Final Show

Unit 2 Assessment

1. Magazine Project

The magazine project is the extension of photography project that is exploring the interesting and challenging way of looking, I try to add another medium - oil painting to intrude the photography and words of one magazine, thus making original photographs produce different possibilities of meaning by viewers' curiosity.  To some extent, the concept of John Stezaker is similar with this project, but by different way to give the original pictures new meanings.  Unlike Stezaker, his work combines two pictures to create a new picture, my work combines two different mediums – picture and acrylic blue painting, opening up new characters, relationships and meanings.  What’s more, I think, probably his work more relates to the old time but mine is concentrated to different uncertain possibilities of the future.   But the same thing of us is that we try to intrude the photograph to produce new meaning by different ways.  Just as he mentioned, ‘You can only get a feeling of the inviolable purity and sanctity of the emulsion of a photograph by violating it.’  In this project I think I am a conceptual structralist, try to say to the viewers ‘this is not that’ in terms of the original pictures and words of the magazine, thus making the overpaintings thought-provoking, aesthetically pleasing and utterly desirable. 

2. Brutality Project

After doing the photography project and magazine project, I think the color of blue is going to be my personal symbol.  In other words, the blue oil color is like my personal logo.  Then I do my final project ‘Brutality’, about ‘the value of discarded things’. This project expresses three cycles – from high price to free, life to death and redesigned artworks to discarded things, overall, it is about the value of different situations of staff.  It tries to evolve, surprise and question the audience and the art world in this commercial society.  To a large extent this project is about examining concepts of ‘value’ in our culture and re-investing discarded, old, vintage things with meaning and use.   I’m trying to point viewers’ attention to specific objects and events in life that risk being overlooked as being too quotidian or too common.  I also think art making is less about the invention or construction of new things, but more about the close paying attention to existing things.  The abandoned things made by any human beings have witnessed the passage of time.  Giving these wasted old things a new life is a kind of return, as well as a kind of expectation to the nice time of the future. 

Using normal materials to make a creation is not a new concept, but the reasonable application could make it outstanding at the aspects of innovation and quality.  In the final show I will set up a shop named ‘Brutality’ to sale these ‘redesigned products’ and randomly price them with very high price.  On the other hand, the shop will sell these things from 10% OFF to 100% OFF during the 9-day of final show in order to show the life-cycle of the product or the artwork.  And meanwhile, it will encourage viewers to think about the real value of packaged products and how we value things.

In this project, I do hundreds of objects and entirely enjoy doing that.  But the problem comes towards the display of the final show.  I try to put all of them to the small exhibition space and undoubtedly the effect is totally messy, even making the concept confused.  After discussing with three tutors I begin to give up something gradually.  David suggests me that sometimes I must display the most important and typical things instead of all of them in order to make the space more free and comfortable, thus the viewers will be very pleasure when they see the show, and meanwhile more concentrating on the concept. Then I try my best to remove parts of the stuff and adjust again and again, the effect is evidently much better than before and the concept is much clearer.  And this process of adjustment is pleasure and I have learned so much through it.  David and Sigune also suggest me to reduce the concept of ‘sale’, but I still want to keep it, because it is my original aim of this project, which is the one and only thing that I need to insist on.

3. Video Project

In retrospect, the video project work with Sunday from project of Sequential Images and Narrative Structures is my first promising work. I make up the story in the project of “Words are unreliable”. Both of us like the story very much that we would like to realize it in a narrative video. It talks about a mental patient who has a split personality fell in love with the other person in his body. ‘Jessica’ is the split character that lives in his own body. But he fell in love with Jessica, which means he fell in love with himself. This is a tragedy that the story ends up in the death of Jessica because he wanted to process the entire love from his lover. That is to say, he killed himself. In fact, he loved nobody but himself.  Sunday and I try to separate this story into several short videos presenting the different mental situations of the character. The first video was displayed in the Public Screening in Sigune’s studio in November 2011. We especially chose a bus stop to shoot this short video, as there is a glass mirror that can shows reflections. And this reflection can connect with the screening window of the studio. The second one is made February 2012, talking about the chasing of the Jessica, though it is just an illusion in his mind.  But I feel quite ashamed that the third and fourth one is not strong as the former ones.  Anyway, it is quite happy work together with Sunday (I am director and actor, Sunday is photographer and film editor) and we have learned from each other so much.

Adjustment of Show Space

In this project, I do hundreds of objects and entirely enjoy doing that.  But the problem comes towards the display of the final show.  I try to put all of them to the small exhibition space and undoubtedly the effect is totally messy, even making the concept confused.  After discussing with three tutors I begin to give up something gradually.  David suggests me that sometimes I must display the most important and typical things instead of all of them in order to make the space more free and comfortable, thus the viewers will be very pleasure when they see the show, and meanwhile more concentrating on the concept. Then I try my best to remove parts of the stuff and adjust again and again, the effect is evidently much better than before and the concept is much clearer.  And this process of adjustment is pleasure and I have learned so much through it.  David and Sigune also suggest me to reduce the concept of ‘sale’, but I still want to keep it, because it is my original aim of this project, which is the one and only thing that I need to insist on.

Reflective Journal

In analyzing the study of the MA course, I think that different projects that I did compelled me to find inspiration from a great deal of sources by researching on successful artists and design and seeing lots of exhibitions in London, subsequently building on my imaginative capacity as well as my practical knowledge.  Therefore I feel I have gained and developed many skills in terms of my own personal creativity and development, and meanwhile I gradually found my own style in terms of composition and construction of communication.

At the beginning of the MA course I thought in the coming one year I will focus on the innovative forms of graphic design. In other word, I will try to breaks through the traditional expression of graphic design.  The design is boundless.  All accessible things are visual arts. So, the application of elements will not be limited to two-dimensional expression. It will reach the design of products, clothes or space.  What’s more, I will focus on the integration of art and design.  The final presentation of a work will not be limited to the printing technology or the expression of two-dimensional medium. It will be combined with more forms of art expression such as drawing, collage, devices and spatial hand painting. It will give people strong visual compact and shock to heart. The graphics is not just in two-dimensional space. The multi-dimensional application of visual elements could express actively and effectively the concepts of the works.

Now, the final show is coming, I think my final work follows my original thinking.  At the term one and two of the course, I was confronted with many challenges and hardship about understanding the difference between the questioning aspects of art and the communicating and problem-solving aspects of design.  But at last, thanks to some tutorials with Sigune and Silke, I tried to combine these different aspects in my final work ‘Brutality’. I was really pushed to think conceptually and found this project challenging, enjoyable and, most importantly, a significant step in furthering my creativity.  It not only questions the value of products and communicates with viewers by the form of ‘sale’ from the first day of the final show 10% off to the last day 100% off, but solves the problem of how to reuse discarded things as well by the medium of blue oil.  Thus, I think my final work achieves the integration of visual art and design, but it still needs to be examined by the viewers when they see my work in the final show.

BRUTALITY Project