2019 CPS Folio ii
WK 1 - Observation
Theme:
Observation
Context:
Blind Drawing, Line Drawing
Allison Kunath website: http://www.allisonkunath.com
Observation is the active acquisition of information from a primary source. In living beings, observation employs the senses but not limited by senses. It is the product of individual thought and expression. Different from most of the blind drawing. In Allison Kunath's drawing practice, she draw the object through touch. Inspired by this practice. I want to explore use touching to create arts.
Method:
Explore blind drawing for the human face and try to capture the facial expression through touch.
Response:
In this practice, I used our sense to create art. Inspired by Allison Kunath’s work. I explored blind drawing for this practice with Sophia(Ang Li). We drew each other's face on paper and tried to capture the facial expression through touching instead of seeing. We perceived the face with one hand and responded with pencil marks made by the other hand.
This exercise created a route of communication between the two hands. The significance is that the hand that makes the mark with the pencil moves simultaneously and responds to the hand that is exploring the face. Information will be transferred, made visible and the drawing is made in response to touch. Moreover, supposedly is activated the part of our mind that genuinely observes shapes. When we try to perceive objects in a different way than before, we will get different feelings and results.
WK 2 - Tinkering As Method
Theme:
Tinkering As Method
Context:
All Chinese characters are logograms, but several different types can be identified, based on the manner in which they are formed or derived. There is a handful which derives from pictographs (象形; xiàngxíng) and a number which is ideographic (指事; zhǐshì) in origin, including compound ideographs (會意; huìyì). Chinese character, essentially each character or graph symbolises a single idea and, by extension, associated with that idea.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2385377seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Method:
Based on this principle, I picked three Chinese characters and play with them, tried to trace the origin of the ideogram and make some innovation, like create some new symbols or characters. Make the Chinese characters transition toward new symbol, picture or concept
through rearranging, constructing or deconstructing the characters through creating a 2D mini animation. I used TVPaint to create 2D frame by frame animation.
The Chinese character I chose :
1. 囧
Jiong is a once obscure Chinese character meaning a "patterned window". Since 2008, it has become an internet phenomenon and widely used to express embarrassment and gloom, because of the character's resemblance to a sad facial expression.
2. 人
Ren means person.
3. 大
Da means big.
Response:
The definition of ideogram is often used to describe symbols of writing systems rather than object/concept. When I come up with rough ideas. I try to split the characters into smaller elements to understand the structure of characters or give them meanings. Try to create something new by rearranging and deconstructing. As a result, I create a 'new' character. Different from a big project that requires a long time to think before the start, I prefer to start without planning. It didn't take me a long time to come up with the idea, around 10 minutes. Gather ideas and arranged them randomly. May have unexpected results. I think this method is more suit for people who want to make a design for experiment or exploration instead of a big group project.
WK 3 - Found Objects
Theme:
Found Objects
Context:
Life on earth begins with plants. Discover that much of life's quality and meaning is expressed through plants with a sensory experience demonstrating the richness of plant contributions to human culture. Plants play a crucial role in the development of human cultures throughout the world and are an important part of therapy, music, ceremony, language and many other enrichments to our everyday lives.
https://www.usbg.gov/plants-culture-sensory-experience
For this project I want to explore the plants contributions to human culture and what will happen when the plants meet digital technology.
Simon Evans:
https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/78953799688258131/
Mari Andrews / Gatherer &Artist:
https://fieldandsea.wordpress.com/2011/07/28/mari-andrews-gatherer-artist/
Method:
Inspired by Simon Evans and Mari Andrews work. I will walk around the school and collect the fallen leaves, branches or something else that I can use. Arrange and combine them properly on the paper to get some pattern & textures then integrate it with digital technology (Photoshop).
Response:
At the beginning of this exercise, I put objects deliberately, hoping to get a beautiful and meaningful pattern. But there's a big difference between design from an existing object and create from nothing. Think about too much will lose the organic beauty of plants. So I arrange the plants randomly then take photos, import them into photoshop and made adjustments. As a result, the same photos show different things, which I think reflects the integration of plants and digital technology in an effective way.
Simon Evans, Everything I Have, 2008.
Mari Andrews / Gatherer & Artist, 2011.
WK 4 - Discussions Of Place
Theme:
Discussions Of Place
Context:
As soon as you place a character within an environment the two become inseparable. The environment is the character and the character is the environment. They are woven from each other. An environment is not just a container in which unrelated events occur but still can telling a story.
In this practice, my concept is environmental storytelling, which is inherently minimalistic in its overall execution of conveying a narrative. This concept mostly applies to the game. Examples of environmental storytelling can be found in the Dark Souls games. I wonder if it can apply this concept in animation.
A site I chose: The Port Arthur Historic Site.
The Convict Era
Port Arthur Historic Site is a large site holding a great many stories. Places like the Penitentiary, which was originally constructed as a flour mill and granary in 1843, before it housed hundreds of convicts in dormitories and solitary cells; or the much-feared Separate Prison, where harsh physical punishment was replaced with the punishment of the mind. These men and women were convicted of crimes that seem trivial today, mostly stealing small articles or livestock. One in five was a woman. Numbers of children were also transported with their parents. Few returned home.
Nick Fouquet: https://blog.freepeople.com/2015/12/guy-meet-nick-fouquet/
Method:
Image source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BTD8hfVhhKj/
I used the same character and environment but change the design of that environment to tell a different story and give the audience different feelings. I will use a photograph of the penitentiary and try to create a different view through integrating color and the place. See how the color evokes viewers emotion and give viewers different feelings (for the same place).
Response:
When I simply adjusted the brightness of the photo and added color and shape, it showed a completely different state. It looks like a fantasy story about a prison club at midnight. I think this technique can be appropriately applied in our project instead of focusing on the depiction of animated characters. In this situation, a story is imparted directly to the audience, with little or no interpretation necessary.
WK 5 - Objects Are Not Exhausted - Tree
WK 5 - Objects Are Not Exhausted - Test -1
WK 5 - Objects Are Not Exhausted
Theme:
Objects Are Not Exhausted
Context:
Object-Oriented Ontology - In metaphysics, object-oriented ontology (OOO) is a 21st-century Heidegger-influenced school of thought that rejects the privileging of human existence over the existence of nonhuman objects.
This week our theme is very philosophical and I love the calming feeling that plants bring to me. I also like objects which are far away from us, or something we can't see, such as clouds or wind. We can't see or capture the wind but still can feel it, Especially when I hear the rustle of the wind through the leaves, my first reaction is the wind rises rather than the leaves is rustling. I think this is a very strong point of interaction between objects.
In most of the traditional Chinese painting (ink), people present wind through drawing tree or grass. Present the wind by showing the relationship between wind and other objects. Inspired by Maomei Be's work "Reeds in the wind"
WK 5 - Objects Are Not Exhausted - Test -2
I want to observe the relationship between objects from the perspective of a tree.
Method:
I want to observe the relationship between wind and plants from the perspective of a tree. Therefore, I recorded 4 videos for a tree, in front of my apartment, then made an environment in Unity. It is much easier to simulate the effects of weather, such as wind and rain. Also, want a more realistic environment to generate viewers into the role.
Response:
We always go from individual initiative to other objects. Introverted attitudes view the outer world in terms of the self's subjective ideal, so we attempt to make the outer world more like the inner self. Try to let go of our subjective thoughts and observe the world, the objects around us. We may find a lot of novelty.
WK 7 - Characters and Events
WK 7 - Characters And Events - Test -1
Method:
To present the relationship between character and environment. I am going to create a particle world with black and white color. The particles keep changing colors between them. Use Maya particles and render them in 2D. The color-changing particles are created in TV Paint. Then combine them in After Effect.
Response:
This project shows how the environment inform character’s development but the world respond in turn to character’s actions. The particle world colour should be changed as particles keep changing color.
WK 7 - Characters And Events - Test -2
Week 7 exercise connect to my studio project which is a 2D animation. I am interested in making hybrid animation. Explore how to combine 2D and 3D assets. I tried to make a 3D particle in Maya and render to 2D. It was a really simple experiment but valuable to me. In last semester, I combined 3D background and 2D character in my studio work instead of 3D animation. This attempt can be a good start.
WK 8 - Time As Material
Theme:
Time As Material
Context:
1. Red Dwarf - Backwards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EahHThBjDB0
2. Hausu Cat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=wih4SX4MZJ4
3. Dead Island: Official Announcement Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=101&v=lZqrG1bdGtg
http://www.semiotics.net.cn/userfiles/images/582888b9d3f3c715ed404134486cfb15.pdf
Story-time is the sequence of events and the length of time that passes in the story which refer to the 'real time' of the events. Discourse-time(is the time taken to narrate the events), on the other hand, covers the length of time that is taken up by the telling (or reading) of the story and the sequence of events as they are presented in discourse. Time in narrative is understood as a subjective time, which is the rearrangement of objective events by the narrator.
The Dead Island: Official Announcement Trailer is a perfect display of how telling a narrative in reverse. Starting with the image of a dead girl and reversing the story back to it’s origin begs the audience to see how it all began. I would like to explore the narrative possibilities of time. How does the time affect our understanding of the story.
Video - 1
Video - 2
Method:
Fictive Time
Telling different stories through managing time (time-reversal and stretch). I chose some short movements and combined them into a video. Each movement is a separate unit. In the first version, I reverse the second half of the video (all unit). In the second version, the entire video is reversed after randomly reversing different units (separate unit).
Video source - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwoovgCyhBU
Response:
This exercise inspired my week 4 studio animatic and effect my Iol final project.
I used comic panels to frame the movement to leave the audience more imagination space, enhance the audience’s sense of participation and interactivity. Meanwhile, tried to set subjective time to the audience. Reversed time for these actions, which shows a completely different meaning from the original. I put these actions in the video to tell a story about lovers. Also, expand the story narrative by adjusting the partial or overall time. Extended to the future plot or story by imagination.
WK 9 - Forces
Theme:
Forces
Context:
1. Only can be something that you are most frightened the most.
2. Make using NotePad
3.Everything is liquid
Animation
Process
Method:
One of the things that I fear most is darkness. Therefore, I tried to make a frame-by-frame animation with Notes. The black liquid flows down from the top and finally takes up the whole screen.
Response:
I used to try to separate forces from solutions when I think about my design ideas. Because I don't want my idea to be influenced too much by forces. From this work, I found that make something under the forces let me think in a different way. There are facts about the world that I must accept in order to make a design work. I take the forces into account in my design so that it stands. The forces we got which might look ridicules. What will happen if we treat those things as if they were physical laws? The value of considering forces is we can answer questions about how to shape the design solution by inquiring into the forces that bear on it. The fitness between the forces bearing on the design and solutions under consideration is the key point of design work.
Reflective Archive
During these 12 weeks, we faced many challenges. observation, tinkering as method, found objects, discussions of place, objects are not exhausted, characters and events, time, forces.
Mainly inspired by observation(week1) and tinkering as method(week2). I continue with week 5 exercise, which is a 3D environment built in Unity. To make a visual gallery for final presentation. Players can walk around and find objects by themselves in the forest. There are no signs in this environment, mainly rely on sound guidance (some of the works just image). Objects in the scene are randomly placed. Objects in the scene are randomly placed. The player will hear the sound within the periphery of 50 meters radius of the works and go wherever they want.
Week 7 exercise connect to my studio work which is a 2D animation. I am interested in making hybrid animation. Explore how to combine 2D and 3D assets. I tried to make a 3D particle in Maya and render to 2D. It was a really simple experiment but valuable to me. In last semester, I combined 3D background and 2D character in my studio work instead of 3D animation. This attempt can be a good start.
Week 8 exercise inspired me on IOL project. How the fictive time affects narratives. I wonder if I can apply this concept to IOL. To break down the movement into frames and reorganize them randomly, see how people read these movements and the different narratives that they might build in their mind.