New Media Workshop at SMU

This is the second day of the new media workshop. It feels like I am back in school all over again. We are obliged to do a blog post with pictures and videos.
Three other ladies and I went on a real 'difficult' mission- take photos and videos. I captured some real interesting details of Chijmes.

We ended our 'venture' at Raffles City, wondering around aimlessly, until we saw....
The Christmas Tree!

Code Blue-Photography Exhibition

On 31st Mar - 1 Apr, the Code Blue special event was held at Central Forum with displays such as fish tanks with a twist, educational panels and two photo exhibition. One is a showcase of photographs sponsored by WildSingaopore but edited and processed by me. The other is wholly my own darlings. I am glad that I am part of this team and had a great time taking and processing these photographs. Some of these photographs seen here are not shown during the exhibition. There were 28 photos of the "Trashing Collection Trip) at the Code Blue exhibition. Some of them are not here while I have added a few new ones here. There are more fun shoots available on my Facebook, if you are my friend you can take a look there.

Polariods are taken my Sor, only one by me because I realised I am not an octopus after the first shot.

To Be Exhibited

Location: Central Library Entrance Lobby
Date: 1st-2nd week of Dec (exact date of my team's exhibition will be updated once it is up)Just look out for it, since everyone will be mugging there anyway.


Brokenness
.:Artist’s Statement:.

Singapore, in many aspects, is dependent on other countries, such as resources, standards and even perceptions. In this confined and limited room for display, the ideal and appreciation of Art are restricted by the limited exposure of the locals and their standard of what is ‘good art’. The quality of a work is usually but sadly attributed to the renown of the art school the artists attend. Thus, many artists though very talented are not recognized, and some give up the pursuit of their dreams. This series of photos is a personal take of the shared views of those in the struggle for artistic expression and recognition. The process leaves them despaired, desolate and shattered.

My series use the violin as the main subject to represent the Arts. The violin is an instrument that parents want their kids to learn at a very young age. It has notions of being exclusive, expensive and upper class. However, this blind pursuit has removed the essence of learning to play a good piece of music with the violin. The violin is seen to most Singaporean parents as a status symbol rather than a musical instrument. This series aims to change the perceptions of Singaporeans, through depicting the reality of a musician’s emotional struggle, one that is filled with passion but obstructed by several factors innate in our society.

Missing and Broken
In the beginning, some things are not in place, I just have to keep on searching.

A reverted Smile
A broken string and a broken smile, where am I heading?

A worn off bow
Hairs of a bow tear apart and break away; my heart is exhausted and my passion fades.

Shattered
The violin falls onto the ground. It is shattered.

Brokenness
It is shattered, it is desolated. I lose my fighting spirit to go on.

The End
Passion dies, marking the end of my little world - the world of my music.

Learning Process
Throughout this process, I learn to have balance of having deep meanings attached to my photographs and depicting something that others will be able to understand. I am more sensitive with capturing the forms and the play of lights, how it will affect the ‘temperature’ of the images and at the entire atmosphere of the images now. Also allowing my emotions speak by itself as I search for the element to portray these emotions. It is like some Art films, one lets his/her inner state of mind run wild and try to ‘catch it back’ or control the cognitive and let the rational works in displaying the subject matter to the general public. Hmmm yes, I think I do not really make any sense to you.

Self and Peer Assessment (*updated)

I felt that I nail it, the theme, the fine arts and the emotions for my final exhibited (going to be exhibited) photos, giving myself 100/100. Besides that, I felt that Paul and Mike also did well this time, 100/100. Paul captured the emotions with the play of colors, focusing on the contrasting red, white and black. Mike did a brilliant studio shot of a ballerina. I look the background Mike chose, the grays complements with the negative emotions of the ballerina at the same time portraying a classic look of ballet dancing. Meimei and Mark nailed the formalism of photography, however lack the ‘fine arts’ in the photographer, at least this is personal, because fine arts is really subjective. I thought Ivy has this really strong concept, but it wasn’t depicted that strongly from her photographs, I felt that ultimately the photographs need to speak more by itself. I felt that we would have done better with more daring distortions of our photographs, more cooperation in exploring the topic and playing with different techniques.

Final Exhbition (Phase Four)

Death
Death of a musician's dreams and career as he is slowly forgotten

Death 2

The reverted smile

Short of one, rejected one
The missing string refers to the missing local talents, the broken string stance for one that is losing faith and passion.Sandwich
The external obstacles refrained the musician from moving forward

Final Exhibition (Phase three)

Desolate
The sound of music dies as the strings lose their paths.

Discarded
There is no point in pursuing something, when the avenue to it is no longer of any use.

Hide
I need a rest right now

Brokenness
My violin is shattered, likewise my heart

- Commercial shoot
A Broken Promise
The string broke in protest as its beautiful sound is no longer appreciated by people

Fragmented
The violin falls onto the ground. I lose my fighting spirit. It is shattered, it is gone.

Fragmented 2
It is shattered, it is gone, it is forgotten.

Final Exhbition (Phase Two)

This time round, I tried to exaggerate the emotion of being abandoned and fragmented emotions of an artist. I loosen the strings and 'dumped' at the corner of HDB void deck where is dirty. Create also the isolated and desolate atmosphere.


The light brown piece is call the bridge.

Final Exhbition (Phase One)

Brokenness Series 1

In this series I explore how to evoke the feeling of being abandoned and also in the last picture, the vigorous movement of playing violin. My Reddy felt that we should be thinking of the emotion and then think about whats the first subject matter that comes to my mine. I still thought of violin actually, because this instrument itself is so fragile, brittle. The lifetime of each parts of the violin is also very different. For example the bridge (the wooden part that holds the strings) wore off faster depending on how vigorious one plays. The violin is so expensive, yet so easily broken, you need all the protective covers and polish to preserve its quality and shine.
Hmmm abit like SLR cameras =p

Matters regarding working with raw NEF files (NIKON)

Dear All,

Some of you who are using Nikon cameras and using Photoshop CS2 or 3 to work with ur raw NEF files may be facing problem such as the Photoshop does not recognise the file format. That is because the Plugs-in not updated to read the NEF files. So follow this link, it has the updates for different cameras, I am using D50 and this plug-in works for me. Arg ..yes I almost fainted searching for these info.

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3587

Here is the list for cameras compatible for this plug-in:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html

Singapore Culture

Singapore Culture

To me Singapore culture encompasses a couple of areas, linguistics, food, gesture, rituals and behaviors. I will like to introduce what I call the hybrid cultures. Hybrid cultures are norms or saying that are derived from the nature of multiracial Singapore and not originated from any race or religion per say. The hybrid cultures include norms, gestures and language that evolve through periods and different people.

Hybrid Culture

Food like Roti John and Rojak are not really originated from Malay or Indian food. Even Rojak itself, has a different between Indian and Chinese Rojak. Roti John was supposedly influence by the French baguette.

Next, Kiasu( afraid to lose) and Kiasi ( afraid of death) is not really a from China, as long as you are a Singaporean, people label you as that. What bothers me is that these behaviors seem to be overstated in Singapore context. When I was traveling, I have seen the same behavior among the Japanese, Koreans, Australians and Americans (especially Kiasu, when people will queue to enter a big sale in a departmental store). What makes ‘Kiasi and Kiasi’ is because we give it a ‘name’ while foreigners simply call it ‘wanting to be the first’. On a second thought, what make it a Singapore statement is really the publication of the magazine “ Mr Kiasu” some donkey years when I was still in elementary school.

The Singaporean Gesture

Gesture meaning, an action, a sign or signal, it could mean offensive to foreigners who may not comprehend the meanings attached to them. For example when someone says “Nah”, it means “here take it”. However, “na4” in Mandarin refers to “there” not “here”. What you can derived from here is we use ‘sound and tone’ to refer to something or say something instead of really spelling it out in full sentences.

In Singapore there is also this thing about minding your own business. You don’t really see people in each greeting each other “good morning” or “good afternoon”, except for what we practice in elementary, it seems like we have escape from the horror in elementary school and have decided to ditch the whole concept or politeness. Nowadays, in campus you just hear people go “hey…” or “hallow….”. I remember in one occasion, the SMART was pushing for the good service campaign and encourage the drivers to greet their passengers. When I board this bus, the driver started greeting every single passenger and bidding farewell to those who alighted the bus. Some commuters star at him weirdly, while only about 10% smile, greet or just nod the head. I am the 1% I greet and wave a ‘big goodbye’.

Linguistic – the post Singlish

I am sure everyone is going to talk about Singlish, but what I discovered is a whole new language, which I call ‘post Singlish’ or the new Singlish. They are not the normal ‘lor, lah, leh, hor, walau…’ These are the lingoes, which only people from the same generation will understand. Usually the pioneers are the secondary/ high school kids who invented these terms. I remember back in my school days we like to use ‘duh’ and ‘dieded’ a lot. ‘Duh’ means something like ‘of course... Then what do you think’ it is really that complex to explain this word. ‘Dieded’ same from the word ‘die’ and it just means ‘died really badly’, it usually don’t refer to someone really pass away, it is usually used in the context of one is in deep shit.

Cultural Cringe

Interestingly, when people ask, “What is Singapore culture?” more often than not, people said ‘Singlish’ and it is labeled as inferior because Singlish is not the correct English. However, there are those who are proud of this ‘language’, it is unique not everyone can understand it; it is like a secret when we speak that overseas. For those who think their culture as being inferior sometimes only realize the superiority when they travel overseas and experience a culture shock, then they will treasure the culture that is so closely attached to themselves, their attitudes and behaviors. I felt that this sense of cultural cringe evolves from the how people always feel that the grass is always greener at the other side. People are always not satisfied about what they have. Especially in this small young country, many are still in the process of breaking out from conventions and venturing out to achieve dreams, they feel restrained and limited in Singapore. They want more freedom of speech and more humanity rights. The recent section 377A explains it all, public voices are not silent anymore. They are active.

Assignment 6 - Commercial Photography -Interpretation of images

Chosen Ad

Nagaraya Nuts
Advertising Agency: PC&V Communications, Philippines

Slogan: Time to go for zero trans fats and zero cholesterol. Nagaraya.

About our presentation:
My team explores on how the target audience will see the ads, in what it the ads effective in targeting their consumers using theories and models of communications and how we as students interpret the images from an outside perspective considering that we are not based in Philippines.

Models Used to Interpret
1. Elaboration Likelihood model explain why the ad uses humor, it is most suitable for products that require low involvement.

2. Peire’s Theory – iconic, indexical, and symbolic to infer meanings and messages
Symbolic:
Guests and baby - celebration of newborn (image)
Trans fat -bad for health (caption)
Iconic
People-Philipinoes
Indexical
Chair stuck to her butt -she is too fat
When ties in with the caption, it means that she should eat Nagaraya nuts

3. Tropes
Metonymy
Trans fats and cholesterols signify over weight
(Commonly associated)
Synecdoche
The woman’s butt is too big denotes her as being overall too fat and needs a solution
( butt refers to fat body and butt is part of the body)

4. Connotations and Denotations
In this ad, both connotations and denotations derived into the end message that the woman is too fat that she is stuck with the chair, thus she should go for lower fat intake, which is to eat Nagaraya nuts.

How Target Audience Decode the Message
First, the target audiences are really based in Philippines, those who are fat or think they are obese and als0o people who are obsess with the ideal image of slim. The used of Philippinoes in the ads is the right choice as audience could relate with the people in the print. It is also a realistic depiction of a gathering of a celebration of the new born. Audience can infer this from their cultural background as Philippines is known for their warm and celebration of festivals. Nothing absurd is inserted in the print, even when the chair is stuck; it is something that could really happen, not surrealistic e.g people flying in the sky. The use of ordinary people also allows audience to relate themselves as being in her shoes or even in that scene (especially with the availability of the white space in the front of the image).

Fat being not desired by people is an almost universal thing, in Philippines and in Singapore. The image of ideal beauty is so common that little kids could tell you who is fat and who is not. Trans fats and cholesterol whether one has taken chemistry or not know what when the level is too high, it is bad for health and it is commonly associated with fat people. These are the most common terms used in slimming products and fats free products.

Also mentioned in our presentation, the use of humor on this topic, could have two extreme effects, some may be offended and see it as a mockery to fat people, while others will accept it as just for laugh. This depends on how seriously people view adds, their psychological state, like self-esteem, self satisfaction and their cultural background.

References are also made to the everyday life, be it the audience or us. Fat people are pressured by society to lose weight and to fit in. The ad pokes fun at embarrassing situations E.g the fat lady in the chair, the fat guy falling asleep in front of the TV and the butt crack. People are pressure to be in ideal shape. Beautiful people also have a fear of growing out of shape and losing their beauty. Ad speaks to them because it’s catching their weak point.

Other supporting ads:
Advertising Agency: Salles Chemistri, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Slogan: Forget about it. Men's preference will never change. Fit Light Yogurt

Peers' Work
I felt that many of the groups speak more about how they interpret the ads rather than how the targeted audience will interpret the ads. Really a lot of effort put in the theories portion. I am commenting on the below based on my memory because not everyone has put up their blog yet. I shall expand on this section once I check on others’ works.

Paul and Mei mei's ad was well chosen, although not many of us are familiar with gambling, but we are still able to infer the meanings from the ads, the use of polka cards and chips are something familiar to use as audiences of mass media, we see these in movies, the image of Les Vegas is also shaped by movies (for those who has never been there). I love what Paul and Mei mei code the “Death of the author and the birth of the reader”. Really when an author of a book finished his/her job, it is published and from that instances, the author will not have the ability to change anything in the book, the author is not there to explain to the reader exactly how he should read it.

For paintings, once the artist finished a painting, he died and the painting became famous and there is this ‘great rush’ to interpret his works, many interpretations but who knows which is the correct one, after all correct or not is not important, there should be freedom of how one should interpret the work based on one’s cultural experience. Paul and Meimei where did u get this code from? I thought Paul and Meimei did a great job, very detailed, analytical documentation of theories and how it is applied to human interpretation of images.

Gaze-Adding on to what Mr Reddy taught in class this week

Manet (1863) Luncheon on the Grass

Manet (1863) Olympia

Mike and Zhen Qin, I remember this presentation cos we have the print outs Haha. I am really interested in the topic of how to interpret the fashion magazine ads, especially the idea of GAZE.

According to Newman (1990), looking is a language; it is a mode of telling and a source of pleasure. According to him, male gaze in western context is structured for the privilege of man and a means of relegating women to the status of an object or what we usually call objectification. The gaze of man on woman can be sometimes interpreted as visually molesting the woman and in print ads, they are decoded as woman being a servant and giver function, a pleasure and a partner. Objectification can be expanded to more arena really than just being under the gaze of man. According Baker’s (2005) analysis on ads being the purveyor of women sexuality, the definition of objectification is woman functions as to look attractive only. They could be posed in awkward position or just focusing on some parts of the body to the extent that it is striped off from the actual human form.

At the first glance on the ad they presented, people may immediately think that the woman is subservient to the man and dependent on him. From Goffman’s (1979) analysis it be inferred as that because of how she is seated, bending towards to the man. However, the gaze tells other wise. The gaze is looking directly at the camera, a strong and confirming look. From here, the man is the pleasure; there is a change in gender role here. This also reminds me of Manet’s Olympia (1863). In the painting the woman is staring confidently at the viewer, as if insulted or threatened by her look, there was an uproar against this painting at that time. Likewise in the Luncheon on the Glass (1863), Manet again challenge the idea of gaze, that man now becomes the subject of the woman’s gaze. The nudes in his painting seem to challenge the viewer, “Are you looking at me, I know you are looking at me.”

I thought if Mike and Zhen Qin read up on Manet, they would have draw lots of interesting insights from his master works. Erm…. and also I still don’t understand why you mentioned Siva Natarajar. In Hinduism, Siva is equated to destruction. Natarajar is an aspect of Siva; it is the Lord of dance and music. So Siva Natarajar embraces creation, destruction and preservation. The unique thing about it is that it seems to be always in movement. It is said the “the figure never really stand and sit, they stand and sit in movement,” TK Sabapathy (2006-2007). So I really find it hard to relate a religious sculpture to this fashion ad. =)

On Second Thought
Look at the paintings by Manet and look again at the ads above from my presentation, don't you think their image of beauty is the same? So why look at them as fat people? Answer: exactly! It is our cultural experiences, social norms and influences that internalised in us that fat is unpretty. ( Of course they are some exceptions, some may still think they are pretty).

(*updated)Self Assessment:
I am giving my group 100/100 because we need answer to what Mr Reddy is loooking for, applying the concepts of semiotics at the same time using other models and defining how the target audience will look at the ads and how effective they are. We also make use of examples of other ads to support the one we used. The issue we presented is soming familiar to the class, thus when we present the slides, they could understand and able to relate it to their own societal standards and environment.