PROJECT PROPOSAL
During my Self-Initiated Project, I explored the relationship between colour and mood. I created two cardboard boxes with two different colours: Red and Blue.
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I, then made my friends to stand inside the box and made them act out whatever emotions they want.
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For my Final Major Project, I would like to extend my ideas from my Self-Initiated Project.
Final-Major Project
12th April 2024:
For this week, I started developing ideas for my FMP, relating to the two cardboard boxes that I made for my SIP.
A few ideas came into my mind:
- Paper Manipulation (Making different form of waves and combine them to make a big artwork)
- Mirror (Stick mirrors on the inside of the boxes to create an infinite space)
- To shine lights into an enclosed box to experiment the changes in shadow due to the lights from different angles.
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But when I told Darren about my last idea, he suggested not to put my artwork in an enclosed space and that I should focus on using the scale of my cardboard boxes.
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19th April 2024:
I was very lost about what I should do for my FMP. So, for the first few days of the week, I touched up the cardboard boxes as they became out of shape during the holidays. And later in the week, Darren helped me figure out what I should do for the FMP. During the talk, Darren mentioned that he sees the blue cardboard box as a screen. Then, he suggested the idea of "Sublime" and introduced me to the term "Cyber Sublime. He also told me about an artist called "Barnett Newman".
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Barnett Newman's artwork revolves around colour and scale. According to Phillip Barcio from the magazine, Ideelart, Newman uses such large scale to indicate the insignificance size of an individual compared to the surrounding.
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So, as my next step, he advised me to hang my cardboard box on the wall and experiment with its position.
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Barnett Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis, 1951
(ideelart, unknown date)
29th April 2024
Phil has suggested me to make my cardboard boxes neater, such as replacing the parcel tape with something less visible and making sure there are so stroke marks of paint inside the box.
So, I started experimenting different techniques to find out which would not leave marks.
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My first technique was to apply more layers of paint, which is why I applied 6 layers and it no longer shows any stroke marks. However, one of the drawbacks is that I am experimenting on a much smaller surface than my actual project. This led to my second technique to use a foam roller. However, its coverage is not as good as using a brush and also leaves a peculiar texture on the surface.
Making the boxes neater:
I started making samples of two small boxes.
- One covered with duct tape.
- Another one painted the outer surface with black and joined together with duct tape.
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Then as an experiment, I place those small boxes in unusual spaces and take photographs.
12th May 2024
As I was roaming around an art store, I encountered a particular shade of blue, which I think would be more suitable for a digital screen. So, I started repainting the surfaces of the box.
19th May 2024
As I was painting the box, I found myself feeling lost about what to do next. Phil and Darren gave me a bunch of ideas and among them, the one that stood out to me the most was jelly.
The idea was to create a big screen on the wall with jelly as the main ingredient. For jelly, I am using Hartley's strawberry jelly cube as my main material at the moment as I cannot find blue jelly.
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24th May 2024
- I made a few batches of jelly with different amount of gelatine in each.
- The less gelatine there is, the more watery the jelly will be.
- I attempted to stick the jelly on the wall and I found out that the jelly with two packets of gelatine last the longest on the wall.
1st June 2024
I ordered blue jello and since it is from a different brand than hartleys, the recipe for it is quite different and much harder to get the perfect consistency to stick the jelly. This led me to get an idea of stacking the jelly on the ground. Even though I still have to get the consistency of the jelly right, it would be much easier to stack the jelly on the ground.
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Jello:
It comes in the powder form and the input amount of gelatine affects the colour of the jelly.
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For my FMP, I will be hanging a white-painted shelf and stack the jelly as high as possible on it.
7th June 2024
I made my final batch of jelly on Wednesday night and display it on the shelf on Thursday(the day before the exhibition). Before that, I tried to get both colour and consistency of the jelly right. However, I failed to do so.
The higher the jelly get, the more chances of it falling down.
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The final display:
My final product is very different from my original idea from the beginning. However, I believe this turned out as a successful project as jelly is a very unique material to use compared to room-darkening foam. Moreover, I get to be more experimental with jelly as I need to keep testing how to get the perfect consistency to achieve what I want it to achieve.