In this essay, I will be exploring a couple of artists and their artwork which was exhibited at The Tate Gallery (Located in Southbank), which related to the theme of ‘descent’ in which we were originally exploring during the first week of rotation week here at Ravensbourne. 

When visiting the gallery, there were various pieces which I thought were very interesting. There were a list however which we had to focus on, and out of the many that were displayed, the exhibition that stood out to me most was, ‘A Travel Without Visual Experience (2008)’. images of everyday life sightseeing within malaysia.

This piece was created by the Artist, Pak Sheung Chuen (1997), a photographer who’s known for working around the everyday urban environment, involving subtler interventions. 

The series of ‘A Travel without Visual Experience’ was based within a dark room with no light, and the only way which viewers where able to see the installations was to use a flashlight from our mobile phones. I thought this was a very effective way which would make the audiences focus on the very little details being portrayed within the images. 

The way that he had taken these photos were having his eyes closed, and wearing dark glasses throughout the 5 days that he was there, capturing images without being able to see through the help of his mother and tour guides to express what he was able to capture, using a simple point and shoot camera. He had quoted ‘’During the trip, I was still doing all the sightseeing and took many photos, but instead of seeing, I only used my body to sense and experience my surroundings’’. (Pak Sheung Chuen: until 18 November 2018 – Display at Tate Modern | Tate . http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern/display/performer-and-participant/pak-sheung-chuen) 

I think it’s a way of allowing us to gather the same sense and emotions as he was feeling when taking the photos, unaware of what the photos will look like once it is revealed as he takes them unknowingly of where he is or what it is that he is taking.

My immediate reaction was that it was beautiful, and I was incredibly amazed by how organised, true and authentic the photos were. It definitely showed the cultural identity of those living in the area/country. What I loved most about the pieces were the similarities, and the feeling of being ‘home’ when observing the photos, seeing the props which were used in the photos as well as the sceneries, as I am Vietnamese, and our culture is very familiar to Singaporeans and malaysians. 

One of my favourite pieces which Chuen captures was the photo of a family having a meal together around a red table. It felt like pure love and sweetness, and a sense of a relatable feeling. I feel it is a cultural tradition which has been passed down for generations as it is a sign of respectful mannerism to eat dinner around the table with your family, and this is something which I do everyday. Where as within the western country, it is okay for children to take their food up to their rooms and eat whenever they are hungry. As you can see also, the side dishes are placed in the middle of the table; this is so that everyone around the table is able to grab the food to eat with their ‘rice’, another typical food which all asians eat. Noticing also that they are using chopsticks, which again is something which has been passed down for generations, as kids within the asian culture are taught to use them since a very young age, whilst the Westerns would use cutleries like a fork, spoon and knife. Another final thing to notice is the fact that these people within the image are eating by a bowl whilst people within the Western usually eat using a plate, with one whole serving meal. 

Original

Edited (Brightened)

Another favourite of mine from the collection is the photo of what looks like a middle aged man standing randomly to the side of the image wearing sun glasses, and a bucket hat with sandals. What I specially liked about this image was the rawness of it being taken without adjusting the perfect angle or lighting with no filter to it which captures the trueness of what the scenary is. If you look at the sky, you see that it is a light hint of blue with mostly clouds and I like that it isn’t pigmented as if it was edited. 

In conclusion, the reason why I had chosen Pak Sheung Chuen series of art is because I thought it was one that related to the theme of descent most. It represented the asian culture as a whole well even though he had only visited malaysia. In the majority of the photos which he had taken, it wasn’t just a still image of people standing in it, but to me there was a story behind it, or a reason as to why an object was there within the photo. It links to descent because its a capturing movement of traditional events, objects and lifestyle which people within Asia continue to carry throughout the years of their lifeline in order to pass it onto the younger generation to come. 

On our last day of graphics design, we were split up into our four groups (C1, C2, C3 & C4) Whilst two groups were in the class assessing and presenting each others work, the other two groups including my own were set a task to go around the school building and create a structure/ words representing our theme. It was a challenge at first as we did not know how to go about it and where to start, but after a long discussion, and trying to combine everyone’s theme and opinions together, we decided to go with a class mate’s theme of ‘death penalty’ creating a cell with an electric chair and using the materials, cardboard, strings, brown tape and news paper which we collected from around our surroundings.

This was a fun project as it helped us work collaboratively.

Life is a short film directed by Marc Isaacs in 2001. He set himself up in a London Tower block’s lift. The video captures the moments between Isaccs and the residences revealing some important things that mattered to them.

Lift was a thought provoking short film. There were a lot of emotions that was conveyed from each of the individuals that came into the lift and encountered the video recorder.

There’s something quite unusually touching about the video in itself, The first few minutes into the video, I felt awkward and didn’t really understand the director’s intentions o what he was trying to portray.. Near the end, I started to realise the messages which were being conveyed deep beneath the words that were being expressed; a lot of hidden emotions.

Software tutorial taught us how to us photoshop and illustrator. I was glad that we had a lesson on how to use photoshop even though it’s something I’ve already learnt how to use it – it was a good way to refresh my mind on how to use the software. However, computers weren’t working and I was unable to borrow out a school laptop due to technical issues so I was paired up with a class mate. I didn’t want to slow him down so I used my initiative  and decided to use photoshop on my iPhone which is something I’m very good at.

Our goal was to get a random image from the movie ‘ocean’s 8’ and recreate it into a poster of our own.

The way that I did this edit was adding layers, citing and blending the images together with the red background (first layer) to create the red effect. I used the app ‘mildiv’ instead of illustrator as an alternative as I was working through my mobile.

I enjoyed this because it was something I was confident and comfortable with. The reasoning for making Rhianna the main focus is because she is a celebrity who’s always been talked about, and is considered hugely poplar especially to the younger audiences. more so, she is known as a singer, not an actor therefore you would imagine that the audiences specially her fans (which she has millions of) would be very keen to watch it. It is very obvious that she is known as she only needs to go by her first name like other actors and celebrities.

Fashion Textiles final piece which evolved making a final garment was quite tricky to say the least because I used a difficult shape I planned on making a body wear however decided to create a head wear instead as it seemed more appropriate. Furthermore, due to the patterns on my chosen shape taken from a zoomed architectural building image – it seemed more effective as a hat.

As we only had very little time and very little resources, fashion textiles here at Ravensbourne compared to textiles during A-levels has taught me to be more experimental with my dear, and understand that not everything will go as planned however, you are still able to make an outstanding outcome, which sometimes turns out more effective.

We was then given a task to go out as a 3 and take photos related to our theme.

At first I was extremely stuck and confused as to how I could’ve portrayed this, but we used magazines to help us create a vague idea of how we wanted our final photos turn out. For me, I wanted a lot of concentrated headshots, retro look hence the retro white glasses which really complimented m models outfit, and a bright red background which constructing well with the white. I also did bold red eyeshadow on her eyelids to allow her face to stand out further.

my final outcome for the fashion promotion collage, I tried to keep it as simple as possible therefore stuck to the colour red, white and black as I didn’t want the colour to be too overpowering to the point that the photo became unnoticeable. I enjoyed fashion promotion a lot more as I enjoy fashion promotion a lot more as I enjoy editing and photography. The only unsuccessful thing about this final project which I wished I would’ve changed was my final garment. I was not very happy with it. I think I could’ve done a lot better, and the other downfall was, my powerpoint kept glitching and shutting down therefore I failed to finish it completely.

FINAL DESIGN

Day 3 was my favourite day throughout the whole week. We were put into a random team of 5-6 people to create a bridge using the only materials we had including:

• Brown tape

• Cardboard

• Bamboo Sticks

• Elastic Bands

In the beginning the whole team had an idea of what the bridge should look like, and as a team we decided to incorporate all of our ideas together. Everything didn’t go 100% as expected through the process of making the bridge but because we gathered more ideas along the way, it helped make the bridge become more stable – but the majority of the plan and process went very well.

I believe we worked really well as a team and our final outcomes was somewhat simple but nice. It looked and felt stable. The vain reason for this is because we created a thick layer of bamboo sticks to hold the cardboard from below. We also created of thick layers of cardboard to hold the sticks in place.

Despite this, I believe that with a little more time, we definitely could’ve designed a better bridge with even more stability!

To end the day off, Geoff used his broken electric toy card to test the bridge and see how successful it was; whether the toy was able to cross the bridge successfully or not.

To conclude, the whole process was more or less a success and I enjoyed it a lot!

Our 2nd task was to practice the letters ‘g’ in different styles, the reasoning for this is due to it being known as the hardest letter to work/change. throughout the day we were also appointed to go around the o2/Greenwich area and search for 26 letters of the alphabet , punctuations and numbers 0-9. Initially you would think that t would be quite an easy task , however I did not want it to be easy. I wanted to push myself and make it a challenge, and be as creative as possible. This task turned out harder than I imagined.

midway throughout the day, unfortunately we were distracted by a bomb threat within the o2 which forced the entire university to evacuate the school facilities for healthy and safety reasons, and was not allowed back on site until another 2-3 hours later. Despite this, along the way, my friends and I kept up a positive attitude and continued with our search for the alphabetical letters. In the end, I did not managed to capture all numbers and punctuations like asked, but I managed to get all 26 letters, creating them to look as diverse as possible.