Text on Practice - Te

My most recent video work called “The Holy Sponge” is a short mockumentary for the EYE project where I set up the trailer for the fictional exhibition “Keep Worshiping”.

The film begins with a very brief introduction of the King Sponge of the coconut shell planet, who is the owner of every item that is going to be shown in the exhibition. Followed by the various holy items that King Sponge used to help develop the Coconut Shell Planet.

The selection of household items is based on personal belongings of the previous king of Thailand that were released by Thai official media.

For example, a picture of his pencils which are well used, and toothpaste tubes which are really well squeezed, his shoe which is humble. All of those items are taken as a picture and were used as evidence supporting the King’s philosophy of sufficiency economy. Some things that are very humble were elevated into a high state.

I am amazed by how the media manipulates how people perceive the objects and it also makes me curious about how effective new meanings or stories were added into each object.

My script is also inspired by the story behind each item that has been told.

For instance, the king only utilized twelve Holy Pencils per year due to the philosophy of sufficient economy which focuses on development based on moderation and prudence.

In the production process, I filmed the items that seem to be normal items that could be found in every house or supermarket with the moving golden yellow fabric as the background. I shoot in high frame rate to make it more gorgeous.

All items are put into the golden frames in the editing process to raise more value.

With the animated particles overlayed as the video background in some shots.

Aside from the golden frame, I showed the written text describing holy information in the format of the museum labels. By doing that, It helps the audience feel like they are in the actual exhibition or museum. Those visual elements add a sense of humor to the narration.

In the past I did a lot of commercial product photography which mainly focused on the superficial look, but in this work it is more related to the history of the object which I wasn’t concerned about than much in the past.

Since object shooting is my obsession. As well as my attempt to take a photo every day.

I got inspiration from the Scratch Directory session, So I have been setting the rule for shooting on each date and also monthly theme. For example, the first of every month, I will take a photo of something that can be torn apart. And in January I will take photos of trash. That means on the first of January I will set a photoshoot of something that can be torn apart with trash. I believe it’s a good way of generating new images.

As I feel like lately I haven’t produced a lot of work, so if I can set the rule to shoot something very fast every day. At the end of the year I’m supposed to have 365 photos with different concepts.

I think seeing the results in the big picture might show some connection of each photo and even inspire me to develop this work into the next level.