Term Break Experiment 03

This was meant to be an experiment with structure. No ideas attached... But this structure inspired me with other variations that can benefit me. I have come up with one other system, but I've yet to do that. Probably some time next week though as I'm really tired now from all the thinking and typing.

Term Break Experiment 02

This system represents the memories that we have of one another. Memories are all stored in our heads although it existed as reality a long time ago, or just a few hours back. Books are very much the containers of memories (e.g. photo albums, biographies, diaries...), but this particular structure works as a connotation of memories.

Although paper is considered as three-dimensional, its flatness makes it almost two-dimensional if nothing is done to it. This paper represents the memories that exist in our heads. It is two-dimensional, it is non-existent; just a fleeting memory of the past. However as we try to dig through these memories, or try to make it exist once more (either by catching up with old pals or trying to do something similar to what you did in the past) makes it 'real'. Hence the paper begins to become form. Therefore in this system of mine, each page becomes more and more dimensional, referring to the digging up of the past to make it present.

Term Break Experiment 01

Here's to show you my process in getting the book done.
I'm inspired by the idea of reading the book as a structure, rather than as content. In a way, it speaks a lot about the relationships that I have with people. After getting the replies for my recently posted questionnaire, I realized that many of the impressions that they have of me are somewhat close to the truth, or never near it.

This current system/book represents reading a person both ways. Either as a normal book, by flipping the pages from front to back (first impressions or assumptions of people), or either by looking at it structurally and seeing it for what it is (the actual persona).

Presentation 2 Handouts

Just to post some pictures of the handouts that I created for my 2nd presentation.
The handouts were designed in a way where the binding interacted with the content. The slivers of words had to be connected to the colored boxes that it matched in order for the paragraph to be read. I meant to show the importance of the structure of the book; beyond the idea of the spine as glueing pages together, but of one that connects to the content.

Developing the Structure

I have been experimenting with maybe one or two book structures during the week long break. And I realized that my book will eventually be a REALLY thick book because it has to be structurally sound and inviting.

So this is what I have in mind:
- A book with 6 systems (not too much, not too little... enough to relate the interconnections in my life)
- Using the chain stitch to bind each system into a book block
- Hard cover

When I first chose this project...

I thought about writing about my life. I chose a project that could kill two birds with one stone. I wanted to create something that I would be proud of, something that I could keep as the years flow by, and something that presents itself to other people clearly what I have decided to do. Oh yeah, and the bit about killing two birds with one stone; a keepsake for me and a project for an academic assessment.

I wanted to do something that involved the people around me as well. Since this is a self-identity project, it is best to involve the foundation blocks in my life; the people around me who build me up (and possibly tear me down at times). And it wasn't just the people I knew that influenced me. Strangers do to, and I want to commend them for doing so. And that is the reason why we choose to read autobiographies, why we are so in tuned into friends of our friends on Facebook despite not knowing them at all, or why we read other stranger's blogs. Every single little thing that other people do, manages to influence us in someway or another.

I'm going to put a news article in this current entry, because after seeing his video interview, this stranger from Texas made me think about my life in a more meaningful manner.

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For man cut nearly in two by train, ‘life is good’
Despite horrific injuries, he dialed 911: ‘I wanted to see my babies grow up’

By Mike Celizic

TODAYShow.com contributor

updated 9:28 a.m. ET Sept. 22, 2008

For more than two years after he was cut in half by a train, Truman Duncan avoided media requests for interviews as he recovered from his injuries and went back to a full and productive life. Now, he’s speaking out to let others, including soldiers who have suffered traumatic injuries like his, know that life is still very much worth living.

“Life is good,” Duncan told TODAY’s Matt Lauer Monday in New York. “Life goes on.”

The 38-year-old from Cleburne, Texas, pronounced this from a wheelchair, the stub of his right thigh showing from his pants leg.

Duncan is breaking his media silence now, he said, “just to let people know how I’m doing. I had so many people inquiring. And to help soldiers who are having a little bit of trouble — they’ve lost their limbs — and let them know life is good, goes on, you know.”

‘I think I’m cut in two’
A video had just aired that recounted the horrific June 2006 accident that took the rest of Duncan’s right leg as well as his left leg, pelvis and kidney. The railroad switchman fell off a moving train car at the Gunderson Southwest rail yard in Cleburne.

For some 20 seconds, Duncan hung onto the car, trying to run backward to escape being run over. But he fell underneath the car, got caught in the undercarriage, and was run over by steel wheels supporting 20,000 pounds of dead weight.

Remarkably, he remained conscious and had the presence of mind to call 911 on his cell phone. On the 911 tape, he sounds out of breath but remarkably calm.

“I need 911. CareFlite. I think I'm cut in two,” Duncan says on the tape.

“Someone got run over?” the operator asks.

“It was me,” Duncan responds. “I guess I'm going into shock. Hurry up, ma'am, because I'm about to pass out.”

It took 45 minutes for responders to arrive and extricate Duncan from under the train. Despite massive blood loss, he stayed conscious and even managed to call his family while he was waiting to be rescued.

Duncan has three children. His eldest son, Trey, 19, recounted the conversation for NBC News: “I told him I loved him with all my heart, and he was the best dad I could wish for.”

That best dad now plays catch with Trey, flinging a football with pinpoint accuracy from his motorized wheelchair.

‘God had some hand’
Dr. David Smith of Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital is the surgeon who was on call in the emergency room when Duncan was airlifted in. He calls the cheerful man with the stylish goatee nothing short of a miracle.

“When I first heard the report … I thought for sure I’d be going down to pronounce somebody dead,” Smith, who came to New York with Duncan, told Lauer. “When I got there, he was critical, he was unresponsive and his blood pressure was quite low.”

So, Lauer asked, what kept Duncan from bleeding to death before he got to the hospital?

“God had some hand in that, I’m sure,” Smith replied without hesitation. “His physiology is remarkable, and possibly the weight of the train itself helped keep some pressure on his arteries.”

Smith also said that Duncan’s will to live had a lot to do with it. Duncan himself has said that during his ordeal, his Red Cross training told him he was going into shock and losing large quantities of blood. But he also said he never thought that he was going to die.

“I wanted to see my babies grow up, just like everybody else. I just wanted to live so I could see my kids grow up,” he told Lauer.

Where did he get that incredible will, Lauer asked.

“I don’t know. It’s a good trait,” he said, his soft, low-key voice redolent of his Texas home. “I guess from Dad and my mom. Mom’s real strong-headed. Daddy is, too.”

23 surgeries
Smith and other doctors spent 3 ½ hours saving Duncan’s life and cleaning gravel, dirt and grass from his wounds. He was in a coma for three weeks and underwent at least 23 surgeries over the next four months before finally being released from the hospital.

Duncan’s insurance paid for remodeling his house to make it wheelchair-friendly, and Duncan went back to work at his old company, which repairs and refurbishes rail cars.

Duncan told NBC that it now takes him longer to do some things, but he still does everything he used to do, including swimming and playing with his kids. He drives himself in a car equipped with hand controls. And he’s looking forward to learning to get around with prosthetic limbs, a long process that he said will begin next week.

Lauer expressed amazement at Duncan’s indomitable will and infectious good spirits. He concluded that there’s just one reason that Duncan is still alive: “Surely, someone’s got a plan for you.”

“I guess so,” Duncan replied.

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Reading this news article truly made me think about my own support system. My family, my friends... The more I want this project to come to fruition. And this man reminded me of the one and only who gave me this life as well; God. I have focused so much on the people around me that I almost didn't include God at all. Throughout my life, I've depended so much on the Lord to actually give me the things that I need or want, and with divine help, I've managed to get into schools through almost impossible circumstances. I am, and I will include the One I believe in. While many of the people I know are either agnostics or atheists, I want to proclaim that I have come so far with some divine help. Having faith makes one a different person too.

Another thing that struck me in his interview was that he mentioned about how his future passed him in front of his eyes while he was severed on the train track. Not the present, but the future. And I think that says a lot about him and his will to survive. I hope that this project of mine not only records memories of the past and present, but something that I could look back into when I'm in the future. To tell me how I've grown in structure, and in words. One that's far more than a photo album, or a blog. Something that one can thumb through, of a quality that is so different from the digital world that we live in today. Think of archaelogical digs and finds, and I'd compare this book to that.

My motion graphics vid! For Elements

Although this isn't related to my FYP, I thought of using this blog as a daily blog as well. So long it's related to school. I could find slivers of links between this and FYP...

Ready with my mock-up

I feel really bad for not working on my FYP throughout my holidays - I have been sick. I almost scared myself when I puked out many mouthfuls of 'blood' (digested blood plum made it look that way), I kept sneezing so I had to sleep for at least 16 hours with intervals each day.

Anyways, I will be working on my mock-up for the next few days. And hopefully I'll get something out of it. As I'm short of cash, this mock-up is going to be made of newspapers. Since I will be constructing a book for my final project, as of now I intend to learn the skills of making a basic book block. The reason why I'm using newspapers is because it's 'free', and I like being environmentally friendly. Besides I think the existing text and pictures would make it a really interesting textural/graphic piece to work with. Oh yeah... stacking it makes a thick book block too!

What I did:
1. Cut sheets of newspaper into A4 sized sheets - took me a damn long time.
2. Made folios out of 10 sheets of newspaper - nice thickness to work with.
3. Poked holes into folios for binding.
4. Read instructions for 'coptic binding'.
5. Started threading and sewing. But I screwed up for the first 4 folios and had to start from scratch again.
6. Got the hang of sewing the folios together to form a book block. Voila!











Now that I'm done with the book block, I'll be making changes to the pages either by cutting, scoring or messing it up. Just so I could use it to represent the system of my life symbolically through its structure.

But before I make any gashes or slices, I think it'll be better if I drew out my systems, using the information that I have gathered thus far. I don't want to make a new book block anytime soon.. It's hard work!

Typography on Body!

Something random! But.. hahhaaaa.. drool.

Who am I?

I've just started watching 'Samantha Who', a story about a lady who suffers from retrograde amnesia after getting into a car accident. The story begins with her, waking up from an eight day coma. She can't recognize her mother, her father, or any of her friends. She doesn't know who she is. But as the story unfolds, she tries to be a better person because finds out she was one mean b*tch in the past - superficial, materialistic, shallow... all through people's perception of her, and not by what she thinks of herself.

I guess I'm very much like Samantha. I'm trying to find out who I am, and what I am to other people. It's amazing how people's opinions differ so differently from how I put myself to be. I sent out an entire list of 18 questions, breaking it into 2 sections; first asking about who I am to them and secondly, trying to find out more about the people who've chosen to reply me. Many do not know me well, some have written that I seem stuck-up when they first met me, one said I was superficial, another said that I was trying to fit in too much.

It did, but yet it didn't shock me too much. I wasn't surprised that I seemed stuck up. I don't know, maybe I am? Maybe I'm not. People who knew me well thought I was outspoken and opinionated. Every response that I received gave me mixed feelings. I'm wondering about the value of my friendship and existence that I have to everyone I know. If I were to die suddenly, would the people that barely know me, feel sad for me at all? Or would they just feel pity for me because I died young, or because they've lost someone they could've started a better relationship with?

I find it truly difficult to answer myself, "who am I?". Why do I behave the way I behave? It's funny how people say that I'm talkative. It's true that I speak out a lot, but guess what? I feel that I'm always unheard, which gives me the reason why I want to be heard by others. People may hear my voice, but do they listen to it? People tell me I'm outspoken, but I wonder if that's a good or bad thing. Trying to answer all the time may lead people to think that I'm a 'know-it-all', and I'd say that very few Singaporeans are appreciative of that. But I do it because I have a valid reason for doing so - either I'm clearing some misconceptions, or if I'm trying to make my point heard out loud when people aren't hearing at all.

I'm still in the process of analyzing the many replies that I've received, and I truly thank everyone who replied me.

And the stocks plummet...

Wow.. 500 pts (okay, I do not know anything about points or the stock market. But 500 sure is a HUGE number)..

My father was telling me about that bad news, amongst many other things that happened to him this morning - his bicycle's tire went flat, the bicycle shop he went to wasn't opened... the Dow dropped 500 pts, and AIA's affected as well.

It's amazing how everything links together. And there goes my point for this entry. EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED!! Mentions a whole lot about systems eh?

I think it'd be interesting to see if it's true for human relationships as well. When one man falls, the rest tumble after... It's like Jack and Jill rolling down the hill together. I think we rely so much on other people, that when we fail to think for ourselves, our lives might as well be theirs. For instance, children who still rely on their parents for monetary support till they're late into their 20s... Or when we become mindless zombies and rely on others to take over the leadership of a project per say...

Is that how my relationship functions? Yes and no... not to the extend of relying on people. But perhaps co-existing with them and exchanging benefits from one another.

Timelinebook

This was the book that I created for my Final Project for my Type III class at SDSU. I have better pictures to show, but I found this first.. Will be adding more later.

Mine's the longish tunnel book.

Beating of the Water

Clusters

I like how nature always involves growing in clusters. It is a familiar sight, a familiar feeling. Since as humans, we've always been involved in clusters as well.

I think one good example that could be shown in my book is the system of clusters. It is a parallel to how we form cliques in class, and how we treat we treat each other as a support system. And when we grow, we grow together... never individually.

200 Books by Keith Smith

If you're into artist's books, I'd recommend borrowing this book for inspiration through image and word. I've placed some scanned images from this book, but I hope I don't get into any trouble for it. Just barely 5 pictures..

Spirals?

Oooh... I need to thank my close bud Eve for giving me a set of 'spiral rulers'... You know the ones we used to play with when we were younger? You draw spiral images with sets of circles, and your hand just goes round and round and round and round and... yeah you get the drift.

I thought I could use these patterns as part of my system project. I think they are part of a system because the only way that these patterns could come about is through mathematics and a whole load of connecting points. Apart from that, it looks pretty much like an imaginary solar system.

Are Visual Commers doomed to be underpaid workhorses for other people?

I spoke to a schoolmate from film just the other day. We were talking about our final year projects and he assumed that viscom students should be working alongside real clients to solve design issues. However, Cailing and I said that working with a real client would hinder our progress and that is no different from being a polytechnic graduate who has been trained to do that.

Still, I'm sticking up for my chosen topic, although it sounds more like a guide to a sociology crash course. But I like doing the research, and I love reading about human interactions. Studying about human behavior benefits designers tonnes more, rather than being one who doesn't know how to appeal to human psychology. For now the information I have gathered may not link to seeing my project as a visual communications project. But I know for sure that eventually it would. Because that's what a viscommer does; we nitpick information and sew it together to form a fabric that one would see and understand. That is visual communications.

Also, I have never thought of myself as being a full-fledged designer. I'd rather be called a creative than a designer. I think the term 'designer' has been so loosely used that the immediate image that comes into mind is one that slogs for other people making pretty (but shallow) things. I agree with Prof. Astrid about getting sick of the generic floral swooshing patterns that many illustrators or designers are always using. And I admit that I have followed that trend in the past. Now, I only wish to be somebody more unique, someone who dares to be different, one who dares to be avant-garde for a change. But sometimes I don't think I can.

I'm worried about who I'll become. I don't want to be a designer who jumps onto every bandwagon. Neither do I want to be stuck at my computer for long periods of time (I shudder at the thought of my ass getting big) doing work for other people. Truthfully, I've thought about leaving this field.

I cook and experiment with food more than I do with sketching on a book. I stop by the supermarket almost every other day to look at the veggies and think of ways that I could cook them or place them in a dish. I think about the flavors intensely, trying to match ingredient A to ingredient B. And I like the science behind the cooking. I control the flame, the intensity of the flavor, the hardness or softness of the ingredient, the way it looks on a plate. I think about the person who eats it, whether they would like it or not, and I try to make them eat differently from their usual chow. I feel that I am more instinctive with flavors and smell than with creating something on a piece of paper. I'm still thinking about who I want to be.

Interesting Article

I just came across an interesting article via Yahoo! News. It talks about the choosing of our life partners. Although I may agree with it as there's some scientific proof, I think I'll be considered an anomaly in this case.

The reason why I'm putting this up on my FYP blog is because it studies about the relationships between people, and why are we connected to who we want to be with.

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Daddy, I'm in love... and he looks just like you!

AFP - Thursday, September 4

PARIS (AFP) - - Men tend to wind up with life partners who look like their mother, while a woman is lured to a partner who looks like her father, scientists reported on Wednesday.

Heterosexuals are deeply attracted to individuals whose faces are similar to that of their opposite-sex parent, they said, suggesting that this characteristic is rooted in an evolutionary drive.

A team led by Tamas Bereczkei at the University of Pecs in Hungary created a model of facial ratios -- width of jaw, distance between mouth and brow and so on -- comprising 14 facial zones.

They measured 312 Hungarian adults from 52 different families using this method. Each family included a couple, along with two sets of parents.

The researchers found a significant correlation in facial similarities between a woman's mate and her father, and also between a man's partner and his mother.

The team tested the model on faces that were randomly selected from the general population and repeated the experiment with a panel of judges, who also picked out the same pairings from randomly selected groups of photos.

Interestingly, men and women focused on different parts of the face when they home in on a potential mate, they found.

A man's lover and his mother tended to have similar fullness in the lips, width of mouth, as well as length and width of jaw.

But for women, the critical features were the distance between mouth and brow, the height of the face, distance between the eyes and the size of a man's nose.

The choices are driven less by psychology and socialisation and more by evolutionary pressures, suggests Bereczkei.

Too much genetic overlap -- as can happen with incest -- is an evolutionary no-no.

But seeking similar genetic traits "may confer individuals with additional adaptive advantages," he wrote.

It could increase the degree to which parents share genes with offspring, enhancing the genetic representation of future generations.

Finding similar partners might also help perpetuate genetic complexes that have evolved to adapt to a particular environment.

There may be an additional bonus, which probably has more to do with happiness than a genetic imperative.

"Human couples who are similar in physical and psychological characteristics are more likely to remain together than dissimilar partners, possibly leading to an increase in fertility," the study concludes.

The research appears in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The Royal Society is Britain's de-facto academy of sciences.

The first FYP post

Yay, I jumped onto the bandwagon for blogging for my Final Year Project. 

A little information about the title - Death of School.

Considering that this is my final year, it is an ode to my 20.5 years that I have spent studying in Singapore. 

I will be updating CHUNKS and CHUNKS of things that I have written thus far; on scrappy little pieces of paper, thumbing on my cellphone, rants on Facebook... all onto this blog. 

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Here's a little titbit of what my FYP's going to be about:

A set of two books, unlike any other book that will divulge the secrets behind the relationships in my life. It sounds juicy, but it's not. It is philosophical, with ideas and concepts coming from the theory of metaphysics such as 'the other and the gaze'...etc... 

Ironically, I'm not studying sociology. I'm an art student with a major in visual communications. And this book WILL speak to all (but I think most would just want to touch it). I feel that there is a symbiotic relationship between structure and content, hence the ultimate visual goal is for me to craft an artist book, where its content emanates like a ray of light from the sturdy construction and structure of the book. 

Content wise, I'm looking into the connections of relationships between myself and the people whom I know. Reminding myself that no human being is capable of surviving alone, where connections are vital to keep ourselves living the sanest way as possible. Remembering the past, living in the present, and pondering about the future will probably be part of my book. These information will be presented through the art of systems, where I will tear apart and analyze my relationships and place meaning and value into it. Thus creating a masterpiece full of sociological studies, using myself as the studied object, and the people around me as the environment that I am living in.