Practical Work-form a mass

Crowds of people were cheering for players. The people had complicated behaviors which formed an unified composition, and with only one goal.

pure fireworks&light

On New Year’s Eve I didn’t attend the exciting countdown at London Eye. But I took some photos of the fireworks which is out of focus, I really like the effect when we look at the world slightly out of focus. It became simple and pure.

DEFINITIONS.2.二.silhouette

I am always enamoured with silhouette, shadow which represent a simplified world. Silhouette keeps outline but reduces complex detail of surface.

I found a beautiful silhouette behind a huge sculpture in V&A Museum. Because parts of sculpture are far from the wall, but parts of are close,  the shadow combines clear and obscure well. 

 

Some artists as reference

I searched some more practicians who did many brilliant abstract films.

Len Lye (1901-1980) was a New Zealand-born artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture. (from wikipedia)

Color Cry
Swinging the Lambeth Walk 
a colour box

Jules Engel (1909-2003) was a Jewish-Hungarian American filmmaker, painter, sculptor, graphic artist, set designer, and director of live action and animated films, and teacher. (from wikipedia)

Swan
Silence

Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967) was an abstract animator, filmmaker and painter. (from wikipedia)

Early Abstractions
Fantasia

Norman Mclaren (1914-1987) was a Scottish-born Canadian animator and film director. (from wikipedia)

Synchromy
Lines vertical

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I am preparing for my research paper as well. I want to discuss somthing about how to use simple visualization to give more immersion.

Processing intro

When I am sitting in a room, I will be attracted by floating dust if there was a beam of light. The dust floats in a beautiful and elegant rhythm. That scene could be used in my project.

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Today Andy introduces some interesting websites and works made by processing.

I’ve started reading a book for learning processing some days ago. Because my friend told me that the book is easily understood. However, what I can do  is still very simple graphics until now.  I will do better because I focus on my project proposal recently.

I found an animation made by processing, it looks like thousands of birds flying past. I like the graphic thing.

The paper about immersion

I’ve read the paper “Two Myths about Immersion in New Storytelling Media” by Pierre Gander.

It’s a long, dialectic and useful article. I learned how to write a dissertation in a prudent methodical way, which is different from my previous essays in BA course.

He builds some arguments and then gives many examples to disprove them.

Whatever Gander’s paper argues two myths about immersion in new storytelling media are correct or incorrect. The more immersive audience’s experience is, the more successful the project is. That’s what I am looking for, at least.

One of two myths what he discusses in his article is “more is better” which is related to my project concept “simplicity and complexity” . In my opinion, “more is better” or “less is better” depends on audiences themselves or different surroundings. Just like a post I wrote couple days ago, sometimes a simple image or story is much more interesting and thought-provoking than a complicated one. More information or advanced technology may not increase immersion, but distracts audiences’ attention from the image or story.

So if we can’t decide which one is better, why not give the choice to audience? So I am considering to do an interactive work to lead audience choosing what they prefer.

shadow simplifies complexity

The most common and direct sample of simplifying complexity is shadow. 

Where sun or light exists there is always a simplicity following a complexity.

First Tutorial

I’ve filled the tutorial form. Here it is.

Issues discussed/Subject:

I am willing to do something about simplicity and complexity, but how? In what kind of form?

 I’ve did some research about simplicity, like John Maeda’s the Laws of Simplicity. How to combine theory with practice?

 Simplicity is a quite eastern thinking, how to balance eastern and western thinking in my project?

 When I show my work in a simple way, time is changing all the time. Time is complex, and it may change many things around the work. How to consider it? Think about audio as well.

 

 Comments/Notes

Research more practicians of simplicity. Tutor’s inspiration: Dan Graham, Piet Mondrian’s Minimalist art, John Pawson’s architecture.

 Keep learning processing to help and develop my project.

 Keep researching.

 Record every website I’ve seen as a reference and put it on blog. 

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Andy give me two great examples of practicians who did many works about simplicity. John Pawson and Piet Mondrian.

John Pawson is a British designer associated with minimalism. I want to borrow John Pawson’s book Minimum.

insomnia

Last Night, I lost sleep.

Not because of moving into new house, just snatchy, drunk music of violin or something else annoyed me. Even pretty music it’s annoying when I want to go to sleep.

I closed eyes, did nothing, but couldn’t help thinking the sound I heard. I spoke to myself :” Stop thinking!”, but it didn’t work at all. I imagined what the player was doing — was he or she throwing up and playing at the same time? The funnier I thought about, the harder to get some sleep.  That’s interesting but painful because I planned a lovely morning run on next day.

Then I got an idea: what if totally opposite or different pictures come out when we’re listening somthing. For example, we hear the noise of jet planes passing overhead, but we see an elephant snoring.

That will be interesting in animation what just has simple lines in a black background.

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Next morning when I wake up, everything is perfect. I can hear warble and see the light of the early morning sun coming through the light blue curtain.

First Post

I have been busy with my residence in London recently. These days were mess, but fortunately they’ve ended.

It’s a bit late to start blogging now.

Here is my project proposal when I was applying for the course. I need more development and still looking for some inspirations for updating my project.

I want to explore an issue about too many distractions to concentrate on one thing. This is a common situation that people face everyday. Somebody may be worry, but somebody may not mind distraction, never even conscious of it. It’s harder and harder to try meditation (as in Zen) in modern society. I hope my work could let audience stop for a while to think about the issue.

Hiroshi Sugimoto is one of my favorite artists. His photography series “Seascapes” integrate harmonious composition and the beauty of nature to engender a sense of the sublime, of timelessness. Philosophical thinking of time and timeless is always brought from his works such as “Theaters” series. The Hasselblad Foundation’s citation: Sugimoto combines Eastern meditative ideas with Western cultural motifs.

seascapes

I will use interview and survey with people of different ages, different culture backgrounds and different life styles for researching the issue. Photography is a great way to record and search as well. Then I will do many conceptions and tests for completing my theme.