Brief A- Abstraction: A Mediation on
The Black Square
Fluidity in Unity is the final outcome of a mediation on Malevich’s ‘Black Square’ created in cooperation with Dianne, Ashley, Jules, Sara and Filippo. The project examine notions of dualism and the theory of dependency through exploiting the Yin & Yang theory in new approaches, to break the traditional monolithic ways of seeing dualism as only a reflection of opposite entities.
Debriefing & Ideation Notes
What is Black? What is its concepts?
Black is nothing, but everything.
Black exists from the dependence of others.
- Through complementary elements (Black vs White, Shadow vs Light, Good vs Evil)Black is the reflection & absorption of things
- The Black HoleTexture & Senses - Black can not be seen or felt.
- What do blind people see? Black? White?
- Does Black actually exist? What is truth? Is Black equivalent to White?
At the beginning, our group was engulfed with confusion as we were lost in what and how we could start. We planned to create an interactive experience with the audience as the final outcome where we would’ve created a mystery black box, and have participants “guess” what’s inside it as a game influenced by a Japanese game show I saw previously. The game originally require participants to guess what the object in this box is as they reach their hands into the box while being blind-folded. We wanted to play with this excitement by ‘tricking’ our participants into guessing its content, where in fact we intent to put nothing inside and just have the viewers feel and experience that emptiness. This emptiness refers to what our group interprets as ‘black’ as everything and nothing at the same time. We hoped to interview participants after about what they were thinking and feeling during the process of trying to guess what the object is, trying to bring forth emotions and other sensual experiences relevant to the fear of not knowing what’s inside the box like that of a black hole. However, after several more meetings and group discussions, we found how we were still just constrained in the idea of a black box, resulting to our final decision to disregard this idea and start over again.
Group Discussions & Initial Thoughts
After our first mini group work on exploring ideas and creating a mockup for notions on the black square, we managed to get a glimpse of everyone’s specialty as well as the way we each take on a project. As good as how we each got amazing ideas, we had to come with a conclusion on the final theme/ topic of exploration. We gathered each of our concepts and created a voting poll as a decision-maker, and thereon pitched more personal ideas and research based on the chosen concept: ‘Black does not exist on its own’. At the beginning, all group members had really good but indifferent ideas which made decision making really challenging. We decided to each go back and gather more research for further discussion, however for me, I wanted to work on a project with everyone’s idea included in some ways, which made me started brainstorming ideas where all of our topics can combine. Below section indicates my thinking process in how I ended up researching about the principle of dependency, as I thought it was the linking theory that connects all of our ideas.
Going back to square one, we decided to explore and reexamine our existing ideas in a more theoretical approach. Stepping out of the literal square expression, I decided to research about the ontological principle of dependency, as we discussed black as an element that is only visible through comparison. I was really proud of the research topic I concluded to as not only was the idea more complexed, it also touches upon notions of relevancy which is applicable to every individual’s mentioned topic of interest.
As someone who has prior working experience in a corporate environment, I understand the difficulties of not being able to have your ideas or opinion heard due to client or convenience circumstances. During my working days, it was hard to work on projects which I was not fully satisfied with which resulted in lack of motivation and overall dissatisfaction towards an outcome even when other people sees it or has complimented it as really good. Because of this experience, I didn’t want anyone in my group to feel the same way; where they had to work on a project that they don’t feel motivated, excited or enthusiastic for, which led me to conducting a lot of research in hope of making everyone feel happy with the way our project is going. In initial stages, I realised how one of our group members was having difficulties finding a place to incorporate personal skills and ideas into the project. I decided to reach out to the group member and tried asking about his passions, which I believe at the end helped not only our group in enriching ideas to our final outcome, but also on a personal level as I managed to realise the importance of communication and group cooperation. It made me realise how listening to everyone creates better opportunities and human management is also a key aspect to success.
Finally seeing the thematic scope of our project, we decided to conduct more in-depth research on notions of dualism through the oppositions of black and white, and on the basics and story and origins of the Yin & Yang Theory. In the process, we found many linking theories that could be presented together to add another layer of richness into the storytelling aspect of our outcome. I was really excited for the project as I got to learn and develop personal experience in visualising concepts in new methods. If it wasn’t for the people in my group, I would’ve never thought of using dance performance as a tool of expression. It was due to every one of our prior experience and professional skills which allowed us to come up with such an approach, ultimately making me understand all the possibilities a brief can bring just because of the people involved.
Feedback & Developments
Personally, I found all feedback sessions given to us really treasurable and important. To me, feedback was always key to improvement as I get to know how others think of the work and how it is perceived. It is a tool for me to see whether personal ideas are delivered properly, and also an opportunity to develop new ideas depending on what others suggest.
There were many times when new ideas and thoughts which we never thought of came to fore as discussions from our peers and tutor builds on one another. Our interpretation of Yin & Yang as “creatures” (a name to formalise the two main entities as characters) was only able to develop the way it has due to our tutor’s recommendation on looking at notions of ‘the body’ from another angle. It made me think what a ‘body’ really is, allowing me to learn new forms of expression not only through ‘characters’ but also through forms and abstraction.
It was always a dream of mine to work on a shoot no matter it being film or photography. For this project, I’ve decided to take on the role as a stylist and settings coordinator for the first time. I decided to challenge myself as an art director by not only participating in the ideation of this project which is a given, but also in brainstorming and preparing props & materials for our performers. I personally find the role of a stylist really important as the way we dress our ‘characters’ could affect how viewers perceive the final piece. Each element holds an importance in creating meaning, such as how round objects inform Yang’s mellow, warm, and active connotation while sharp and hard objects inform Yin’s cold, stern, and introverted personality. With hopes of finding a costume that could best suite our characters, we contacted several fashion designers both in CSM and outside of UAL who actually offered to cooperate with us by providing us their designs. However, due to difficulties with budget and timing, we weren’t able to leverage those designs which led us to searching for materials from charity shops and nearby clothing stores. Many clothes I saw were not ideal, and it was too late to order any resource online, Jules (also responsible with styling) and I decided to bring what we had from our closet, and gather as much materials as we could on the day of the shoot.
Sharing Research with Unit 1 & Exhibition Visits - Deforming the Human Body
As we were working on Brief A in tandem with Unit 01’s Zine project, I managed to bring in observations from exhibitions I went for my zine into this project where I focused further research and idea development on ‘abstraction of the body’ as suggested by our tutor during one of our tutorial sessions. After receiving constructive feedbacks from our peers namely on works like the Triadic Balley and artists like Paolo Roversi who looks at the human body in new perspectives, I decided to take a look at how different artists incorporate different ways to represent ideas of the body and take reference to what elements we could add for the styling of our story’s characters. This research process was really valuable as it broadened my thinking and allowed me to really understand what abstraction is. It made me step out of making these characters into ‘creatures’ just to de-humanise it, but to actually embrace or use certain existing shapes of the human body and deform them in ways to fit our conceptualisaion.
Shooting & Final Delivery
The creation part of this project only took action one week before our final submission. Though short, it was packed with many experiences which enabled me to learn how working with people of different backgrounds, profession and personalities would be like on set. It was an opportunity for me to understand and foresee challenges I might face in future live projects, preparing how I can approach or tackle certain issues in more efficient ways.
IMPROVISATION TO SUCCESS
As mentioned previously, styling also didn’t went as smoothly as we hoped due to the lack amount of resource we had. It was also our first time meeting the dancers that day, which made things even more complicated as we realised a lot of the clothes we gathered does not fit the dancers. Like how we let the dancers improvise the performance after telling them the main theme, I also improvised in the costume creation by running to the art shop and putting elements that were available together to form the overall vibe and tone we wanted for each character. All-in-all, I think that the styling of both characters went even better than what i anticipated at the beginning. I would not have used balloons and stockings on the models to create the ‘abstraction of the body’ if it wasn’t for not having the initial costumes ready. This whole experience made me realise how a pinch could always turn out better and there is not use panicking when something is not going as planned. Problem solving becomes the most important skill we need at circumstances like this to continue.
ADAPTATION IS KEY
Many preparations and planning was made before the actual shoot. With little availabilities to any filming studios, our group only managed to book a photography studio to shoot our dance video. We were also not allowed to take a look at the room before booking session so we were clueless to how large the room actually was and what spaces were available for us to use. Due to this limitation, we couldn’t leverage most of our planned shots as the space given was a lot smaller than we thought. We wanted the camera movement of this video to feature a range of different shots (close-ups, wide angle, moving, etc.) so that it works on par with the dancer’s choreography. But knowing we couldn’t do so on the actually shooting day, we deliberately changed the background settings, and created a space where we could still create movement using props and backdrops to cover up the lack of camera shots we would’ve been able to film. The limited amount of time allowed for us to stay in the booked studio forced our adaptational skills to improve immensely within a short period of time as we had to keep chaning our plans. It wouldn’t be weird to say that the final result was even completely different to what we intended to create.
With a background in Illustration, our group decided to incorporate animated hand-drawn illustrations to the final video during post-production, in order to add another layer of complexity reflecting our rationale of breaking the ‘linear’ notion of dualism. However, due to the limited amount of time we had, we chose to disregard and focus more on the actual film editing. Despite conducting prior research and preparations for the post-production illustration, I think it was all-in-all a better decision for us to stop and focus on what we already have so that the assets we have are more presentable and refined. It also allowed me to learn the importance of priorities and letting go, as more does not mean better especially when the outcome could turn out looking unfinished due to vague and rough illustrations for the sake of it being present.
Final Thoughts
&
Opportunities
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Final Thoughts & Opportunities •
Overall, Brief A was a project that was really hectic, stressful, unexpected, confusing but fun. I managed to work with people of different backgrounds, and got the chance to even partake in roles I’ve always wanted but didn’t have the chance to do so in previous works. ‘Fluidity in Unity’ was something I wouldn’t have imagined ourselves making as it was so different to all the ideas we had at the beginning. It was due to the many feedbacks, unexpected encounters and everyone’s effort which made this project come to how it is. Although the final result was not what we all wanted idealistically, we couldn’t leverage a lot of our ideas due to lack of time, space and budget which could’ve made the project even better and finest, but what’s most important was conveyed, which to me was most successful as that is what art directors should do; communicating ideas and message through the work we create.
After receiving final feedbacks from our peers during the final presentation, I wanted to try experimenting with different editing methods as I thought that the post-production could be pushed further to blend both worlds (black vs white) together even more, and build an even more suspenseful world that only exists within the platform. I thought of what kind of shots we could use especially in the context of filming a dance performance, and even tried exploring new softwares and played with different cinematic colours in hopes to take this experience and what I learnt into the next.
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