus. We saw posters everywhere, I feel like graphic design is in their life, becoming part of the urban life. 

https://www.kw-berlin.de/en/

Poster on streets.

https://www.kw-berlin.de/en/

There’s 3 main artist show for this whole set of the exhibition. The common part of these 3 artists they all got AIDS in the 60s when people still have many misunderstanding toward this disease. I like how they curated the exhibition, from the logo to the way-finding is like well design branding project. Also, they smartly used of space to present many films at the same time is just well considerate. 

The artist I had the most impressive is David Wojnarowicz, he did many photography and film till in the 90s until he past away. Most of his film is about his body and the disease. 

Artwork made by gay artists has historically been cast aside as such, flagged with labels like “gay art” or “Aids art” or “political art” that serve no discernible purpose other than to tell the viewer that the person who made it is, or was, gay (and often angry). The artist David Wojnarowicz, who died in 1992 from complications related to Aids, has not been especially well-served by such designations, which in the years since his death have imposed on him a martyrdom non-minority artists are seldom asked to bear.

Wojnarowicz, the writer, painter, photographer, poet, printmaker and activist, was gay himself, and in his work addressed same-sex desire, the Aids crisis, the persecution of sexual minorities and the Reagan administration’s refusal to acknowledge their existence. But his work is really about America, a place he had described in his 1991 essay collectionClose to the Knives as an “illusion”, a “killing machine”, a “tribal nation of zombies ... slowly dying beyond our grasp”.

But now America, or at least its art world establishment, is ready, a quarter-century after his death, to acknowledge Wojnarowicz’s rightful place in the canon of contemporary art, not just “gay art”

(https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jul/13/david-wojnarowicz-exhibitions-whitney-museum)

HIs work is both visually and mindly shocking, you can feel the pain physically and psychologically. He made auidences to feel the pain through his work and to also explain some misunderstanding through how he present the issue. 

The second one is Reza Abdoh, his play is also really shocking and impressing. He topic is mostly about the issues on the society, I remebered one of the play that they played it on a old TV, “Daddy’s girl.” It is about father raping and beating the daughter, and I still remeber her screaming.

All his plays has a style from that period of the US, messy and with weird  enegry. 

Though he was only 32 at the time of his passing, the Iranian-American theater director Reza Abdoh’s (1963–95) mark on the world of theater was unmistakable. Relentlessly inventive, he pushed his actors—and audiences—to their limits amid ambitious, unusual, disorienting stage sets. Abdoh’s aesthetic language borrowed from fairy tales, BDSM, talk shows, raves, video art, and the history of avant-garde theater. This exhibition, the first large-scale retrospective of Abdoh’s work, will highlight the diverse video works that Abdoh produced for his performances and an installation based on his 1991 production Bogeyman. The exhibition also includes contextual materials reflecting the club scenes in both Los Angeles and New York, the culture wars of the Reagan era, and the AIDS crisis. Abdoh died of AIDS in 1995. (MOMA)

https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/3929

So I started to watched many tedtalks and got really inspired some of the talks. 

“ Because I want to be free, I want to be able to be as free as bird. To fly and unfold my wings and the sky would be the limit. I wouldn’t chained by any masculine chains. So , I left for the west. ”

“ In the west, many women are not flying at all. The other part of the people was struggling to fly but they didn’t get that high from the ground. And there were very tiny little minority who could make it to the higher attitudes. And these look a bit strange to me, because they look like women, but they were flying like men. ”

-Kaouthar Darmoni: Dare to  be feminine for guts sake(Tedtalk)

She mentioned that she came from a Muslim country to seek freedom of being more feminine and truly expressing themselves, yet she found out that in the western world women aren’t free at all, and it is even worse for minorities. This is a really interesting aspect of this issue because I felt the same way as well. I thought to come to a western country where everyone is minding their own business(clearly not) will be freer than in Taiwan, but I discover it is kind of the same (sometime even worse) just with different things. 

“ What if femininity has nothing to do with being a woman?”

“ Through traditionally women are expected to behave in a feminine manner and men in masculine manner.”

“ When women’s lib liberated masculininity in women, I don’t think it remember to liberate femninity in men. What happen is that all of society got tilted into a masculine direction…. What became was a society that is focused so much on results, that we’ve detached from experience.”

“ …Instead of trying to correct by embracing femininity, we’re trying to correct by being more efficient & more results orientated, by asking more & more measurement of everybody in society, and I think that’s a mistake. Im not saying we abandon masculinity, BUT IM SAYING THAT WE RESTORE FEMININITY, & we find a way to marry the two, & associate both with gender.”

-Michelle Miller: We need to restore femininity (Tedtalk)

I also really agreed what she said that the society now is towards more results-oriented which she thinks is more masculinity way of doing stuff, and I felt like the experience I had when I grow up is like that too. And we should value and express the feminine power in ourselves(any gender), so society will be more balance between masculinity and femininity.

Visual research: 

During eater break I was seeking for fmp ideas, I was always interest in feminism and my dissertation is also about how graphic design push feminism waves  further again and again. Graphic design is about communicate message with visual languages, so people will understand more what the messages are. 

I feel like it is a interesting if I actually make something that is inspiring to some people to know more about feminism, I only discovered feminism when I came to studied in London. In Taiwan, I got educated more about the toxic masculinity and gender equality but I don’t really had the concept of feminism. And I think the four and five waves of feminism is the thing in our generation going through. 

I’m happy to see more and more female written tv show, drama and movies, which will effect the younger generation not only female and also male to have the right mind set of respecting others and all sorts.

I watched unbreakable kimmy schmidt before and flea bag during easter break, I got really inspired by the script and the conversation the characters had in the drama. 

I watched unbreakable kimmy schmidt before and flea bag during easter break, I got really inspired by the script and the conversation the characters had in the drama. I feel like some stuff they say is really the stuff that you have been through.

Screenshots from fleabags.

But I think feminism topic is too broad and I need to find the main point to focus on. So I keep trying to find a perceptive until I watched this interview.: Ｍarie claire Taiwan: A interview from Hui-wen Deng (Psychologist, broadcast DJ )with Jess Tang(An iconic astrology), both of them are popular on social media and have their show talking about gender. 

She mentioned about how she think femininity is like liquid metal, firm and steady. When I hear that, I was like “YAAAAASSSSSSS, THAT IT!!!!”

After that, I started to research what is femininity means, and how people think it could be. The Independent has an article discussing this topic.  And had a survey at the bottom of the writing, I chose to be feminine means whatever you want it to mean. I feel like even most of people think this way, but why women are still being oppressed and suppress by society so much? Moreover, being feminine is always consider as a negative image.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/femininity-study-how-changed-research-feminine-women-always-platinum-a8554031.html

Twitter post in the independent article.

The post from the Riposte Magazine. 

Discussion on instagram by Slumflower

Visual reference: 

Although I was really stuck and don’t know how to present my idea in the middle of making this project. I think I like the final idea and outcome I made, and if I have more time in the future, I would like to push this project further. I was thinking after graduating Uni, going back to Taiwan and doing volunteer in schools in remote areas to do research and help them to make visuals and teaching materials to educate indigenous children learning their languages.  

I was looking at this type of posters for reference that has the bold text and with fuzzy and with a grain texture. This style has a clear image and voices, it is suitable for making campaign posters. But I was a bit struggle with the colour palette because stereotypically they always use red to represent indigenous people. And I want to avoid that so I decided to use indigo.

I found it really difficult to find a aspect and idea to make poster,  and time is running out. I was really stress out but still trying a few ideas out. I used forest as elements to present the feeling of respecting environment and embracing nature’s culture. 

After feedback,  I feel like I need to communicate the idea of protecting and put more attention of the losing culture and languages, but I don’t really know how. I should use the language they know and also promoting the idea to people in Taiwan. So maybe I should use Chinese letter?

I got really confused and stuck for a really long time didn’t know what to do next, it is so frustrating that I did a lot of research and have no idea how to communicate it. 

I couldn’t think of any better idea of present my idea and their pitch appropriately before D&AD submission so I didn’t hand in. During Easter break, I was still thinking about what I could do for the campaign and how I can use the typography.  

So I was thinking to promote indigenous justice to more Taiwanese people, because before I research I didn’t aware that so many issues and problem are there, I feel like many people are like me. The colour blue isn’t working as well so I want to change to a more tone down colour. 

I designed a poster that is about indigenous justice and I used Chinese letters because the audiences are everyone in Taiwan, and the main language is Mandarin. The printed at the bottom presented their traditional lands.  The first letter which is “Yuan” that means original in English is also the first word of indigenous people in Mandarin. The red handwritten letters are English, which I used it temporarily because I couldn’t find the word in each indigenous languages. It is just an example of presenting the idea.

And I changed the colour after putting into pdf slides, and it looks better with the effect. I didn’t even know what I did. 

After that, I used a similar format to design a textbook for elementry school children. I remembered when I was a kid, we changed our textbook every semester, and the excitement and smell of new fresh ink and paper. 

There’s a group of young designers"Aesthetical Association" in Taiwan are collaborating with Educational institution and redesign a series of well design textbooks. 

https://issuu.com/aestheticellassociation/docs/2017______________________________

textbook before redesign

The same page of before and after

the series of redesign textbook 

I was researching about how people usually did it with stamps, and I found a few examples that people already did. I used the shape as a reference to have a sense that which kind of shapes is more suitable for making letters.

I really like this design when they use pattern combing with photography and even make it to bracelete, it is a complete project which helped me to inform my idea to a whole set. 

Cash design competition using Taiwanese indigenous pattern. 

So I decided to use lino cut which is a techinque I learned in first year and quite familiar with. I want to use 16 pieces to make this design to represent the 16 tribes of the group. I did a test piece to see if it works with making letters, and it worked so I started to cut the real one. 

I had a lot of  fun during this process, the only part is confusing me is the size of each piece. It is difficult to make each character the same size with 16 pieces of the stamps. But somehow I figure it out. And I started to print each letter on A5 pieces of paper and lay it on the floor in my room to dry out. It is satisfying to see more and more letters til the letter Z. 

After that, I scanned each letter into my laptop and adjust the brightness and contrast so I could use it as a digital element.  After adjusting I think it look more professional and complete. It look more clean and finish, so I could develop it into other visual designs. 

I also started to experiment with printing pattern, but I don’t really know what the direction will be, because the more I did this project the more I feel like it is inappropriate. Because of the examples of symbols I used for the stamps....everything just doesn’t feel right anymore. I got really stuck and started to think it is a really bad idea. 

After many brief and dissccusion for D&AD, after thinking and researching, I chose monotype for my final decision, due to the reason that I don’t think I am good at promoting brand’s value or those kind of stuff. And monotype’s brief is more like discovering the story behind communities.

Notes from briefing

The important part is to find a community that has its value and context that has a point to be presented and celebrated with type. In the begining I wasn’t sure which kind of community they want. But I found a few stuff that I was interest in.  

In the first tutorial, I have 2 very initial ideas,  the first one is ＃This is 18, which is a project that runs by the New York Times. They asked girls to share what their communities look like all over the world.  They asked young female photographers to take photos of the girls in each place and asked them about what they like and what they up to recently or giving advice to other young women.

 I like the concept of linking every young female together and it is interesting to see what other young girls life is in completely different places as myself and found out even though they are in another country that is far away, they still have the same kind of issue when I was 18. And I also found their visual design of the website really interesting. It looks like online zine, using collage style to make gifs and there is even a spotify playlist that they collected the young girls the songs are listening to, and put them together.

website link:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/11/style/this-is-18.html

“Marking the transition from childhood to adulthood, 18 means you can finally vote, sign a lease on an apartment, obtain a credit card and buy cigarettes in the United States. In the UK, China and parts of Canada, 18 grants you entrance to a pub, while for most Israelis, it means a mandatory draft into the military. By 18, one in five women across the globe will be married. Millions will enter college or university.

The young photographers were asked to document girls in their communities – taking the photos and conducting interviews themselves, with each photographer paired with a professional mentor to guide them through the process.

Featuring 21 girls from across 12 time zones, and 15 languages, the end result is a celebration of ‘girlhood’ across oceans and cultures, through girls’ eyes – from Mexico to Mississippi, Ramallah to Russia, Bangladesh to the Bronx.” （https://www.creativeboom.com/inspiration/this-is-18-the-new-york-times-celebrates-girlhood-with-though-provoking-project-/）

The second idea is a facebook group that created for Asian people who living abroad posting memes and stuff that happened to them or funny things happened to their immigrant family. It entertains my life a lot since I join this group and it feels like you are not alone because there are so many people out there had similar experience and sometimes sees this negative stuff from a funny perspective. It change my way of thinking when I met something that is ignorant of culture or race. 

Subtle Asian Traits  is a Facebook group dedicated to Internet memes, jokes, and discussion surrounding the Asian experience in the West. Though the posts on the page cover a large range of topics, they mainly focus on Asian culture as experienced by the children of migrants. The group has over 1 million members and has been featured in a variety of mainstream news sources for its insights into the Asian diaspora. (wiki)

memes from Subtle asian traits

But after discussing with David and people in our group,  the first idea is off brief, it doesn’t fit with the ideal of the communities monotype are seeking for.  And the asian trait is at the edge of the off brief, but if I find a smart aspect of it, it could be potential but I feel like it is too board and I decided to research more for other ideas. I went back to read the brief again, and I did a bit brainstorm. I decided to focus on the communities in Taiwan, which people don’t really know about.  

Until now, in most of the Asian countries, same-sex marriage is still illegal. Even though society is more open to different sexual orientations than before, there are still many narrow-minded people. In 2017 the Taiwanese top court decided that not protecting same-sex marriage is against the law, which will make Taiwan the first country that legalized same-sex marriage in Asia.

A panel of judges at Taiwan's top court are hearing a case that could make the island the first place in Asia to introduce gay marriage.

The case has been brought by a gay activist as well as municipal authorities from the capital, Taipei.

Taiwan's parliament has also been debating whether to pass laws that would allow same-sex marriage.

The movement has split society and prompted a conservative backlash, with vocal protests in recent months.

A panel of 14 justices are hearing arguments and will debate whether a line in Taiwan's civil code, which states that marriage is between a man and a woman, is unconstitutional.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39376423

But it also brings a huge conflict between a group of people who are homophobic and call themselves Family Guardian Coalition. They are trying to stop Legislative Yuan, which is one of the five branches of government stipulated by the Constitution of Taiwan, from changing the original law to all gender. Instead, they are hoping to make another special law for same-sex marriage which is not truly equal, because that would be creating a separation once again. Their ideals cause even more people who already don’ t understand LGBTQ have wrong impressions of them and may even go against them. They used fake news and spread it out in group chats and also sign petition to referendum against. It is an act that against human right. And the group that support Marriage equality also sign a pettition to against the Family Guardian Coalition to make another referendum to hope to remain the truly equal law. But unfortunately, they win result of referendum. It broke many LGBTQ people’s and my heart, they tore the society apart, and even cause many LGBTQ people suicide. 

The power of ignorant and fake news is terrifying and more extreme than people’s imagine. And because the Family guardian group has a certain style of making fake news, the marriage equality group people starting to make similar style of how they make fake news, instead they try to make right information on those photos so people could sent to their parents who do not quite understand LGBTQ communities and marriage quality. 

Marriage quality group information adverts(left)/ Family guardiangroup infromation adverts(right)

Marriage quality group information memes mimic family guardian group memes. 

So I present this idea to David and he suggested me to find a specific or iconic traditional Taiwanese or Chinese symbol to use it as a starting point to communicate the idea.  

I had another research which is about indigenous people’ languages in Taiwan. There are 16 main groups of indigenous people, and the problem is they do not have written characters that they couldn’t record their history on papers. They tell their story though founding member in each tribe and the main speaking languages in school is mandarin so more and more indigenous young people couldn’t speak their own language anymore, they also moved out from their villages to big cities to seek better jobs opportunities. And history and culture are dying quickly more than people’s imagine, and the government isn’t doing anything to protect their culture, because the main people in politics are Han- Chinese people. Doing anything for indigenous people does not benefit them. They keep taking more and more of their lands and limited more of the tradtional territories.

 Background: 

The original population of the island of Taiwan and its associated islands, i.e. not including Kinmen and the Matsu Islands, consisted of Taiwanese aborigines, speaking Austronesian languages and sharing mitochondrial DNA contribution with island peoples of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Immigration of Han Chinese to the Penghu islands started as early as the 13th century, while settlement of the main island occurred from the 16th century, stimulated by the import of workers from Fujian by the Dutch in the 17th century. According to governmental statistics, over 95% of the Republic of China's population is of Han Chinese ethnicity, while 2.3% are Taiwanese aborigines of Malayo-Polynesian ethnicity.  Half the population are followers of one or a mixture of 25 recognized religions. Around 93% of the religious population are followers of a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, while a minority 4.5% are followers of Christianity (include Catholics and Protestants). 

The official national language is Standard Chinese, although around 70% also speak Taiwanese Hokkien and 10% speak Hakka. Japanese speakers are becoming rare as the elderly generation who lived under Japanese rule are dying out but many young Taiwanese use English or Japanese as second language. Aboriginal languages are gradually becoming extinct as the aborigines have become acculturated despite a program by the ROC government to preserve the languages. (wiki)

Where the indigenous groups mainly live. (mostly in mountain area)

I am aware of this issue because of many young indigenous people are trying to help to protect their lands and culture, and are shown on social media. But I never research that deep into this topic. After researching I felt like I need to do this project to bring more awareness to this topic. Even though I am just a nobody, but someone has to do something to start changing situation.    

I found out that president Tsai had only officially apologized to indigenous people for the first time in history and admit that before not protecting indigenous culture and lands is a mistake. She made an indigenous history justice committee to hope that they could improve the laws which to protect their rights.

President Tsai Apologized video

https://indigenous-justice.president.gov.tw/EN

But I don’t want to be too political on doing this project because it says on the brief that they don’t want anything too political.  The more I research I got more confuse and lost. 

So I try to focus on the point that they don’t have their written characters, but now they are using English letters (Latin letters) to spell and write their languages. It could trace back to  the past, when Dutch people came to colonized in Taiwan, they started to use Latin letters to spell their languages, and use to o preach Christian and wrote the first bible in one of indigeous language:  

The Sinckan language, spoken by the Siraya people who lived in what is now Tainan, was employed by Dutch missionaries to facilitate both missionary and government affairs during the reign of Dutch East India Company in Taiwan. They also created a romanized script, compiled a dictionary of the language, and taught the natives how to write their own language with these romanized characters. 

And they indigenes people just keep this way of recording until now. Although, when they once try to use Japanese characters and Chinese letters to spell out their languages through the colonized history. But it won’t match with how they actually pronounce it so they went back to use Latin letters instead.  That also causes a huge problem, because the main language Taiwanese use is traditional Chinese letters. People aren’t familiar with Latin or English letters. The government used to refuse them to spell their original name in their languages. The government forced them to have a Chinese name and only until recently they could use Latin letters to register their name in the official document.

There are so much could be done to protect their culture and languages, they are the owner of this island and sadly, no one is respecting them. Their culture is so beautiful which are sustainable and loving the motherland, which is the stuff we need now due to climate change and capitalism. who are we to force them to fit in the “modern society” which took away their identity. 

Sinckan manscirpt ( right)of a land selling contract with chinese letters(left).

Bunun symbol for their calender which recorded when to hunt or when to harvest.

Paiwan snakes pattern.

16 tribes logo pattern design 

Kavalan’s textile pattern.

Atayal knit their characters in textile which represent number.

Atayal illustration.

Taiwanese indigenous groups are famous for their unique patterns, every tribe has its own special patterns of textile or symbol to present their spirit.

So I try to research more about indigenous people’s pattern to try to find insight and common to build an idea into my design. But I found out that it is so difficult, there is no website that recorded officially or clearly. There are also various meaning and story behind each group and their patterns. The lack of information made it more difficult and I spent too much time to research, now I don’t really have time to work on it. All of their languages are almost completely different. My first idea is to present 26 Latin characters with their 16pattern but the number isn’t right. It doesn’t make sense and I don’t want to be inappropriate to use their pattern or symbols.

I message one of the facebook pages which runs by the indigenous people that how can I design and find a common point to make my project happen. They just told me to talk to the tribe which is kind of impossible because I can’t go back to Taiwan now.

And I think of an idea is, their common is they have their own patterns and symbol in each group, so what I could think of is making an example of how they could create stamps in their patterns and those patterns could make it into both Latin letters and Chinese letters.

Caculating using 16 tribes as main point and create 26 latin character. (idea 1)

During the Easter break, I was thinking about the idea and visual I could redo the Clerkenwell project. I still want to stick with the clock for my main visual but I want to do it in a completely different style.  

I watched many films that is about time and space, ex: Ant-man, Captain Marvel, Annihilation... It inspired me to rethink about the connection of human and  time and space, and I am really obsessed with the visual design and aesthetic of  it.  The visual of representing the invisible place and knowledge that human still do not have has a mistery and fascinating  magnetically power. 

It also reminds me of another film I really like: Interstellar. The concept and visualising how it will look like if travel through time is really impressing. So I kind of had an idea that I could use the concept of combining time and visualising space. 

Ant man in front of quantity travel tunnel

Scene from Annihilation

Interstellar/ time line and room scene

We went to Sattchi gallery for the “ SALON 009: WE LIVE IN AN OCEAN OF AIR” exhibition. It is my first time experiencing VR, and I was really nervous when the staff put the kit on me. Because it is a interatcive experience, they put detector on my wrist so I can see my hand. They visualize the breathe of human and plants. We could see the some little dots like molecule coming through my mouth and I could also see the breathe from others. We travel with the breathe and end up getting on the top of a giant tree. It is really impressive and mind opening, I was fascinated by the idea of life and I was thinking about the significance of life, and how  infinitely small we are in this universe. 

Us in the VR experience

Image from google

“ We live in an Ocean of Air is a virtual reality experience where the invisible connection between plant and human is revealed through breath. In a 20 minute experience cutting-edge technology illuminates the invisible- but fundamental- connections between human and natural worlds. You'll be transported to an ancient forest and witness the majestic power of the largest organism to ever exist - the giant Sequoia tree.” (https://www.saatchigallery.com/art/salon_009.php)

So I started to look into how time space look like in theory and I want to base on this idea to redesign my Clerkenwell project. During the researching, the first black hole image has release and it is such a grand step of researching of the outerspace. Because the theory of time traveling and there’s many other timelone of yourself is based on the whole black hole concept. 

The first image of black hole.

Concept image of time 

And I want to present that in the Clerkenwell area where it used to be a clock making famous area and now it develops by the time and its famous for all the design studio there. It changed a form of how the people there still connected to each other in some way and has their own community which based on the stuff they were doing.  Although it has change to a new industry but the people now are still gonna remember the history and make this area has it’s own kind of special vibe. 

I still used clock as my symbol and combine it with the time line concept and makes the number of time flying around. I did in illustrator with the 3D function and I tried with different colours, but I end up using black background and white line because it has stronger visual than other one. 

Sketch idea

“Clerkenwell has a long history of clock making company Thames and Reed, which can trace its origins back to 1610 and still exists today. People can see the church (including the clock) most of the time in Clerkenwell, making the church a symbol of the spirit of the area. The church is also a memorial for the 12 victims of the "Fenian Conspiracy" and the 66 martyrs of Smithfield fires. St. James Church's motto is "Community, Discovery, Engagement", which now also holds many events to bring people together.  

Clerkenwell has always been famous for their clockmaking in the past. The history here is closely linked with this industry, which has the same vitality as the church. St. James Church recorded many thing that happened in the past in this area. I wanted to use a melted clock to represent that although time has pass, the memories will always remain in people’s minds. The mirrors on the clock reflect the lives of the people in Clerkenwell as well as Clerkenwell’s present and future. People pass by could take pictures and post on social media.” 

It took me a while to think of how to describe my idea properly so my work will look relevant to the brief, I asked Viviana to check the grammar for me and see if description makes sense to the audience and also did my Idea communicate.

Before the presentation,  the Last group meeting, Maeri and Alistair help to put everyone’s PDF together and think about how to present it together they did so much work for everyone although this has their own work and I really feel bad and stressed out because I couldn’t do anything even I couldn’t too well with the project I feel really used this in this year.

On the presentation day, I didn’t go because I really don’t like the final outcome I made. And I don’t want to show it to people in front of me, I know I shouldn’t just not go but there depress of hating this project makes me really nervous and at the same time want to escape from it. 

I got to see the gateway last time I couldn‘t see because of the filming crew.

Looks like a gate but then the blocks after For some reason but I couldn’t search anything about it online I should have asked lady on the walking tour that day. I really Like the stairs in the gate connect with each other because it looks like a secret door you can go somewhere else. After I took some photos of the gate and look around the church. I saw a few memorials that the lady mention on that day about the people who died in the fire. After that, I work at the coffee shop nearby and I had a meal and then get to feel the vibe of the area. People are warm and kind to each other it really feels like a community that supports each other Kind of. After that, I walked to the bus stop on the way home and I could still see the clock from the church and I feel like it Is an iconic landmark because it has a spiritual image for people. Also, the clock is made in the Clerkenwell area.

But before that I couldn’t really decide because I feel like there’s more research I could do, So I look on the church website and then To see if there’s any more content that I could use for my project. But the more I research I got more confused because there’s so much history I don’t understand and I really don’t know which Which content will be more interesting to develop.

So I talked to David after the D&AD tutorial on his side as I think the clock is a good idea to go for then just don’t think too much and then play with it. So I decided to go for the clock idea.

While I was researching for visual ideas I found a few more interesting artists who make amazing installation.

When I think of the clock I will be immediately thinking about time and I feel like playing around with the time and space idea will be interesting. The first thing I could think of the artists is Dali, who has this world-known painting of melting clock. I know it is clichè, but I really don’t have time to wondering around because I spent so much time worrying. 

Faig Ahmed's melted carpet is also a really interesting piece. He used a traditional symbol that he saw and experience while growing up and transform it into a new art that makes people see a traditional symbol in another perspective. He used his experience of his childhood playing with the carpet in his nanny’s house with his imagination that all the traditional pattern has a pathway to go with. I found that idea really clever and it is also combing the experience of memory and an iconic object, which I could reference in my idea.

“Before I tampered with the medium, carpets were perfect,” he says. “They could be absorbed by the interior and they were symbols of comfort and cosiness. After I changed them, they can no longer be absorbed by the interior. They make people think [and make them] not feel comfortable in their presence. Maybe they can even be aggressive.”

In one piece, entitled Shift, a carpet is tilted at a 45-degree angle and pierced through with spikes. In another, a rug hung on the wall melts onto the floor in pools of coloured thread. In Cone, a traditional geometrical shape is taken from the pattern of the carpet, rendered three-dimensionally, and then superimposed onto carpet. The juxtaposition of the geometrical form is shockingly alien even though it is one of the carpet’s intrinsic forms. (Source: http://global-citizen.com/faig-ahmed-carpet/)

Practitioner's Delight is made by Gary Kuehn in 1966, I couldn’t find a lot of detail for this one but it is a Post-Minimalism work that a white square cube got cut and some pink liquid came out from that bit. I like how clean and minimal of this work, it is simple but it drags people's attention easily.

I found an artist that had similar idea: Tatiana Blass’s pieces in this series are melting objects(furniture) into the ground and make the audience has a surreal feeling when they look at her work. I like the colours she used and how she present it in a blank showroom, it makes audiences emerge themselves into her work with space.

So I drew a Clock and While scanning it move the paper so the clock will have a special effect from the scanner. The Effect looks cool and gave me a basic concept of how a melting clock could look like. And I looked at the photo of the church gate and then sketch a few angels of the clock to see how it could work with vinyl prints. Due to the budget reason so I couldn’t really smelt anything in real life so I only decided to do it on photoshop to look like It’s melting. While I was sketching I had an idea that advice take mirror on top of the vinyl people will pass could see them self in the mirror so they could interact with this installation and then this fits with the brief.

I found this vintage clock made by a studio in Clerkenwell online and I edit the effect in photoshop. I use liquify function in photoshop and drag the clock to a longer shape and then I painted the melted effect with the paintbrush function but it doesn't look 3D enough. After that, I searched for a melting chocolate image on Google, and I adopt it on the clock and then painted again  I also draw a few reflective lights to and shadows so it will look more real. 

It took me a while to caculate the size and dimentional of my work, my math isn’t that good since I was in middle school, and the math problem has to be solve in english. But I kind of solve the budget?

The 

The most difficult part is the mockup part I added the photo I took to adjust the colour to fit more with the image I made. It took me a really long time to think about how to apply my image on the stairs while it looks real and nice.So I found a YouTube tutorial, Shows every detail of how to apply a flat image to look like a 3-D dimensional final mock-up. Although it took me a while to do it but then still works, Finally, I mock up a few mirrors which steal from a random glass building on to my clock image to present my idea and it’s done!

I still think its a little bit clinché but I don’t have time to change my idea, because I didn’t manage my time well. 

After the Clerkenwell brief, I was really confused and feel quite lost about what we had to do. I don’t get what we should do for the thing and I have no clue about the area. Since after handing in the dissertation my mind is off There’ s no image and ideas in my brain, I have to squeeze out some ideas and I don't really like any of them. I want to get back on track but it is so difficult.

Anna’s lesson of sharing a different kind of installation that people have done and also mentioned the bits we have to notice and consider when you work with a budget. I think it is really helpful and inspiring because get to know how thing work outside of uni, will make me less nervous and terrified to imagine after graduate.

In the afternoon, we had a practice of Chelsea's history that is similar to the Clerkenwell one for a warm up. It is not my first time to get to know Chelsea’s history, but this is the first time that is really detailed. I got to the group that we had to do the deporting spot that old time prisoners got send to Australia when they broke this specific 12 laws.

It is really fun to brainstorming with others cause we don’t really have group session since 2nd year. We were discussing that use chain to link to each window and use typeface to show the crime that would make you send to Australia in the past. It makes me had more idea of what this project is about but I found it more difficult is;  compare to Chelsea, I had no connection or what so ever with Clerkenwell. I found that is more difficult to find a point to approach.

So I sign up for the walking tour that there will be a guide to introduce more about the area. On the day the weather is really nasty, it’s so cold and it rains a lot.  We get to know about the history and fun facts of each of the places we had to do for our project. It was quite cool to know about some stories that I will never know about if we didn't have this project, like some memorial thingie on streets. London is a city with culture and stories, it made me more curious about other places like this. On the tour, I had a strong feeling of the area cause they do have a community and a life circle, but I still didn’t had any idea of what should I do. 

I got St. James church for this project and on the walking tour day, some film crew is filming inside of the church so we can’t see the area of the church that they gave us to design, so I have to come here another day to look at the place properly. Also, the weather is really bad so the photos won’t look good anyway.

Tea is not only an important part of western culture, but it also has its significance in Asian culture. In Taiwanese culture for example which developed overtime from Chinese tea culture. Taiwanese tea culture especially has a long tradition and meaning especially when it comes to family, as a symbol of togetherness.

The tea table has become a symbol of the tea-drinking tradition in Taiwan, where every time relatives or friends visit one’s home, everyone gathers around the tea table to enjoy tea while spending time together talking and enjoying each other’s company. Nowadays, the younger generation especially are less familiar with this tea-drinking tradition, as people’s lifestyles have changed, and older traditions forgotten or less valued and prioritized. Many households, thus, no longer have this tea table. The aim of this project is to create a tea table with more modern styles and forms for a younger target audience, while reintroducing them to the symbolic and meaningful act of drinking tea and idea of bringing people together. I want to make a tea table that young people will willing to buy and make traditional tea culture back in their lifestyle with a new form. 

I feel like it is really interesting to try something that’s not “graphic”, and get to know how materials and 3D designs work. Even though the final may not look proffestional enough but I had so much fun making it, and get to explore more stuff outside of the graphic world.