Monthly Archives: December 2016

Embodied Space: Analogous Scanning of The Body

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Embodied Space: Analogous Scanning of The Body

Head Sculpture Final 1

Drawing according to photos

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Frontal and side views taken by Jose

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Frontal and side drawings

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Proportions

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Measurement made with a handmade tool

The tool is made of wooden skewers and cardboard

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Making the cardboard skeleton

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Assemble the cardboards

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img_3201-copyimg_2821img_2849img_2860img_3018img_3030img_3038Head Sculpture Final 1

Making process

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For this project, our final piece is a sculpture of our heads. The making process made me realized both the beauty of the muscles and bones arrangement in our body and the art of sculpture. Our bodies are actually amazing proportional and logical, but we are different from one another because of the various details that we have, such as the size of Cheekbones and the distance between our eyes.

We start with drawing practice of the Vitruvian Man. We also learnt about the golden ratio and other natural forms. Amazingly I found that our bodies are actually so logical and proportional that they can fit into these ratios.

Jose helped us to take the frontal and side photos of our heads. I then created a 1” x1” grid, and drew the photos on tracing paper on the grid. I also created a handmade tool with the wooden skewers and corrugated cardboard. With the help of Lea and Xia, I measured sizes of my head from different levels and angles, and transfer the ovals to cardboard. After cutting out these ovals, I adjusted them to make sure that they are symmetrical and their edges are smooth. I then cut out some slits from these ovals and assembled them together with a metal pipe for support.

The cardboard formed a skeleton of my head. I then inserted some Styrofoam into those empty spaces, glue them with Elmer’s glue and cut them to make sure that they fit the outline. Afterthat, I used a tool called the surefoam file to shave my head, which is basically a scraper. The surface of foam became smooth, and finaly all the hollow spaces are filled.

Finally, I put soft clay upon the foam head, and made my eyes, lips, nose and ears with the help from Professor Jose.


Learning Portfolio Reflection Post

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Our Bridge 4 Project is a visual analysis essay of a dystopian film. I watched several clips of some dystopian films from the recommended list, such as Uzumaki, the black mirror series and the Omega Man, and finally settled down on the Omega Man. Because I liked old things and its 70-ish feelings really attracted me. This film is really rich in visuals. I watched it twice and always found a lot of well-designed elements to write about.

Currently we’ve only finished the first draft of the essay. My first draft is kind of disorganized and my thesis doesn’t summarize my main points well. After doing the peer review and individual meeting with Rachel, I know better how to fix these problems. I also learnt some new perspectives of analyzing the visuals from the essays wrote by my peers (Alex and Prachi)

At the same time, the project of  my studio class is to create a dystopian film. Since we need to have a film that is completely different from any dystopian we’ve ever seen, the content of The Omega Man doesn’t help us too much.  Although both of the dystopias include a city infected ( the Omega Man’s city is infected  by a plague and ours is infected by bugs). However, writing the seminar essay helped us in the shooting and editing processes. For example, I changed the contrast, exposure and saturation of one of our scene to show a eerie aura. This was inspired by the color used in The Omega Man which I analyzed in the essay.

Originally I was a bit confused about how to shoot a dystopian video. However, after watching the Omega Man and other film clips in the seminar class, I got a better sense of dystopian videos. The previous excursion of going to Moschino and writing a paper about it also helped me with this assignment. I knew better how to do close visual analysis, such as color, costume, and how to connect the visuals to a specific theme. Both Fashion and Film share this connection.

For the research part, I searched some film reviews and scholarly sources. The film reviews were super helpful, although most of them were written in an informal way, they helped me to see the film in different perspectives, so that I can dig out more interesting aspects of the film. The scholarly sources helped me to enrich my content. For example, if I don’t understand color theory, I can search it in scholarly sources and blend it into my paper to make it more persuasive.

Artist Statement for Integratives

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We have three projects for Integrative Studio in total: prosthetic headpiece, memory palace and  dystopian film. Looking back to what I’ve done, I see my work more like self expression. The instruction of the three projects was very broad, so it gave me more opportunities to experiment and explore. I didn’t aim to express some emotion and identities,  but I usually ended up giving these out unconsciously.

My headpiece is something connects the wearer’s ears and mouth. It aims to provide a private space especially for introverts. Looking back I can see myself in this piece. I myself is an introvert and is always longing for some time I can spend with myself and gain “energy” from it. At that time I was also living in a triple in the school dorm which made me feel that all my privacy was robbed. That became a stimulation that made me to do it.

My second piece is a memory palace. It’s a group project and I really like how my studio and seminar content match together well . My partner was Shykira. She’s  talented and easy-going. I interviewed her in my Integrative Seminar Class and I create the art work according to her memory and her personality I interpreted in my Studio Class. I chose to make a booklet with mainly colored pencils. I cut some holes on it to make sliding effects, and I also cut some figures of her posing in different direction. I used these figures to show her moving in the booklet for my final stop motion video. Though time consuming, I really enjoy making the stop motion because it allowed me to make shoots that can’t be acted in reality. For example, in one shoot, Shykira was having a nap with a booklet, and suddenly her fingers touched the paper and she transformed into a small cute figure and started traveling through the booklet. In the end, she was out of the booklet, woke up and discovered that it’s just a dream. In addition, I also enjoy adding sounds to this video. I used Shykira’s favorite song “skinny love” by Birdy and the intro of Peninsula Iron Box by Jay Chou. Because that song also have someone “drop into” a memory box, the intro felt similar to what I was trying to convey.

The third project is the dystopia film. It is still in progress and I am going to work with Madeline and Alexa to make a short film showing a society captured with bugs. I think what is good about group project is we can learn a lot from group members. For example, Madeline’s makeup for special effect really amazed me. At first this project confused me and my group a little bit, because it  was so hard to make a story out of nothing and fit it into  the dystopia. We usually just thought about how the dystopia was like. But after working for a while, our anxiety faded and  our direction gradually became clearer. What I learnt from this project is if you were stuck with ideas, just start working on sketchbook or anything else and the direction will finally emerge with the work.

 

Reference: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh ( Van Gogh’s letters to Theo)

He was my favorite painter and I learnt how to describe my own work  through his letters.