| Jiefeng 的个人资料Random Ramblings? 峰言峰语照片日志列表 |  工具  帮助 |
|
|
10月26日 Singapore Biennale Art Exhibition @ City HallWent for the Singapore Biennale Art Exhibition in another venue (City Hall) today. Here are some of the photos -
Did you see a gourd with human face that holds a camera?
I love the caption - "...Tractatus Logico-Philoscophicus... floats about in the middle of the tank kept buoyant by the undercurrents of philosophical obscurity"
This place is damn spooky...
Seems ordinary household items at first sight. But, look carefully at the words.
This installation is named Teratoma II: War of the Worlds. Notice the "flying saucer" behind?
There are others exhibits that are also very interesting, many in the form of short films, hence no pictures. Really worth the trip down. Next will be the one at South Beach Development. =)
10月25日 Singapore Biennale Art Exhibition @ Raffles PlaceHad been wanting to go to see these exhibitions around Singapore but was too lazy to find out where they are, until today, when I saw one the exhibition in a very wulu part of Raffles Place by chance. Quite nice. Art cleanses the soul. That is why I loved them. Anwz here are the photos
"...there was an exact identical city that was clearly discernable during certain days of the year, only this one hovered in the sky. Hence the "earthly" Manas was an exact copy of the "heavenly" Manas."
close ups of one of the towers and the caption
An igloo like structure and the long walkway to....
... a different world.
Ex-prisoners' slippers on sticks - Singapore Prisoners
7月18日 Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)I saw this at Shirong's blog. I LOVE it! Maybe you will like it too. =)
Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '97. Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience... I will dispense this advice now Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh, nevermind, you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now, how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are NOT as fat as you imagine. Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real toubles in life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday Do one thing everyday that scares you. Sing. Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with your's. Floss. Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements. Stretch. Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives; some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone. Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40. Maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either - your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can... don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it... it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own. Dance... even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. Read the directions, even if you don't follow them. Do NOT read beauty magazines they will only make you feel UGLY. CHORUS Brother and sister together we'll make it through. Someday your spirit will take you and guide you there. I know you've been hurting, but I've been waiting to be there for you. And I'll be there just helping you out whenever I can. Get to know your parents, you never know when they might be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings; they're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths. Prices will rise, Politicians will philander, you too will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders. Respect your elders. Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out. Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia; dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it's worth. But trust me on the sunscreen. CHORUS Everybody's free. Everybody's free. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
If you love it, and you are a Star War fan, you HAVE to listen to...
"Everybody Free to Be a Jedi Is" (hahahahaha!)
(Right click and save as if it doesn't play when you click on it.)
1月5日 The Original Human TETRIS Performance by Guillaume ReymondCame across this video while surfing the net... The name sounds interesting, so being curious, I watched the video. I dunno what magic compelled me to finish watching the entire 2+ mins of the video. All I know is that, after watching it, I was flabagasted (mouth open dunno wad to say).
This is ART.
Enjoy! =)
10月26日 Nice designsSome nice designs I found while surfing the web. More pictures in http://www.designboom.com/eng/. Nice website. =)
 'yamaha tesseract'
 'mazda taiki'
 models display outfits from fendi's spring and summer 2008 collection at the great wall of china,
which was transformed into a catwalk during a fashion show in beijing, china.  'death by cotton candy' 2006
 'newton's breakfast' designed by david asher wilson
 an unbelievable fully functional, pedal powered, wire frame lamborghini
 the player allows you to use the MP3 player as you normally would, or alternatively you can open its sides and insert your favorite CD
 stop war shadow grafitti
 clothes peg used to transform chopsticks
 'toast messenger' by sasha tseng from sashapure 3月26日 'Nice' songWAIT!!!
Don't exit this page before you listen to this interesting song! Press the play button!
I've bought the album by Butak Pantai (at esplanade)! It has been a long time since I bought a CD. It has been a longer time since I bought a $20 CD. But well, I think it's worth it (anw so what if it's not? As I said, it has been such a LONG time since I bought a CD =P), despite a little controversy it brought when I was playing it in my hostel room. (My roomie almost go crazy!)
I strongly recommend that you listen to this song (to see if you go crazy too! =P). I personally feel that it's funny (listen what they say!), creative and nice. However, if you are weak-hearted, feel free to press the stop button. (But I'm sure you won't right? =)
Don't worry if it's making you crazy. I'll only put it up for 3 days before I change to another 'nice' song. Hee...
3月21日 Draw a houseCome come, take the personality test. Unleash the artist in you!
My houses:
A tiny drop of music......has been dissolved into this blog.
This has been something I wanted to do for a long time. Please feel free to enjoy the relaxing melody of *Bassa Nova music by pressing the little Play button on the left side of the page. The song is called Girl from Ipanema , by Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto.
*Bassa Nova definition -
A style of music developed in the south east of Brazil that merges samba rhythms with jazz-influenced harmonies and melodies.
Anwz recently a programme in Yes 933 introduced the songs of a local a cappella group call Budak Pantai, which I found is quite interesting and creative. What these musicians do is that they "give songs an extreme makeover... often with hilarious results." This is their website, you can check up the soundclips there. Songs I found quite nice there are Ai Hen Jian Dan , All Rice , The Log Cake Song and Sar Tan.
There are two songs I like a lot: Yi Bei Cha and Tribute to Titanic . But too bad it's either too short or not included in the soundchips. But nevermind, I'll put them here once I bought the album. =)
Magicians(For my own record purpose)
Jean Eugene Robert Houdin (1805-1871) - Father of Modern Magic
Alexander Herrmann (1843-1896)
Joseph Buatier De Kolta (1848-1903) - magician + tricks seller
John Nevil Maskelyne (1939-1917) - Keller's rival
Harry Kellar (1849-1922) - Maskelyne's rival
David Devant (1868-1941) - Maskelyne's partner
Howard Thurston (1869-1936) - Kellar's successor
Charles Morrit (1860-1936) - Houdini's friend
Harry Houdini (1874-1926)
PT Selbit (1881-1938) - invented Sawing the Lady
Guy Jarrett (1881-1972)
Source: Hidding the Elephant - How Magician Invented the Impossible by Jim Steinmeyer
8月19日 Five Levels of Visual-Textual AnalysisThis is another 'for my own reference' entry, additional reading material for my ADM431 - Western Art History.
Five Levels of Visual-Textual Analysis
1) Descriptive Or Pre-iconographic Level
Descriptive mapping--basic recognition of things—a tree, a landscape, a naked man.
Which are the key icons in this image?
How do they relate to each other in terms of form, space colour?
What is in the foreground, what is in the background?
If a person is featured, from what perspective are they being shown?
What gender, culture, class, age, religion, sexuality does the person appear to have?
What are the main colours in the image, how do they clash or contrast, dominate or complement each other?
Others:
Identification of Meanings and Symbols otherwise known as Preferred Readings--No critique or larger contextualized analysis —internal to codes premises of image attributes: Internal to the Image/Text;
eg. Christ beard. What are the main symbolic contrasts and/or binaries--in operation in this image/text combination?
What do you understand as the preferred reading of this image/text?
What do you think that the image/text is intended to convey?
How does the image/text do this?
Are there aspects of the image/text that contradict the intended/ preferred reading?
Who do think are the intended receivers/readers of this image/text?
3) Iconological Level: Larger, Critical Analytical/Interpretive Context (Oppositional/Negotiated Readings)
Eg. Te Pehi Kupe tattoo egs from Gardner Chapter 1
Content & Context
Larger meanings and analysis: including artist’s context, discourse and ideology.
What sort of assumptions are being communicated about gender/race/class/sexuality/religion/age in this
image/text combination?
What sorts of ideological tropes are at work here?
(An ideological trope is similar to a stereotype, but it is a little more “detailed” and is directly connected to a particular ideological--political perspective of the world)
Eg:
Any other codes you find of critical importance?
In an iconological analysis, Oppositional Readings or critical readings often come into play—reading an image against the presumed intentions of the maker/patron/painter.
4) Iconological & Inter-textual Level
Iconological readings can also mean intertextual Contextualising/ Critiquing the Image/Text Oppositional Readings
How do your responses to level 3) connect with a wider “matrix” of power politics and ideological assumptions about for example
gender/race/class/sexuality/religion/age
Can you think of other examples from visual textual media, or indeed, from every day life where the ideological tropes, binaries and visual inequalities at stake in these images are reproduced?
5) Reception Analysis—The Meanings being Made of an Image by a Particular Audience.
A fifth way to analyse visual/textual data is of course to conduct reception analysis amongst a controlled focus group, in order to attempt to understand the sorts of meanings different groups of people are actually making of visual/textual media and comparing these to your own critical analysis.
This is a little difficult to do with Greek classical sculpture!
However, its also pretty difficult to do today.
Reception analysis has a number of pitfalls. Images (and text) operate upon us on a whole series of conscious and unconscious levels.
And we are none of us able to completely formulate how these work upon us. The ways in which we decode visual/textual information is mediated by time (sometimes we make meanings out of things we have seen only years after we have seen them), by space and inter-textual context, (sometimes if we are distracted--we might be thinking of something totally other while supposedly looking at a painting or watching a tv ad).
This makes reception analysis a very inexact practice.
Moreover, it is dangerous to over-emphasize the viewers “freedom” to make meanings of media in whichever way he/or she chooses:
Its kind of like the way how consumers in a supposed “free-market system” are never truly free to consume whatever they want, there will always only be mundane, generic monopolies starbucks, Giordanos, CNN and Hollywoods to chose from.
Similarly, there is no such thing as “free will”, “free association” and “free interpretation” of visual culture—including fine art.
The very way we interpret images is in turn part and process of the images and ideologies through which we have moved every day since childhood. And these representations are monopolized by the structuring “dream makers” of our societies—those with the power to define/inscribe the ways in which we dream, think, understand speak, visualize, and perform our daily life
8月17日 For the artistically inclinedHere are some nice websites devoted to design, art and paper craft. Feel free to take a look.
8月5日 Western art history lesson 1A relaxing Wednesday evening, 5pm. I leisurely strolled into the 300-sitter lecture theatre with a Mocha Freeze in my hand from Coffee Club Express. This is only the 2nd time I frequented the stall outside Nanyang Auditorium throughout my 1 year in NTU. Anwz the LT is mostly empty, with only about 30 people inside. The lecturer wasn't here yet. I looked around for familiar faces. None. I sat down, enjoyed the aircon, took a sip of the aromatic coffee, and pulled out my novel to read.
This is life man.
The lecturer was fashionably late for 30 minutes. She's a westerner, around 25, quite beautiful and artistically dressed - long robe, scarf around her head, blah. She laughed alot, a bit hysterical I would say, a bit 'siao' I thought. Understandable though, since she had been teaching for the past 3 hours and will be teaching the same thing again for the next 3. If I was her I would also be hysterical.
(In fact I'm a bit siao now since just now the whole entry disappeared when I clicked 'Publish Entry' and I'm typing the same old thing again! Hahahahaha...)
Anwz, she's a very nice lady and her lecture was enlightening. Here's the summary:
~ Art, by Garder's defination, is material delibrately manipulated.
~ Why? 2 reasons.
Imagine how will you feel if somebody tear up the photo in your wallet or delete the photo in your hp. A photo is not merely a photo.
This's just like why we delibrately leave footprints in the sand. And I think this's also why we write blogs.
~ Art does NOT reflect reality. All art forms are Representations.
~ History is a battleground of claims and counter claims, stories and counter stories.
~ West (as in Western art) and East classification are not there naturally.
It seems that elective lecturers love to unplug us from the matrix - show us that things are not really what it seems. Our Chinese Cinema lecturer also told us something along this line about patriarchal society, binary culture etc etc. Anwz, let us go on to the last and most interesting point.
~ Any story is as much about Erasure or Absence as it is about Presence.
Actually this is similar to the way we were taught to appreciate (and write) chinese calligraphy. Calligraphy is not all about how nice the words are, but also about how the words are positioned such that the white empty spaces are as nice as the black words.
One learns something new everyday.
An enlightening and enjoyable evening.
8月1日 Filmographies of chinese directorsCompiled the filmographies of some of the more famous chinese directors during my chinese cinema module last sem. Put here for reference purposes.
Filmography of Wong Kar Wai
As Tears Go By (1988) Days of Being Wild (1991) Chungking Express (1994) Ashes of Time (1994) Fallen Angels (1995) Happy Together (1997) In the Mood for Love (2000) 2046 (2004)
Filmography of Zhang Yi Mou
Red Sorghum (1987) Codename Cougar (1989) Judou (1990) Raise the Red Lantern (1991) The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) To Live (1994) Shanghai Triad (1995) Keep Cool (1997) Not One Less (1999) The Road Home (1999) Happy Times (2001) Hero (2002) House of Flying Daggers (2004)
Filmography of Lau Wai Keung
Ultimate Vampire (1987) Young and Dangerous I ~ III (1996) Young and Dangerous IV (1997) Young and Dangerous Prequel & V (1998) The Storm Riders (1998) A Man Called Hero (1999) The Legend of Speed (1999) The Duel (2000) Sausalito (2000) Young and Dangerous VI (2000) Dance of a Dream (2001) The Wesley's Mysterious File (2002) Infernal Affairs I (2002) Infernal Affairs II & III (2003) Initial D (2005)
Filmography of Tsai Ming Liang
Rebels of the Neon God (1992) Vive L’amour (1994) The River (1997) The Hole (1998) What time is it over there? (2001) Good Bye, Dragon Inn (2003) The Wayward Cloud (2005)
Filmography of Peter Chan Ho Sun (Chen Ke Xin)
He’s a Woman, She’s a Man (1994) Comrades, Almost a Love Story (1996) Three (Going Home) (2002)
Filmography of Joan Chen
Xiu Xiu （天浴）(1998) Autumn in New York (2000)
Filmography of Stephen Chow
“Fifth Generation Filmmakers” - directors such as Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuang Zhuang
“New Wave” directors - Allen Fung (Fang Yu Ping), Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, John Woo, Stanley Kwan
4月28日 6 theories to analyse a film1) Film Theory --> Montage, composition, movement, visuality, lightings, spaces, settings, editting, sound effects --> Genres, themes & conventions --> Director's perspective
2) Literacy Theory Aristotelian Narrative Structure -->
3) Art Theory M.M. Bakhtin's Bakhtinian Dialectics --> Novelistic (many voices) vs Epic (single narration) --> Heteroglossia (text that's novelistic) --> Dialogic, canivalesque (many voices, like a market place, eg. House of 72 Tenents)
Henri Focillon's Theory of Evolution of Style
Post Modernism ( Jean-Francois Lyotard's Defination) --> conflicting, incoherent infomation/fragments which fits together on one interface (eg. KungFu Hustle) --> hybridiztion
Stephen Chow's Humour Techniques 无厘头
4) Feminist Theory (resisting patriachal system) Liberal Feminism --> man = woman (eg. communist/maoist movies) Cultural Feminism --> man != woman (eg. The Goddess, Xiu Xiu, Ju Dou --> show oppression of women - raise awareness) Mannerist Feminism --> Do away with gender classification, pple have right to do what they want --> Gender is a social construct, design and implemented by organisation rather than merely "true" Queer Theory --> Make use of Mannerist ideologies to resist oppression to homosexuals, bisexuals, lebian & transexuals (eg. Formula 17)
5) Cultural Theory --> Chinese diasporic culture (transnational chinese, eg. Return of Dragon, Comrades, Almost a Love Story 甜蜜蜜) --> Transnational films --> Purality of chinese culture (differences within the Chinese, eg. 甜蜜蜜) --> Youth culture (why young people like to watch Infernal Affairs, Young & Dangerous?) --> Binary (1 & 0) culture (good & bad, male & female, nothing in between - we laugh when we see effeminate male character) --> Sociopolitcal (effects of government & society, eg. Cut - censorship, Best Bet - gov policies on gambling) --> Multiculturalism (Singapore films)
6) Psychoanalytical Theory --> Oedipus complex - unconcious sexual desire of a child for parent of opp sex (eg. Days of Being Wild 阿飞正传) --> Subconcious desire to indulge in love/sex (Vive L'amour 爱情万岁)
PS. This's my self-compiled notes of my film module - for my future reference
4月17日 Art works by M C EscherI've uploaded some drawings by one of my favourite artists at the photo album section. Go take a look. Here are some of them, enjoy! Btw, this guy wanted to be an architect, but failed his exams. If he passed them his creation would (probably) be less interesting. =)
|
|
|
