My project really changed and developed a lot comparing to my first version of project proposal which I uploaded roughly 3 weeks ago. Before the first edition, I was trying to continues with the “Here” project and trying to discover what are the other sigh languages that can be used.

(Sketches i did that time)

But then I find this doesn’t work cause it’s already a bit too restricted and not very motivating, therefore I decided to pick up only one element from the previous project to give myself a bigger space to explore. I picked up the element ‘scale’ and developed it to the project that I finally made.

I did an artist research to discover artists who also play with scale and I quite like Florentijn Hofman, who is famous for his piece Rubber Duck. He played with scale by enlarging a toy or animal into an enormous size, due to his subject choice, his works are very welcomed by the public and brings people a healing and comfort feeling. I like how his work brings the public together by having a very approachable appearance. Just like the opposite of —-, I chose a particularly small object rather than enlarging something to play with scale. When the object of reference is small, then in contrast other things are relatively bigger. Therefore I chose a small toy crab as the object and intended to do a story board from photos i took. While I was considering the using of material, I did several try outs. At first I was intended to do it in digital format, but it was quite time consuming cause i was trying to show too much details. Then I tried three different types of method, and chose the one that I preferred by comparing whether the object stands out; whether the laying is clear, etc.

While considering how to display the story board in a hanging way, I discovered another artist, Alexander Calder. As I mentioned in the previous post, I looked up his work and find the Fish very inspiring and helpful to my own ideas. Rather than hanging the story board in a normal sequenced way, I did a crab shaped frame and hanged the pieces of stories in it. So it was converted into an installation type of piece instead of doing it in a convention way. Combining other materials with illustration elements was the biggest achievements that I personally consider i have achieved because I used to think illustrations are meant to be quite flat and restricted into book or storyboard formats. I didn’t put every first hand resource i took into the final piece, considering the layout and composition of hanging not to be too condensed and a bit time issue as well. At the same time, I find talking to tutors and peers very useful as sometimes I get very inspiring artists references and different perspective opinions from them, the process of explaining my project to others also helps me to have a scrutiny through it.

Those are works by Alexander Calder, who is an American sculptor. Fish is produced using pieces of broken glasses and ceramic. I really like these colorful broken glasses and how they are hanged in this fish shaped frame. The arranged order makes those broken pieces look like fish scales. This work is not as abstract as his other works, which suits my idea of being friendly and approachable to the audience.

His work inspired me on how to present my work by hanging, I can make a carb shaped frame and wrap it by pinky color wool which matches my toy crab and hang the pieces of storyboards inside the crab frame. This will be more interesting than just hanging up the storyboard in a normal kind of structure and still keeps it very approachable to the audience.

What have your material investigation revealed?

First of all, i did three different kinds of tryouts with different materials for a same scenario. In pic1, the upper one shows the original photo which I have been working on. I used a converted version of photo as a base and put rubber stamps on it. It turns out that the rubber stamp was quite blurred on the background and didn’t really pop out even I used complementary color. For the second piece, I used paper cut to do a simplified background, which might seem a bit too dull and the crab didn’t pop out as a focusing point, but i quite like the raindrops on a clean background. In pic 3, I used paint marker to do the simplified background and some outlines. For the crab I used tape to do it, which was quite close to the original color of crab. I personally prefer the last tryout because it has a more reasonable layering which enables the audiences see all the details and focusing point.

How do you want people to understand or engage when they look at your work? How do you intend to present your work achieve this?

I mainly aimed to produce something that brings a healing and comfort feeling to the audience, which was quite similar target to my reference artist. So I chose a friendly toy crab as a subject in the story and did it in the way like a children’s book. I want to hang it on the wall, the idea of of this comes from a kind of comforting toy for small children(⬇️）

(From my sketch book) I did a plan for the storyboard and had an idea of how to connecting them. I try to make a piece that can be hanged up instead of doing a book.

Then I did a more detailed plan of the story and planed what is each block is going to be like. For the piece of the left, i did a small tryout by using color paper and strings. I feel it’s a bit too simple ,I’m going to tryout other materials and paper to see what way will work better.

I converted the all photos that I’m going to use in the storyboard into sketches, so it blends better with the elements that I’m going to put in. I want to get a uniformed style throughout my whole story.

I pulled out the patterns of raindrops and umbrellas from the photo and made it into rubber stamp. I stamped it with acrylic, acrylic have a strong covering power and provides a texture to the picture. I’m going to try ink pad later as well.

The object i choose is a small crab. I brought two these and gave one to my best friend who studies in America as a gift, which i hope can reminds her of me and brings her company.

I took photos of my toy throughout a day, from brushing teeth, to go out by taxi, to visit Tate Britain and come back by underground. The little crab represented myself to some extent as it experiences the same journey I experienced throughout the day, it also represents the company of my best friend. Those pictures are related to scale, cause all the subjects appeared in the photos are designed for human size but the carb apparently does not fit those things. I will do a story board base on those photos and add some fantasy elements to make it like a adventure of a little crab.

(My character design for the toy crab ⬆️）

This is the work that I’m most pleased with in my previous experiments. At the very start of the project I wasn’t quite sure what idea I would be focusing on so I did some experiments by using keywords like enlarging, simplifying, etc. Trying to think about the focusing idea while I’m experimenting. The focusing point until here I would say I was trying to capture my status of physical location in a particular moment. In each of these photos I was holding something, pen or a street lamp and I convert them into a pin by using Procreate.

Title

For my individual project I would like to keep the idea of ‘enlarging’ and playing with the scale of an object as a theme.

Contest and content

  Considering what object should I choose, Ros asked me what object i bring around with me, the first thing that comes to my mind is my stuffed animals. I feel really emotional attached to my stuffed animals especially those comes from my friends and my parents, I bring several of them with me each time when I travel. Many people see stuffed animals as comforters for kids, some of them threw their toys away when they grow up cause they no longer needs that comfort. But I believe that they shouldn’t be see as just a toy, each of my stuffed animals are infused with memories and story, each of them represents something to me that I want to have around me when I’m away from home.

Toys reminds me of an artist whose object is also toys — Florentijn Hofman.

He show the beauty of these mass-produced toys and show them in a different way. 

He did several shows which enlarged his previous work, for example the rubber duck. ‘Rubber Duck, which presents a common object rendered in an unusual size floating in the harbours of international cities, has drawn a lot of public attention. Hofman believes his over-sized sculptures in public places allow people to easily access art and experience familiar and positive emotions from their childhood regardless of their nationality or religion. Hofman aims to create works that are interactive and generates dialogue with the audience; many of his public artworks aim to bring people together.’1  
I like how he enlarge a common object into an unusual size and place it back into the public like it meant to be there. His work is really healing and amusing to see and very accessible to the audience.  Although he changed the size of the object but he didn’t change the purpose of a toy, which is to bring people comforts and healing. 

Media and process & final outcome

After talking to Jake , we decided to start with photographing my object within a day in different scenarios. And enlarge it in some scenarios to see how it goes. I will do some drawings based on the photo as well. Jake recommended me to do a series of story board by using the photos, so my final outcome might be a series of story board and it is related to my specialism as well.

“Shadows is an installation presented by Anna Frants, a new media artist and curator living between Russia and New York. The artist created a multi-sensorial environment, actively involving the audience in a visual and acoustic situation. The abstract idea of time becomes visual, developing in the viewer a personal and inner perception of it, aimed at showing that Time is definitely a subjective dimension.”

https://www.digitalmeetsculture.net/article/the-time-keeper-3-artists-explore-about-the-concept-of-time/

If I am asked to describe my focus idea for next stage in one or two  sentences, I would say I’m trying to interact the sense of time and atmosphere together to convey a message of living at the moment, living ‘here’. I find this artist who created a multi-sensorial environment which gives audiences quite completed sensory.  This gives me the following inspiration:

  I’m thinking about trying to use some other materials as in the previous experiments I mainly restricted myself to paper, probably 3D models combined with illustrative images as we need to link to our specialists.

In the work below I’m trying to engage myself into the work , to express my idea of ‘showing i am here in an intuitive way’.

I took this photo when I went to an exhibition in the Contemporary Art Institude. I used me holding a pin to represent the idea of physically being somewhere. Like at that moment I was in front of a shelf of book works. This pin is a really common one, we see this kind of sign when we are using google map or when we check on a map in a shopping center, and this pin stands for your location at that point. And when you moves, this pin will relocate to where you are, so this pin also have certain mobility which is injected by the actual person. It’s like using the map language to show myself in the real scenario. I was actually holding a pen in this photo and I drew a pin on it.

I choose this one because this shows another scale of the pin than the previous one. With this scale and distance, me myself can be able to show up in the environment, which probably can show the audience my idea more intuitively. In this photo I was holding a street lamp. I like how the buildings constructed two lines which leads to the center, and the pin is placing in the middle which is the focusing part in this photo.

In this photo I put the pin between the buildings so it is enlarged again than the previous one, showing another level of scale. I took this photo on the Shard, which is a different perspective from my other photos. This distance and perspective enabled me to put a bigger pin in this scene.

I want to further develop these set of photo in my independent project, i have got some ideas like changing this pin into something more individualized thing; Or playing with the distance; Or the link between my location at a point of time and my mobility showing through this pin. (Haven’t decided what to do next really)

My brainstorm about this title ‘Here’ starts from how people show themselves are in a different place, which is phisically being somewhere. Tourists usually take pictures with landscapes; Some people like to post instagram with a location tag; Some prefer sending their friends post cards; Some collect stamps; Some likes to buy souvenirs…etc. Then how do I show I’m here?

Those are the experiments I’ve done this week responding to the title ‘Here’. I mainly restricted myself by using paper as it said in the instruction. I made the map in P1 with tape, paper and color paper. It was simplified from a map of brick lane vintage market which I visited the week before (On the leaflet above) The black tape was used to represent the route, the rectangles were elements I picked up from the original map. After I made this piece , the black line and restricted color made me think of the work of Piet Mondrian—‘composition with yellow, blue and red’. His clear and neat line work with color blocks shows a symbolist character. One thing I might reconsider is that the rectangle shapes I put on my work wasn’t placed with any purpose. I probably need to consider more about how I am engaging  and connecting with this work and put more elements that is related to myself into it. I think although this piece is experimenting and using the resource that I collected ‘here’ but it didn’t actually answer “How do I show I’m here”

In P2, I was trying to play with the pin📍on the map, trying to say something like “I’m here”. The material I used for this piece of experiment was cardboard, transfer paper, poster and prints out of my first hand resource. This route is the route form my home to Camberwell everyday, I chose this route because this is probably the most frequently used route for me during these weeks. And I did a bit collage on this route. The circle at the top is the location of my home and I put a pin on it to show ‘I’m here’. I made this pin with a straw and rope. My further idea about developing this project is to took pictures of myself holding a pin in an environment and play with the scale of the pin.