The workshop yesterday was all new to me again. First, Annie showed us different dying results on different acrylic surfaces made by laser cut and how to dye natural materials like cotton by boiling purple cabbage and beetroot. Anna introduced professional dyes for blended paper. We watched a little video of Zarina: Paper like skin:

Also Olafur Eliasson’s Abstract Series:

Anna also showed us screenprint and monoprint on laser-cut acrylic. Every result of each time came out different. Then Annie showed us hot press. It’s like magical how the machine worked out. At last, we were introduced to sewing colorful materials together and also watched a video:

After that, I tested iron fillings’ movements towards a magnet. But they just moved too fast to be captured! First, I tried them in water:

To slow down the movements, I wanted to try clear detergent but it produced too many bubbles. Then I tried them in vegetable oil which was more clear:

I spent six hours experimenting and I still didn’t get what I wanted… It’s super frustrating. And I kind of felt watching the movements from a side view couldn’t really connect to the overlooking view of the “Iris” photographs. So I want to try to move the magnet around the glass and overlook the change of the “Iris”. Hope it would turn out well.

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Unfortunately the iron oxide powder dissolves in water… So I had to buy silver/black iron fillings. Hope it would work tomorrow…

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Tried to attract iron powder from the bottom up but probably the magnets were not strong enough. Had to buy stronger magnets to try again! The light I bought was not bright enough and the bulb was too big for the jar. Haven’t tried the iron powder in water yet.

This is the object I chose:

Facts and information:

It is lamp-worked glass filaments on a silicon core from Israel (Tel Aviv) created by Dafna Kaffeman in 2006. It is called Tactual Stimulation. It is pink. It explores the complex psychology around our urge to touch things that are both beautiful and dangerous, alluring and repulsive. It is displayed in V&A Museum, given by the American Friends of the V&A.

Thoughts and feelings:

This pink seemingly fluffy spherical object invites me to touch it, however, its sharp glass material would hurt me. It reminds me of irresistible desire or impulse to get close to something alluring that would hurt me in some way. It generates an invisible force of sucking, drawing, attracting, absorbing or pulling like tornado or magnets.

Nathan said it’s also like pretty snakes.

Memorizing a childhood toy:

Barbie: It is on the wooden floor in my bedroom beside my bed. It is a bit longer than my hand. It has got fluffy smooth curly blonde hair. It is skinny with tanned skin. The arms and legs are flexible. It is very light. The skin is soft and smooth. Maybe it’s made of silicone. It is smiling with makeup on. It is wearing a pink dress. The dress feels rough.

Nathan’s object is a print of a glass window. we discussed about how the voices of our objects would be like.

Nathan’s: Low, Slow, Constant, Objective, Calm, Deep constant hum

Mine: High pitch pierce scary, Not constantly, Throwing sounds from time to time, Fast frequency, Random

At last, we created a script about Brexit. A is Nathan’s object and B is mine.

A: Go back to Israel.

B: I’m gonna break through.

A: you’re breaking more pieces than me.

B: I’m transformative. Each of my string goes through each of your hole.

A: I’ll last longer. I have history.

B: You’re just marks of history and no one’s noticing you. I’m bright, eye catching and new. Everyone is looking at me.

A: (cough)

B: (laugh sharply)

In the afternoon, I had a talk with Nathan about 300 words of preparatory research. Nathan said I could also include content about the reasons why I picked the object, the context, how it helps my project. As I was interested in its phycological idea, Nathan suggested me to read about death drive, ask myself why I was interested in this and do more research about desire, protection or safety. I could see the object as a stimuli and it didn’t have to be about the object itself strictly.

Aleya talked about the artist statement today. It should be holistic, not project based, mainly describing works and selves as practitioners. It focuses on the following outcome:

A2: Demonstrate an understanding of historical and contemporary precedents and how they relate to your developing practice;

A4: Clearly articulate the intellectual and technical processes involved in the production of your work 

There’re many other words classmates used: Abstract, Dissect, Simply, Capture, Imagery, Review, Practice, Listen, Embody, Respond, Observe, Question, Draw, Experiment, Search, Make, Consider, Research, Creative, Product.

A/D statements act as an introduction to your practice as a whole, highlighting common concerns, motivations and processes running throughout.

It’s for readers to understand your work better.

To present YOURSELF as you would like others to see you and your practice: a photographer.

1. describes their key ideas/work = D (3 lines)
2. expands on these ideas and analyses the work, its intentions and meanings = A (6 lines)
3. shows how they evaluate their work  =  E (How it articulates the intentions) (3 lines)

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An example of the start:

My work explores the notions of …

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I also had a tutorial with Kyung Hwa. I’m especially interested in the following objects:

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I listed some verbs to describe the irresistible desire/impulse: suck/draw/attract/absorb/pull. And it reminded me of tornado and magnet forces. Looking into the eye, I remembered Marc Quinn’s work:

And iron powder forms a similar shape with the force of a ring magnet actually. So I came up with an idea as below:

However, Kyung Hwa thought my practice plan wouldn’t convey my idea well. She still suggested me to try it out to see how it looked and also think about different interpretations of eyes. Now I’m just focusing on the shape, but I could also think about gaze (from the blind) and observation.

Today was relaxing to me actually. Spent much time just doing things without much thinking.

First, we were asked to do three kinds of drawings:

1. Put one shoe into a bag. Draw with left hand, 3 times, feeling it in the bag. What It feels like and how you mark it, not knowing it’s a shoe. Continuously line drawing. The tip of the charcoal is your finger.
2. Look at the shoe. Continuous line with right hand, eyes movement. 1 min holding. 5 times.
3. 10 min, 5min per person, tell each other your feeling of touching of the other’s shoe. 

1. I actually forgot about continuously line drawing as I drew. It was a bit frustrating I was watching what I was drawing and it didn’t really make sense… And I wasn’t really able to draw different textures as I felt.
2. It’s easier because I was only looking at the shoe and my hand just went freely on paper as my eye moved on the shoe.
3. I didn’t full understand some words Jess used so it was a bit hard, too. I wasn’t thinking about shoe at all. I just tried to draw what she described about shapes, connections and textures.

Words of remembering the experiences of touching, visual and conversations:

1. Messy
2. Repeated
3. Texture
4. Temperature
5. Shape
6. Angle
7. Break
8. Linear
9. Blurry
10. Explore
11. Imagine
12. Free
13. Partial

Then we started to deconstruct our shoe:

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There really turned out to be much more parts than I expected. It’s such a complicated job to make shoes. There’re some hidden surprises: green color, cardboard and patterns.

Then we started to reconstruct our shoe:

At last, we were asked to draw our response to our reconstruction:

At last, I didn’t finish it though. I poked many holes along the lines. It looked too smooth at the beginning. Neither what I built nor the life paths were smooth actually. So holes kind of represented the texture or the difficulties we got along the way we went through.

Many classmates’ drawings are beautiful.

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Everything was new to me today. First, we were introduced to weaving. It not only applies to 2D surfaces but 3D spaces as well. Then Annie showed us how to make a sheet of textile by cross layering wool. Anna talked about how to bend wood.

Anna also showed us how to make a cast from blended paper. The most surprising thing was bio plastics. We watched a video of a designer turning fish skin waste into thin transparent bio plastics. Then Anna made some bio plastics by heating mixed agar and glycerine. They look like food! These are Anna and Annie’s recipes:

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In the afternoon, we as a group of 4, picked up 5 objects each. Here’re my thoughts about my objects:

1. Cork: I like the material and the texts on it which look nice. It makes me think of wine at the first sight and then time and memories somehow, maybe because wine is always aged and shared in a good time and memory.
2. Bracelet: It looks beautiful and precious. I especially like the color and texture of the jewelry. It makes me imagine situations wearing this, parties, formal dinners, gatherings or dates. I feel it also carries happy memories.
3. Wood: It looks organic and alive. It’s burnt. It’s been through tough moments and it exists in a different look. It makes me think of time as well, all the experiences the wood has had and what made it become its present look.
4. A pile of paper? It looks fluffy and reminds me of the dessert napoleon. It makes me feel hungry and want to bite it and feel the multiple crispy layers.
5. Light: I’m curious what the white lines in the photo are. I simply just want to find out what the white lines are. They look like cracks from a different space.

Time and memories are common in my first three objects.

Sam and Connie picked my photos and they had different thoughts about them:

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At the beginning, we organized our objects in the way of how we felt about them:

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Then we tried to organize them by color:

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By shape:

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By size:

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By texture:

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At last, we decided on the pair of touching/smelling and looking objects:

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That’s the intro our member wrote:

“Haptic Dichotomies”

This is a contradictory, sensory performance piece. You will be asked to touch, smell, and look at a series of pairs of objects and photos. This is meant to test your perception of objects and their use- how tactile and olfactory experiences influence visual ones, and vice versa. You will be taken on a journey across senses and in turn, called to question them. Ranging in objects from a crochet hook to an old paint bowl, the object-photo pairs will lead you to wonder about the feelings that arise and how you relate to them.

And that’s how it works:

I was very surprised by other “exhibitions”. They were all very creative and most were interactive. Their forms were actually quite different from the museums I’ve been to.

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We shared one object each and thought of different functions (absurd/unexpected) it could have. Chalkie thought of functions mainly based on the shape. Olivia thought mainly based on the original function of the picture frame itself (storytelling, a map/a diagram, framing/screening, instrument). Connie thought of the technology. Nathan thought of building block/puzzels for a box. Summer thought in different scales and Nico thought of sound, which I thought very interesting. Adam mentioned Irony for the way of forgiving the history of an object. For Joe’s object, the performance, Gary mentioned left-behind/residue/prop.

Adam and Gary also shared three artists: Oliver Laric, Andy Holden, Peter Fischli & David Weiss.

I used the following object:

And the functions I thought of:

1. Weapon
2. Reminder
3. Holder
4. Storage
5. Decoration
6. Vase
7. Gift

Gary emphasized the message/story to pass on and he brought up with an example of National trust where historical chairs were put a sign on to remind people not to sit on. And others mentioned it looked like a sea urchin, creature, edible and something that would shrink while being touched.

Adam said that scent/text could also be an artefact. He shared 50-verb by Richard Serra and asked us to think of verbs to our object (twist, tear, jump on, rotate, pull, push…). Gary and Adam encouraged us to exhaust/test/play an object (materials). Gary also mentioned an artwork of glass of water on the shelf called oak tree and there’s a list of 12 reasons why it’s an oak tree on the wall beside the shelf.

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The paint below reminds me of my childhood at my grandma’s where there’s an old fire place and I liked to sit in front of it and put wood into it and just watch it burn. It felt really warm and cozy. I miss it but the house was teared down for new buildings long ago already. My childhood was gone as well, when I was so sensitive to the surroundings and so easily engaged with simple activities. It’s surprising that I got such a strong feeling for this memory as I hardly looked back.

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Was most amazed by glass work. Didn’t manage to see all of it though!

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My favorite piece at V&A so far!

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‘The Outburst’, from the portfolio ‘In a Dream You Saw a Way to Survive and You Were Full of Joy’. Was amazed by the quality of the print.

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It’s interesting that the photograph is attached on wood while the photograph looks like a surface of wood.

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