#unit1

Cambridge Trip

During a trip around Cambridge we visited the Zoology museum. Above are some primary observations from them.

1 - Texture of a starfish in posca pen

2 - Bug in charcoal

Leaving Singapore to a new country, and then starting classes the next day had made me disoriented and lost as a stranger in a foreign land. On the other hand, this transitional period has also shown me the promising pathway for a new door I had opened. 

The identity lecture gave me a closer look at an individual’s sense of self in the modern world. With various analogies and thought experiments, we were taught different interpretations of this idea. A concept I thought was interesting is the way identity is linked to our contemporary society. We were asked to question how identity can be maintained in a vulnerable and unpredictable world. As someone who enjoys the sci-fi genre, the idea that many of these stories can be viewed as a metaphor for addressing current societal concerns was intriguing.  

An example from the lectures that struck me was the real-life “brain worm” incident. A woman had a parasitical infection that caused a worm to grow in her brain and led her to become extremely ill. This non-fictional unnatural violation of the human body shocked me as a horrifying reality to live in could happen from a mundane situation of physical contact with nature. Not only was it unpredictable and terrifying, but it also confirmed fears of the inability of man to live in harmony with nature. This also acts as a real-life metaphor for broken natural boundaries, and the trespassing of personal space. 

For the film project, we were tasked to film and edit a two-minute film using the theme of Identity. Although I had little experience with filming, I was thankful to be in a group of talented people who helped me along the way. We brainstormed several ideas and narrowed them down to personal experiences with identity. Our film was titled “Overload” which used a first-person point of view to convey the experience of autistic individuals. I learned a lot from my groupmates who have more experience in filming, such as different editing techniques and art direction that I had never thought of before. 

After those two weeks, we resumed our course tutorials and the first unit commenced. We were tasked to create a character with the prompt “What's Behind The Door?”. The main struggle I had during this stage was to make the character believable. Initially, I wanted to create a grotesque man-eating creature as I like horror games. However, this led to a conflict I was unable to solve, as I did not know how to justify why a character would behave this way. The creature acted as a mindless killing machine, so I decided to start over with a new idea. 

On my second attempt, I focused more on the personality of the character than its setting. Using the list of questions provided in the tutorial, I created a spider housekeeper who spends most of its time cleaning the room behind the door. 

The above image shows concept sketches I made after writing the description of the character. I wanted to base the creature off a spider as the contrasting volume of the compact body mass and thin legs makes it appear more fragile, adding to its frantic personality. The second design was chosen, and the next tutorial allowed me to understand ways to convey a character’s personality through their body language. We were tasked to draw our character in four different poses representing different emotions. 

A problem I encountered was the stiffness and awkwardness of the way I first drew the lying pose. This was because I used textual descriptions rather than visual references to draw the character, so this tutorial has taught me the importance of using photos when depicting body language. As such, for the rest of the task, I made sure to use visual references that effectively convey the mood and personality of the character. 

Afterward, we were taught how to do three-dimensional drawing. This involves three main elements; simple volumes, basic perspectives, and overlapping forms. I found this lesson to be extremely useful for backgrounds as using these rules to create depth and structure achieves the illusion of 3D on a flat surface. This can also be applied to organic forms, such as foreshortening when drawing body parts. For this tutorial, we were tasked with drawing different objects from three different perspectives. 

In hindsight, I should have given myself a larger space to do this exercise as gridding the paper into nine parts caused most of the drawings to appear too cramped or overly exaggerated. I was disappointed with the outcome as I could not fit the three-point perspective drawing of the piano in the last grid as it will look extremely distorted with that scale. The details on the objects are also inaccurate, so I would have to work on these problem areas when doing more perspective drawings in the future. 

Another exercise related to improving our structure was the practice used for drawing human heads. As someone who is used to making photo studies with loose guidelines and editing the proportions during the rendering stage, I was not used to the methods used to break down features of the head. While drawing the basic forms was manageable separately, applying these steps to a face is challenging as you would also need to consider the proportions of the person. 

While drawing Matt Damon’s face, I tried to follow the structure and created this portrait. The key issues I had were the proportions and the lower half of the face. 

The following tutorial gave us pointers when designing characters and finding an art style for them. Drawing how the characters will be like rather than appear like would aid in creating a being capable of thought. We were recommended to use primary and secondary research and to base the character on something rather than to create one out of our imagination. We were also reminded to exaggerate the line of action while drawing with references and to consider how it affects the angle of hips, shoulders, and head. 

Related to the technical aspects of drawing, we were taught how to draw clothing that belongs to the character. The lesson's outcome is to draw fabric that enhances the character's three-dimensionality rather than flatten it. To do this, the key point is to focus on structure and observation as it gives believability to the characters who should also have surface and form. 

Some of the fabric I drew looked stiff as I either drew too many folds or did not follow the curve of the body. With the help of my tutor's drawing shown in the bottom right of the first page, I was able to make the fabric complement the form of the person more.

When drawing facial expressions, we were given points to take note of for more effective drawings. The expressions should convey the personality of the character, and this can be achieved by following design rules and establishing consistent structure and volume. 

I faced many problems trying to exaggerate my character’s expressions. As the mouth was placed at the lowest point of its skull, it was difficult to create an “open mouth” expression without obscuring the eyes. Moreover, when trying to make the eyes expressive, distorting its size made the character not look like itself. In the end, I managed to convey its emotions by changing the length of the jaw and adjusting the height of the eyeballs. 

The last practice we had in this unit covered the attitude of a character. With a simple prompt, a character’s audience appeal could be evoked with attitude. This can be achieved by giving characters a thought process, reflecting it with their design, and making the way they carry themselves consistently. Establishing the character’s point of view creates an expectation in the audience and reveals the person in the design. Afterward, we were given time to work on our character designs, so I worked on the turnaround and construction sheet during this time and digitalized these sketches for the final hand-in. 

In an unpredictable world, some may assume that identity has become synonymous with our position in society. The urban man becomes increasingly disoriented in dense populations, yet still creates his own self in this complex world. By engaging with the concept of identity, Dede Eri Supria’s oil painting “Urban Class” can be interpreted in the context of the identity of an artist as the conscience of society. 

Figure 1: Dede Eri Supria, Urban Class (1997) 

By using himself as a recurring motif, Dede Eri Supria defines his identity as an artist. “Urban Class” depicts Supria and his studio in the foreground, positioned in front of a monumentally sized painting. His self-image is rendered realistically to instruct the viewer to see him as his outer self. A surrealist element is added to this painting as Supria uses illusionistic techniques to create an impression of himself emerging from a painting of an urban slum, suggesting that he has transcended his social background to become a critical observer. Moreover, unlike other contemporary Indonesian artists, Supria depicts man without the influence of folklore. The human subject matter is forced to confront social realities stemming from cultural change, with the rich-poor disparity and American hegemony eroding traditions that once gave them comfort in the spiritual. (Wright, 1994) Hence, Supria reinforces his identity as an Indonesian artist his concerns and approach to the subject matter are unique to the socio-economic state of Jakarta. 

Supria depicts his surroundings in extreme detail to force viewers to examine their fears and anxieties of a rapidly evolving society. Inspecting the monumental painting behind the artist, a slum is rendered with painstaking detail. To achieve this, Supria collages various magazine excerpts to create multiple visual planes. This distorts the man’s surroundings, while the overall realistic style alleviates the viewer’s suspension of disbelief, creating an uncanny perception of modern Jakarta. Moreover, the use of magazine references gives his artworks a commercial sheen, with the consumerist nature of the subject matter emphasized by his use of saturated colors. Hence, the technique used to create this work is also unique to his personal identity and upbringing. His hyperrealistic style was influenced by his background as a photographic draftsman and gave him a position amongst the New Art Movement, consisting of contemporary Indonesian artists. 

Figure 2: S. Sudjojono, Rest (Ngaso). (1964)

Supria’s approach to social realism crafts both a personal and social identity. The return of realism among young Indonesian artists was met with a different origin from when it first appeared in Indonesia. The previous wave of realism showed Sudjojono’s works inspired by French social realism that aimed to confront the realities of the working class. In contrast to the naturalistic tone of the former, Supria uses a more satirical style of commentary. (Chua, 2018) Incorporating an Avant Garde direction into his social reality, Supria ingrains the flaws of his society into his identity. Unlike Sudjojono’s portrayal of citizens fighting for a better future, Supria depicts them indifferently while presenting the situation as disorienting and hopeless. (Jurriëns, 2021) The uncomfortable reality of defeated individuals confronts the viewers with a new juxtaposed form of art that mocks urban Jakarta, yet this response conversely gave Supria a notorious reputation in the Indonesian art scene, even effectively conveying his idea that artists have a role in expressing social concerns. As such, Supria cemented his identity as a new-age social realist painter. 

As a Southeast Asian, I resonate with his concerns about rapid urban development and cultural erosion. Singapore’s government attempted to build a national identity by enforcing Asian values to the everyday man for citizens to survive in a fast-paced environment. To rapidly improve the living conditions of locals, demolishing heritage buildings for infrastructure and discouraging dialects for a shared language was inevitable. (Ortmann, 2009) Thus, having an artist who is willing to confront and express subconscious insecurities from the public allows Supria to be renowned for his identity as both a social critic and an artist. 

References 

Supria, D.E. (1997). Urban Class. Oil on canvas, 200 × 100 cm. Jakarta, Indonesia. 

Wright, A. (1994). Soul, spirit, and mountain: preoccupations of contemporary Indonesian painters. Kuala Lumpur; New York: Oxford University Press 

Chua, K. (2018), Courbet after Sudjojono. Art History, 41: 292-317. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8365.12333 

S. Sudjojono (1964). Rest (Ngaso). Oil on canvas, 140 × 100 cm. Jakarta, Indonesia: Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN).  

Jurriëns, E. (2021). Urban transition through Indonesian art: from the Generation of ‘66 to the Millennials. World Art, 11(2), pp.229–254. https://doi.org/10.1080/21500894.2021.1893806. 

27/10/2022

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Looking to their values, these are things to consider in an autism-friendly city:

Quiet hours for shopping

Education for teachers and businesses on autism

Quiet spaces

Multiple autism-friendly events