iamkevinisme

Graphic “Designer”.

I don’t really know if this blog post is related to this subject. But since it is the History of Art & DESIGN, and i’m going to talk about DESIGN, i figured i might as well. 

I had this ‘heated’ argument with my course-mates this afternoon about being a graphic designer. I forgot how we came to this topic, but i remember saying that I didn’t want to be a designer that is unable to contribute creatively into my work. My coursemates have this logical and realistic outlook that once we go into the industry, the creative process just stops, and we have to suffer the instructions of clients, because they are the one paying. If the client wants you to change something, you’ve gotta change it and you will have no voice at all. WHAT IF THEY DON’T PAY!? They are pretty adamant about it, maybe because one of them worked for a while before pursuing her degree.

We’ve talked about a lecturer (that should be remained anonymous) that we can see is quite successful. He drives a nice car, owns quite a number of companies. But i might go out on a limb here and say that he has lost his soul. He has replaced creativity with effectiveness. I can see from the way he speaks, when i present my ideas to him, that he is all about advertising, 100%. I’m not saying he is wrong, he is very successful and smart. My friend even said, “Well you just look at what car he is driving.” YES its a very nice car, but i don’t want to lose my soul in the process, if rudely put, i don’t want to sell my soul. I am an art student, a designer. I have a soul that needs to be expressed thru my designs. I don’t want to purely do it for the money or the clients.

I feel that it CANNOT be that way. It just can’t. I believe that as there is a function for a graphic designer to sell the product, we shouldn’t forget our arts. We are not pawns used by clients to move the mouse and design the way the client see fit, because to be honest that is what is happening and that is why we see so many ugly designs in shopping centers. I believe that there is a halfway point where the client communicates with the designer and when they work together and respects each others views, something good can happen and tats when we see DESIGN come in to play.

It’s sad and demotivating when i hear people say it is impossible to do that and once we get into the industry we will be brain-washed by the clients & we would go for the money. Well, I think if we have such negative outlook on our industry, why do we study graphic design in the first place? Why learn art?  Why not do advertising? That is why i think graphic design plays a bigger role, and not be devalued as a worthless course where we learn the basics of arts and softwares to be a slave to the clients. IT HAS TO, because basically my whole life is pinning on this course. 

However, there is hope for me, and my instinct because of what i’ve been seeing around the internet and magazines. I’ve read a magazines and websites and books, mostly are from the UK. And I see that it is possible to create fantastic designs and at the same time can sell. I know it is impossible to create such designs if what the ‘designer’ did was to move a mouse under puppeteering of the clients. 

I want to end this post with a paragraph I read from an inspiring book, “How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul” by Adrian Shaughnessy.

“On the one hand, we have those who believe that graphic design is a problem solving, business tool & that designers should suppress their desire for personal expression to ensure maximising the effectiveness of the content. While on the other hand, we have those who believe that although design undoubtedly has a problem solving function, it also has a cultural and aesthetic dimension, and its effectiveness is enhanced, not diminished, by personal expression.” - Adrian Shaughnessy, How To Be A Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul. 

BANG ON. I think the writer manage to say in one paragraph what i tried to say in a whole post. 

The Stone Breakers by Gustave Courbet.

Photosource: http://www.scottzagar.com/arthistory/images_gallery/195_stonebreakers_t.jpg

PART III: JUDGEMENT

            Courbet was a political artist that is part of the Communards in France in 1871 which consists of the working class that is against the ruling of the Second Empire by the Emperor Napoleon III. This painting is one of the most controversial paintings by Courbet.  This is because of the radical nature of the painting. 

            This painting functions as a method to show real life and not fancy, biblical or historical events of the past.  Courbet once declared, “Historical art is in essence contemporary”. (Musée d’Orsay, 2006).  Through this painting, Courbet attempted to change the normal practices of painting in his time in both imitative and formalism manner and because of this he is considered the pioneer of realism art.

            During his time, the painting’s subject matters are often imitative of Gods, heroes, kings, and historical, mythical, or religious events. Delacroix is an example of an artist of such paintings. Courbet, despite admiring the works of Delacroix when he was younger, decided to challenge such traditions through The Stone Breakers. He radically changed the subject matters of his paintings to depict the poor, which is the working class. Instead of painting rich kings, he painted poor common people such as peasants, farmers and in this case, stone breakers in their common lifestyle.

            In the formalistic sense, Courbet rejected the romanticized way of painting, which often has dramatic lighting, high contrast and vibrant colours, such as that of the popular The Raft of Medusa by Theodore Gericault and Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix. In this painting, he used middle key value, with not much drastic contrasting colours. This painting also lacks elements widely used by romantic paintings which are psychic lines and implied shapes. He also challenged the tradition by painting this artwork in such a huge format. At the time, paintings of such large formats or sizes are reserved for ‘important’ events and what Courbet thinks is that the poor and common deserve to be empowered in such a manner too (Musée d’Orsay, 2006).

            An interesting point to note is how Courbet manages to link art with politics. He was unhappy with the way France was ruled by Emperor Napoleon III and he was a great supporter of the working class. Through this painting he also showed his stand in politics because of how he rejected the sugar-coated ideal world, and presented his own radical view of how it should be presented.

Kitsch.

We were asked by Dr. Ray to find out what is kitsch. What is the meaning of Kitsch. 

I find it quite difficult to understand it to be honest. The most easiest definition i can give to kitsch which i understand is, something that pretends to be of high standard, but is actually not. Or kitsch is things that takes advantage of the high standard of something, and use it for commercial reasons. 

I discovered that it is easier for me to spot kitsch in objects rather than in painting. I saw a lot of paintings that is regarded as kitsch but, i don’t get it. However, when i see objects, i can see if it is kitsch. 

In fact I myself own kitsch without realising it. 

Japanese Football Jersey Photo Frame & Michael Owen piggy bank.

Photo source: Kevin Chan

I think i’ve actually have that love hate kitsch feeling for a long time, just that i did not realise its kitsch, because i dunno wat it was. One place that i’m sure there will be a lot of kitsch are night markets here in Malaysia. Everytime I go to night markets, and i see all these objects on sale that tries to upgrade themselves, by linking themselves with things of higher standard, i get this feeling of “Erggh” but at the same time there are really hilarious. 

I looked on the web and i found Justin Bieber cups, Pepsi Jeans, Power Ranger watches, pokemon wallets. All which are very funny. 

Another kitsch is the columns that Dr. Ray and Mr. Liew Kung Yu talked about. Malaysia have all these Greek columns everywhere but we use them without really appreciating or using them the right way? This is actually what i told Ms. Clare the other day, I said why Malaysians use these columns is because we basically are just lazy. And when we renovate our house or whatever, we just chose those columns because they are nice, and what this does is to mass produce the columns probably in cast to imitate or to pretend to be the actual thing. 

I think this in a way also devalued the original piece. Because if i did not learn this subject, i would have thought that these columns are ‘normal’ and not derived from something so beautiful like the truly original columns from Greece. If i did not learn this subject, i would have been poisoned by inaccurate imitations of the Ancient Egyptians by Sunway Pyramids. 

But in a way, we have to give credit to Kitsch because i personally think it is actually quite creative. It might not be good, but i think its creative because of how people try to link things together, how they pull something from one part and fuse it with another part to create something. And that is why commercially it works, because we are attracted to kitsch. Why did i spend money on the two objects above? Because i am a fan of football and Michael Owen and i have a lot of spare coins. It could be wrong to do kitsch, but we gotta admit it works. 

Baroque, Rembrandt & The Internet.

In today’s class we discussed about the BaroqueEra.

One thing that I find particularly fascinating were the self-portraits of Rembrandt van Rijn. He was a famous artist of that era, and what he did was besides doing art that he was commissioned, he produced throughout his lifetime many self-portraits.

You can see some of the portraits at this website: http://www.rembrandtpainting.net/rembrandt_self_portraits.htm

What the portraits does is to tell us a story of a man’s life. I find it very interesting because in a way it allows us to experience a part of his life. It makes me feel that I am along for the journey of his life. It doesn’t even need to be his portraits, it could be portraits of any ordinary man and it will still be interesting to me. He started with portraits as a young boy, and you can see how he physically changes portrait by portrait. Even you can see how his does art throughout the portraits, there are some etchings, and some are painted with oil, even with effects of chiaroscuro.

I was also humoured by the facial expressions he has in the portraits, some have a surprised look, some fearful or shocked, some are calm and some he appeared to be in mid-speech. His costumes are also interesting, I was surprised to see him wearing a costume with asian designs and holding a keris. 

Source: http://artmight.com/albums/classic-r/Rembrandt-1606-1669/Rembrandt-Self-Portrait-with-a-Cap-openmouthed.jpg

 Source: http://www.codart.nl/images/Br003SelfPortraitInGorgetCa1629Indianapolis350.jpg

Source: http://www.mushtaqbhat.com/rembrandt/assets/images/sp1662Rem7.jpg

Dr. Ray said that these paintings showed his development of style, how his style and design in painting changed. In a way it acts like a clock showing how he age and how his life changes, from being a young man, a wealthy artist at his peak, and then an old man.  

I really wonder if the reason he did these portraits is because of narcism or Self-adoration. There are many reasons suspected to why he did it. But I think one of the reasons could be self-adoration.

What is interesting is how our generation now is actually doing the same thing. With social media around us, we post bits and pieces of our lives onto the internet, we update our facebook status, we tweet what we are doing, we blog.. and if we manage to retrace back a person’s facebook, twitter and blog, we basically know his or her life in and out. There’s even a scenario closer to Rembrandt’s which is a website called Dailybooth, where internet users can post images of themselves daily and so we can see how the person is changing physically and what is going in their lives by looking at what they are taking pictures with. So maybe what Rembrandt is doing is something like what we are doing now. I find it quite interesting because something that is so common now had already been done by someone hundreds of years ago. 

Through by Ai Weiwei

I’m going to upload a part of my report on Ai Weiwei’s artwork, Through. I recently did a report on one of his works and here it is. 

Source: http://www.sherman-scaf.org.au/images/article/139_85_article.jpg

Ai Weiwei, Through, 2007, Iron wood (Tieli wood), Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), tables, parts of beams and pillars from dismantled temples of the Qing Dynasty (1644 –1911)
400×800×1340 mm.

PART III: JUDGEMENT

            Ai’s artwork could be a propaganda tool and a medium to speak up against the Chinese government, which is a communist country yet authoritarian.  Ai who is famous for his pro-democracy activities uses this artwork to educate us to break out of traditions, revolt against systems that have been the norm but not necessarily good. This is interpreted by how he used old traditional dismantled materials which already have a function, and recreated something new, contemporary and beautiful.

            This is supported by the usage of materials from the Qing Dynasty. Qing Dynasty is the last dynasty in China, before the country turned into a republic due to the XinHai Revolution. This could be the reason why Ai used Qing Dynasty materials, because it shows a fallen system that has ruled for thousands of years and a birth of a new one.

Ai also applied formalism in this artwork. The aggressiveness, flamboyance and dynamism of the artwork are created by using diagonal pillars and tables intersecting each other. The formations seemed random but it created something of high aesthetic value. Using wood to create such effects also plays a role as we are not used to seeing wood designed in such a manner. Together with the large scale of this artwork, it poses quite an uncomfortable feeling. The scale of the artwork probably shows that it takes effort of a huge scale, to change something.

5 Examples of Greek & Egyptian Influence in Malaysia.

Photosource:http://j4z0el1.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/bukitjalil4.jpg

1. Stadiums.

This picture shows the National Stadium of Malaysia, Stadium Bukit Jalil.

The reason my group decided that this is adapted in Malaysia is because that it obviously allows citizens to come together and be entertained. The purpose of building stadiums, cinemas, and theaters allows a major event to be held only one time, but observed by hundreds or thousands of citizens. I think in Malaysia, being able to go to stadiums and theaters is a privilege. I think mostly it is because of the social ranking these places comes with. Stadiums are also largely influenced by the Colosseum in Rome. The fact that there are rankings in the seating organisations of these places is already intimidating enough. If you are well off, you are able to seat closer to the action, whereas if you are not so strong financially, you’ll be pushed to the back, I think this sort of grouping is due to the social rankings in Rome. I am not sure whether there are same practices done in ancient Greece, Epidaurus Theatre. 

Source: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v610/moonlitezz/segi.jpg

 2. Columns

Recently Dr. Ray invited a speaker to come speak in his lecture. The speaker is Mr. Liew Kung Yu, which has travelled around Malaysia doing research on Malaysian Culture. One thing that he found interesting is that Malaysian’s love columns, especially those of Greek. Greece has 3 orders of columns, Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. Basically, Doric have simple designs, Ionic with simpler scrolls, and Corinthian have much more complex floral carvings. 

Photo source: http://www.citizenarcane.com/files/2005/May/17/doric_ionic_corinthian.jpg

I was chatting with Ms. Clare, my tutor during one consultation and she said the reason why we see so many of these types of columns here in Malaysia is because the British liked these columns and since we were colonized by them before, we adapted to these columns, till the point that we use it almost everywhere. I think this columns show one thing in Malaysia, which is status. Mr. Liew showed us many pictures of these columns slightly altered and used in Malaysia. A lot of the pictures who applied Corinthian belonged to super bungalows  and the rich people, even some doric columns can be seen. These columns gives a sense of grandeur to the building. So in the picture above, we can observe the corinthian capital in Segi College. 

Back when Britain was colonizing Malaysia, they have built a lot of beautiful architecture with Greek influence in Malaysia. Particularly one architect, A.B. Hubbard, has been heavily involved in designing Greek influenced buildings in Malaysia. Surprisingly, the influence is not only one directional. I believe that having colonised Malaysia for so long, the British has been taken into Asian designs and with creativity, managed to fuse both aesthetic into one. Some of the examples of such are the KL Railway station. 

photosource: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Kuala_Lumpur_railway_station_(Rawang-Seremban_%26_Sentul-Port_Klang_Line)_(frontal_facade),_Kuala_Lumpur.jpg\

If you click to enlarge the image, you can see so many column influenced by the greek, but at the same time they exists in a structure that has a very Islamic look. I needed Dr. Ray to point this out to me but when i saw it, I really admired how beautiful this building is. 

Another interesting image,

photosource: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_v4pl6hLOqFs/S7tTDnre_MI/AAAAAAAAAAc/GHn0dBQyWx8/s1600/IMG_4593.jpg

You can see at the right side of the picture, there are 3 doric colums supporting a structure meant for muslims to clean up. It is another fusion between asian and western culture.

3. Theatre

photosource: http://www.pjla.com.my/sites/default/files/theatre%202.jpg

Theatre had a major influence all around the world. It is quite similar to the stadium, but it is about performing art. One of ancient greece’s famous theatre is the Epidaurus Theatre. Theatre has been a form of entertainment for many centuries and this is a small theatre here in Petaling Jaya, called the PJLA. From theatre, acting was born and  then lead to TV shows and movies we all enjoy today. 

Photosource:http://www.hanter.pl/uploads/Image/2011/04/06/swietozmarlych-8613/main/swietozmarlych.jpg?1302079551

4. Afterlife Offerings

This is one of the influences Ancient Egyptian have in Malaysia. Egypt is known for its mummies, its pyramids and of course the treasure buried together with the pharaohs in their tomb. This means that they believe that after people die, there is a life after that and they try their best to make it as pleasant as possible by giving them offerings. Chinese burns paper imitations of the things they want to give their ancestors, whereas in ancient egypt, pharaohs are buried with possessions. All these are based on a belief that there is afterlife and we should always make it as pleasant as possible for them because they have served us well when they are alive and we should repay them. 

Photosource:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/MalaysianParliament.jpg

5. Democracy

Democracy is founded in Athens and first thought of by Socrates. Democracy basically means that everyone in a community have the right to point out their opinion on how the community should be. Through time, democracy has taken a lot of different shapes and types, however the nature  remains the same. When British started to remove our Sultans from power, i believe that that helped us to be able to adapt to a system which is not ruled by a King, instead we took in democracy based on the British Westminster Democracy. 

History of Art & Design: Lecture 6.

A lot of times i realised that I don’t have much questions during the lecture, but after the lecture during times when i’m not focused on the lecture’s information, things start to flow. It’s funny.

Dr. Ray started the lecture about Greek theatre, and how it is the beginning of mimesis, which is basically acting. Greek performers don a mask, and when they are wearing the mask, they sort of take on another personality. Now I don’t really know how much of self-consciousness there is in the performer, do they truly feel the character and BE the character or do they still realise that they are acting. Because from my experience (or lack of) in doing plays through secondary or pre-university, i realise that i have this constant self awareness, I know i am not the character, i’m just acting it out, and that i feel is what makes me not a very good actor. There’s this term used in Hollywood, called Method Acting, where i think actors truly make themselves the character, and i think that is truly challenging, to forget yourself, and be another person for a moment of time, and sometime i feel it can be quite scary to loose yourself for that moment. 

Also I am truly amazed by the performers who have to totally neglect facial expressions because of the mask, and use language and gestures to portray out their emotions. Even the tonality of their speech is boring and flat, but for those who understand the language, i think the play is full of emotion. It’s a totally different kind of enjoyment i think. 

The Greek Theatre Mask (left) and what it reminds me of, Chinese Opera Mask (Right)

source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Mask_youngster_Louvre_S3044.jpg/250px-Mask_youngster_Louvre_S3044.jpg

source: http://allencentre.wikispaces.com/file/view/chinese_opera_4.jpg/35134267/chinese_opera_4.jpg

Dr. Ray also told us the story of Oresteia or The House of Atreus which is a trilogy of tragedies, a play during ancient Greece. The story basically is to educate us on what actions are right, and what actions are wrong, what we should do and what we shouldn’t do in life. Like for example in this play there are serious extreme terrible things such as We do not kill our own son, we do not do human sacrifice, we do not kill our own mother, we do not cheat on our spouse, you can read the story from the link above. Even from the examples i’ve given you can see that this trilogy is seriously immoral. 

This story, together with many many other stories, some religious and some not, educate us to have a conscience. They teach us to do what’s right and not to do what’s wrong. I mean it’s all fine and well, but in a way it does poison our mentality doesn’t it? Because in this world, i believe that there is no such things as a clear division of good and bad or black and white. There are always these grey areas, these mixtures of morality in real world. There is no perfectly good person, every good person has their weakness. And sometimes these weaknesses are what make us unique, because it would be a truly boring world if everyone is perfect and only do the good things. 

I recently came across this documentary on Ai Weiwei, while i was doing research on his artwork for an assignment. In this documentary he spent a day with another artist, Wim Delvoye. There’s this interesting dinner session both the artist are having, they were just chatting over dinner and Wim Delvoye said that he try not to be come to morally conscious because it reflects in the art. He questions: just because the moral of the art is good, it is considered good art? and he made a kind of questioning face. I think it is his questioning really has a point. All of us want to make art that sends a positive message. If you were to show me an artpiece with bad moral values, such as a Chinese artist photographing a dead infant being consumed, i couldn’t get the ‘beauty’ of it. It’s because my mind had been poisoned all the while of being morally good, and to be honest i know i am not. I guess we all need to have balance, and courage to explore the negative sides of things. 

History Of Art & Design: Lecture 5

This week we talked mostly about the evolution of sculptures through time, where Greece got influenced with the arts and sculptures from the Egyptians. We saw how through time, sculptures start to evolve to become more and more lifelike, beautiful, properly proportioned.

Timeline. Left to right.

Photo source: Dr. Ray Langenbach & Ms. Clare Tan

The images shows how Greece and Roman sculptures start to become more and more focused on the beauty of the body and how right it should be. Dr. Ray mentioned that they are obsessed with the human body. I can’t help but wonder if this is the start of the obsession of us wanting to live up to that “expectation” of beauty. Girls want to look curvaceous, guys want to be muscular and fit. What this sculpture did is to reiterate if not set what we see as beauty. I do believe that these sculptures influenced us to be obsessed with looking good. 

This chronological images of these sculptures as they start to get more and more beautiful through time reminds me of a thought i have that had been nonchalantly playing with. Why is it pleasing to the eye when a girl is curvaceous, and a guy is fit and muscular? Why isn’t fat people considered beautiful in our society? Why isn’t zit covered face beautiful to us? Does it trace back to the sculptures? Will our perception of beauty be different if the sculptures were of fat people sitting down eating and not standing up holding a spear?

**

Also Dr. Ray Langenbach touched a bit on how we read things. Not necessarily words, it could be images. What i consider as normal is reading from left to right, like what you are doing now. But Dr. Ray brought up the idea of people reading from right to the left. 

It is part of the sub-conscious. To be honest it is something i thought of too, but not in the images sense. I remember i had Malay friends who use to have Islamic Studies and their arabic writings are from the right to left. I was mildly shocked to see such things existed (of course i was still young that time) and being english educated as in not chinese educated, i later found out that chinese poems are read vertically downwards right to left.

so i was aware of such a variety of reading orientation, but not in reading images. So Dr. Ray said that we should try to break out of this subconcious, it might be  a subtle yet effortful change but i does makes a difference, probably more important when we are looking at art of different reading cultures.