shannonsamuel

[shannonsamuel]

Week 12 - Summative assessment preparation session 2

For this second question, we were asked to restate our artistic vision statement. For the first class activity, we had to find two design practices that related to the topic of social engagement. We focused on inclusivity and community the most of all the factors.  

We came up with a few examples of places that engaged with tradition and lineages and that was of importance to us. An example of that was the street lights in little india. Every Deepavali, also known as the festival of lights, there has been a long standing tradition of lighting up oil lamps to brighten the house, or village up. Bringing this into a modern time tradition and design, there are lights put up annually at Little India illuminating the whole street with colours and marks relating to hinduism and the deepavali celebration itself. We think that this is a smart way of bringing forward a traditionally motivated event and to combine it with design to create a socially and traditionally engaging design practice. 

To me, I felt that this was communicated as cultural design in areas around Singapore. I think that design is also about how it can be taken from an old tradition and made modern. It also has to be engaging to the younger generation and communicate with people across all ages. 

I really want to learn how to be able to condense my life into my art and how I can use what I love and what the world needs, just like how they do. I know that it may be a long shot but I really want to figure out what I'm good at and how I can use that to be able to build my passion into my career. From the recent lessons of CTS where we looked at our lives as well as knowing what changes a career could make, I have learnt that choosing a career that best describes me and my personality is really important and that could either enhance the way I live my life or completely change the way I view the world. 

I think that in terms of CTS, the way that I like to approach my work is through experimentation. The world is constantly changing, and adapting to that change is one of the things I love to do and also really like experimenting with, through art. That’s mainly how I generate ideas that are half original and half inspired by the world we live in. That’s why I do as much research as I possibly can and also try my best to make my work mostly original from the start. To me, my artistic vision statement not only includes this but is solely made up of this technique. 

Citations:

Accessed 29 October 2024.

[shannonsamuel]

Week 11 - Summative assessment preparation session 1

For this first question, we were asked to create manifestos in a group. “An art/ design manifesto is a public declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of an artist/ designer or movement.”

We then looked at a written example of a manifesto about good design work, ”Dieter Rams: Ten principles for good design” . To me, that example explained what a designer would look for in his work or what he would want his audience to view when looking at his work. Another example we looked at was,” Stefan Sagmeister: Manifesto #9” which stated ways of how he lives his life and what he notices in people. 

We looked at manifesto images like, “Red Alan's Manifesto, Grayson Perry (Royal Academician), 2014” as well, which mostly talks about how anything can be art. It also questions who decides whether art is good or bad. We looked at “John Maeda: The Laws of Simplicity” too which in definition states that simplicity even has its own complexities. I think when most people think of simplicity, people think of just a working project being easy to do and to understand. However, I believe that it is up to interpretation of how the audience views the work. 

After looking at all the inspiration works, we understood that manifestos in terms of design is the concept of how we as designers make art. Each of us have different processes and different ways of thinking and I think that it really shows in our art styles and how we artistically perceive things around us as well. I think that creating a manifesto makes it clearer for an artist to be able to sense what concept they usually lean towards. 

We then started on our manifesto and we decided to make it based on what we felt art was to each of us. I think that this in a sense broadened our perspectives to what art could be to each of us. My quote was chosen from the internet and it talks about the different factors of a good design. The picture can be seen below and to me, it creates a guide of how a designer should work towards their art projects. It gives them a checklist for them to know what to follow and it also influences generations of designers. 

My takeaway from today’s topic is that everyone is going to have different perspectives on what art is and feels like to them. However, I think that that is what interests me about design and how it interacts with different audiences. Manifestos may be meant for designers to have a guide to follow but it also allows audiences that enjoy art to enter a different world where they get to explore different types of art.    

Citations:

Accessed 22 October 2024.

[shannonsamuel]

Week 04+5 - Analysing Artistic Traditions and Lineages

Note down important personal discoveries from today’s tutorial, with relevance to the topic and key phrases. Document evidence of your class activity, and reflect further: What would you have done differently? What other references are noteworthy? How can you apply the lessons learned? 

For week 4’s lesson we were asked to go to the Singapore National Gallery. We headed there and took pictures of the artworks, most of which were made in the 1900s. We were specifically told to look out for a painting called National Language Class (1959) by Chua Mia Tee. The painting shows a classroom with students of various ethnicities learning the Malay language, which was then the official national language. During this period, all Singaporeans, including Chinese and Indian communities, were required to learn Malay. I feel that even though this initiative by the Singapore government aimed to establish a national identity to unite the nation and make them feel like one, it could’ve made the Chinese and Indians amongst Singapore feel like they were unwelcome.

During our week 5 class activity, we were then told to look at art pieces that had contextually interesting information. It could also have some historical significance behind them. The three artworks that were mentioned were The Chinese Puppet Theatre, Chinese Ink and Colour on paper, and Montien and SAM’s performance art relic. In the first artwork, “The woodblock series can be seen as a documentation of the vanishing trades and cultural practice in a rapidly developing nation.” That also shows the form of art being taken into today’s society as lino is still a method of art that is being used until today. Moreover, the 2D perspective of Chinese art is showing the contrast between that and European art. We then looked at the last art piece which shows two weighing scales. One upright and the other one upside down. We thought that it was referencing the state of today’s society. The weighing scales referencing how people judge art, especially in art institutions where people judge freely. The difference between the two weighing scales in my opinion is the freedom of space that people have to judge.

~ (315 words)

Citations:

Accessed 10 September 2024.

Accessed 10 September 2024.

Samuel, Shannon. Class slides and documentation of the painting by Chua Mia Tee, National Language Class. Accessed 10 September 2024.

Samuel, Shannon. Class slides activity where we looked at other art works and analysed them . Accessed 10 September 2024.

[shannonsamuel]

Week 03 - This Is How You Connect Practice with Society

Note down important personal discoveries from today’s tutorial, with relevance to the topic and key phrases. Document evidence of your class activity, and reflect further: What would you have done differently? What other references are noteworthy? How can you apply the lessons learned? 

In today’s tutorial we talked about Connecting practice with Society. To me, that meant thinking about the local and social issues of the world. As designers, we are always meant to be thinking about the state of society and how we can effectively communicate that to people. We show the parts of a changing world but also parts that remain the same positively and negatively.

For our class activity, we were asked to create a video that was about a minute long that shows a local issue in Singapore. We started brainstorming on ideas and decided that a common issue happens in our public transports.

On the way to school, we would encounter people who are not on the priority seating list sitting on their seats. We would even see youngsters putting their bags on seats hogging up space for others to sit, especially when there is room for bags on the floor. We decided to make a Charlie Chaplin-like silent film to show these problems. We decided to use a theme like that because we were doing a video on issues that don't usually get talked about.

After reviewing all the videos of the course, we realised that all the issues that were mentioned resonated with each of us in different ways. I think that this shows that when we socially engage with art by looking at issues that are already happening, it makes us better designers. It also creates an understanding with the audience we are trying to sell to. It shows us that we must observe and be unconventional with our designing methods sometimes.

(~267 words)

Citations:

Samuel, Shannon. Video for Class activity: MRT local issue, 27 August 2024.

Mrt pic: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alamy.com%2Fstock-photo%2Finside-mrt-train-singapore.html&psig=AOvVaw1WQuyJgmFHYeKfpQSHSBhr&ust=1725537703598000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBQQjRxqFwoTCODkwYGfqYgDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

Accessed 27 August 2024.

Mrt issue pic: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmothership.sg%2F2023%2F05%2Fmrt-priority-seat-fight-younger-man%2F&psig=AOvVaw2MaNTTI_kdV6px1Qd0GeQe&ust=1725537777584000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBQQjRxqFwoTCJDkxKifqYgDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

Accessed 27 August 2024.

[shannonsamuel]

Week 01 - Creative Practice and Critical thinking

Note down important personal discoveries from today’s tutorial, with relevance to the topic and key phrases. Document evidence of your class activity, and reflect further: What would you have done differently? What other references are noteworthy? How can you apply the lessons learned? 

In today’s tutorial we talked about Creative Practice and Critical thinking. Before the lesson started, I asked myself what my views on this topic were. To me, Creative Practice meant thinking about topics with a sense of self identity and critical thinking meant, thinking about topics through evaluation.

Through the lecture, I found out that these two work with each other for us to be designers that are able to express ourselves through our art. We have to be able to think critically as people and as designers to be able to communicate what we are trying to showcase in our designs. There was another phrase that I heard in class today that also resonated with me. “Creativity and criticality are symbiotic in problem solving”.

We were then moved to our groups to discuss these topics and about how it relates to social issues. A social issue that I thought of was gender inequality. In today’s society, I think that there is a lot of evidence depicting the topic of gender inequality.

A moment in the arts industry that I noticed was when Taylor Swift mentioned this in an interview (as seen above). What really caught my attention was how she expressed through a song that she wrote called,” The Man”. The lyrics were empowering but communicative at the same time, checking off the boxes for being creative and critical. I think that it’s very important to talk about societal issues but to also make sure that it’s being expressed in a colourful way so that everyone from all backgrounds understand the idea behind it. 

Another moment that I noticed was when Barbie came out with a live action movie that had also expressed gender inequality issues with witty and funny symbolism. It had beautifully summed the female experience within the constraints of patriarchy.

(~304 words)       

Citations:

5 circles: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/605312006196498137/

Accessed 13 August 2024.

Creative & Critical: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1829656093334165/

Accessed 13 August 2024.

Man and woman balance: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/33495590972224180/

Accessed 13 August 2024.

Retro sexism: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/410812797274504004/

Accessed 13 August 2024.

Taylor Swift: https://www.google.com.sg/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fblessedswifty%2Fstatus%2F1562781870500167683&psig=AOvVaw13lNQTqj9yhibHwVj-fjH6&ust=1725519381734000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBQQjRxqFwoTCOjOvrzbqIgDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

Accessed 13 August 2024.

The MAN: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/11540542790920686/

Accessed 13 August 2024.

Barbie link: https://medium.com/@salmakennouda/the-barbie-movie-is-a-genius-mindf-ck-88d0101219fd

Accessed 13 August 2024.

Barbie doll pic: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/76913106127481323/

Accessed 13 August 2024.

Barbie concept: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/10203536650407855/

Accessed 13 August 2024.

Speech: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/589549407496648674/

Accessed 13 August 2024.

Retro sexism: https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/the-rise-of-retro-sexism

Accessed 13 August 2024.