Shinyoung : TEXT on METHOD 1st draft

https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Calendars:Networked_Media_Calendar/Networked_Media_Calendar/09-05-2018_-Event_2

TEXT ON METHOD - 'The Looping World

Introduction

My recent work ‘The Looping World’ was a part of my master curriculum in Piet Zwart Institute. When I was working on it, since I was not used to involve such research, most of the steps that I have made are new tome. In other words, I tried to approach the topic from a different starting point and also tried with different procedure from what I was accustomed to. Rather than focusing on how to visualize, I put more time to build up the concept and message by exploring diverse medium regarding the theme. However, I wanted to keep the root of my visual style which is still growing its branches since I hopped on to the field. Through this text, I would like to rethink about ‘The Looping World’ with an analytical view to find out what I have achieved and to discover a new room for my improvement.

Procedure

As a participant of Research lab 2018, my work was exhibited at EYE FILMMUSEUM ASTERDAM. All the participants were required to create their own works based on the theme as its names shows: 'THE UTOPIA/ DISPOPIA PROJECT’. I first started with researches about the utopia and dystopia in a different approach. Rather than thinking of a plot or things to symbolize the term, which isn’t my style, I focused on the root of its literal terms ‘utopia’ and ‘distopia’. As for the procedure, I started with collecting data on the current definition of utopia including the usage. Next, I tried to look on its origins and finally, development on definition. These initiatives had to be done due to reach one of the objectives that I had, to maintain my style of storytelling. Nevertheless, every step during the data collection and analyzing them were new and applying them to my visuals is a skill that I should develop more.

Normally, I introduce myself as an animator and an illustrator who has strong fascinations toward colorful, bold and aesthetic imagery. I am considering my works to be visually strong and always aiming to have my own distinctive visual language. My works deliver enjoyment, relaxation and refreshment with easy subjects. As the reflection, I think one of the most important roles of the arts is enriching people’s lives. I am interested in reinterpreting familiar stories with my direction and visual language. For example, my representative animation ‘Eden’ is a music video, with reformulated story from Adam and Eve.  As an artist who prefers friendliness to be involved to emerge collaborative views from the audiences, having a critical view and expressing the oppression was not my strength, which led me to avoid this feature on my artwork plots. Nevertheless, I always was preparing to include certain critical views on my works. In this regard, ’The Looping World’ was a good challenge to reach my critical voice with a satisfying result.  

Based on these researches, I was able to structure the desired message to deliver through my work. In the beginning, I was planning to focus on Utopia, but as the data accumulated, my theme were leaning towards Distopia. Historically, there were many attempts to realize the Utopia which is the ideal society with some substantiated theories. Most of them were failed to persuade all the population with diversions. Each person has different desires which led to conflicts. Many theories were structured by ambitions of human who eagers for a better world, but the theories were collapsed by the ambitions. This phenomenon has been repeated in the history of mankind. I wanted to reflect this message, which I formulated based on my research result, and explore new format of medium which I have not tried before. 

Based on the information above, I decided to create a world with distinctive social status rankings. In this world, two distinctive themes are shown. One theme shows people craving for changes with their actions. For example, a person keeps going up the stairs but he stays at the same height. The other theme demonstrates two parties fighting to win the better bipolar result. For example, two people are standing on each end of scale. When one person stretches out his body, the other person squashes. People in this world represent all humankinds and the two types of situations imply all the attempts to realize Utopia for their own desires with their own ways. I was inspired by an image of a building with people from different floors being busy with different actions. I decided to create my work with vertical ratio, not a normal horizontal one due to two reasons. First is to convey my inspiration, the people with different purpose acting simultaneously in a tall vertical building. Second is to deliver the main themes that I have explained while pleasuring audiences by offering them time to spot details.

What I felt difficult while working on the project is linking my visual language with the pessimistic message. I think my visual language has a tendency to be positive, colorful and bold shaped in design which bring feminine mood. Thus, I have been always trying to develop my own way of storytelling, which I found quite tricky when it comes to pessimistic themes. I came up with black comedy as a tool of storytelling. This style of humor has a big advantage on bring a particular contentious issue on the table with everyone’s laughter. It provokes both positive and negative moods in a good balance as it was used in numerous literatures, movies and plays throughout history. I thought this genre can be an effective and powerful tool I can apply. I chose to put cute characters acting cruel and hopeless to let the viewers to have more dramatic feelings. Thus, I set dwarfs who express emotions only with their lower part of face as representation of modern society. To bring the fairy tale mood corresponded to the dwarf design, I created background based on a castle. Color variation was prioritized based on gloominess rather than brightness.

Appendix

description of the Looping world

Human beings have been struggling to live in an ideal world with ambition. Those efforts and struggles have initiated with human’s natural desire to exceed the limitation of current society and to realize the ideal society: Utopia. Through our history, numerous theories toward utopian society have been adduced by thinkers and politicians throughout the East to West. Confucius emphasized a society performed by human agents and embodying the civilized and cultured patterns of behavior developed through generations of human wisdom. Lao-tzu believed an acknowledgement of the natural law against to an artificial environment which makes people behave badly. In Western philosophy, Plato, a Greek philosopher, claimed that “philosopher kings” should be the rulers of nations to realize justice ruled by knowledge. Utopian society was characterized by egalitarian principles of equality on government, economics, religion, sexual and other factors, reflecting the spirit of Renaissance-Humanism. Since the 20th century, Ideology, a structure of Idealism which explains human world and modifies it, has been emerged in many different forms. Marxism aimed to collapse hierarchical society by prohibiting private property against capitalism, and Anarchism advocates self-governed societies based on voluntary institutions in order to hold the state of equal and free from any oppression. Those ideologies are seen as a part of revolutions for claiming the equal. However, limitations were faced to realize admirable equally world with this single theory. If revolution theory is scientific, there would be a definite answer. Yet, revolution is not a predictable science, therefore, unavoidable variable matters are occurred. The most fatal matter people did not recognize was all human beings are greedy animals which never fulfils their satisfaction. This is a driving force toward the ideal society to overcome current limitation and also the most decisive factor which destroys their ideal society. Human wishes to accomplish a world without capitalism, yet human nature is completely capitalist. In addition, human growth engines are hindered when equality and freedom reach a certain standard. As the history shows, eagerness for better world have structured the current society; nevertheless, it is the eagerness which also demolishes the world. The world is structured by ambitions of human who is eager for better world, and the world is destructed by the ambitions.