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.