Sewing (2007) is an artwork created created by Lin Tianmao. It consists of a sewing machine, threads crossing through the plate and a video projected onto the thread. In the video, there is a pair of hands sewing things through the sewing machine. The hands were quite wrinkled and rough, possibly hinting that they belong to a person who works a lot with their hands. The thread and action of "sewing" demonstrates and hints the identity of persona. Since these are highly related to feminine figures, the persona would be associated as a housewife, even possibly an aged mother.

I really enjoy how the installation tries to represents a sense of past image even though it may not be physically here. Its very poetic how the artist relates childhood memories with footages. Through fixing the footages onto an actually sewing machines, and using threads to connect everything together, the artist was able to show her concept on recreating and  preserving something that was once there but lost via time.

I am drawn in by the idea of preserving a memory by sealing it into an object of space. To work on my project, the artwork inspires me to work in materials(video or audio sources) and rearrange them into an actual scene with different objects and designs of space, hoping to create a similar impression of the "home".

”For now we see through a window, dimly" is a collection of photographs done by Hong Kong artist Luke Ching. Playing with the concept of camera obscura, the artist applies light sensitive paper within a dark room and seeking windows as a camera lens, insignicant details outside the room is being captured. The photos shows their uniqueness as each space carries different scenarios, but at the same time each "camera" can only capture one specific scene. Since camera obscure requires a long time for exposure, the outcomes behaves more like a slow process of accepting and adapting of environment.

What I enjoyed about the work is how everything thats very mundane is being inverted. To me, it gives me a sense that when we start to notice insignificant little things around us, its existence and characteristic will by whens expand to the point you feel unfamiliar with.

The ”For now we see through a window, dimly" encouraged me to look into ordinary scenes or objects that relates to home. It also gave me a thought on capturing the memories about "home" using time-consuming materials, to show an eventual build up of this "space".

In Eija-Liisa Ahtila's work "Me/We, Ok, Grey", the short film attempts to show three fictional narrations consisting of rhythmic monologues. In the film, the speech seems to be not coming directly from the persona's mouth and in certain scenes, masculine voice tend to come out from a girl's body and replaces her voice.

The concept of juxtaposing voices catches my attention a lot. I enjoyed how lyrics and speeches are coming out from a body/voice that's seen as incorrect. It helps to build mystery and also uncomforted base for the film. The fact that the audio seemed to be very narrative also helped to pull the audience away from the scene. It leads us to become an observer rather than being involved in the incident. This might be a good methodology to be used when I want to restrict the audience from being too involved in an event.

I think I will try to adapt this concept into my project, especially for my 3rd outcome, which would possibly be an audio of some speech. I can think more about the choice of persona's voice, e.g. the sex, age and accent. Based on these factors, I can continue developing its relationship with the context, so that the outcome of my audio would be greatly conveying atmosphere that I'd like to show, which is somehow disturbed and unrecognised.

The artist Jordan Clark creates series of portrait photography, where the faces of the persona is always deconstructed in the sense that it is dissected into geometric shapes and rearranged in the composition. The way that the artist distorts the photo is very inspiring, because his methodology did not attempt to include or exclude anything from the original photo, but to rearrange their positions so to give an illusion that things do not appeal what they are supposed to be anymore.

I really like how the rearrangement of the geometric shapes kind of gives a pixelated sense to the portraits, even though nothing was really recreated. It kind of fits to what I was trying to work on my 2nd outcome for my project. I really wanted to try to portray a sense of discomfort and distortion based on something that actually really normal and basic. Using a very plain composition, I think I will try to use techniques inspired by Jordan Clark, along with some experiments based on the color tones of the photo, to create a sense of distortion and creepiness without including elements that are actually horrifying.

Haroon Mirza is an artist who makes wild use of digital rhythm and beats in his installations. The background beats along with his video footages highlights a sense of unconsciousness as it builds a very heavy and confusing mood. I really like how digital music were used to link all the sources together: The space, the objects and the footages. It also brings me to following the beats and trapped in the vortex of the installation.

I got really interested in working with MIDI music after visiting the exhibition in Zabludowics Gallery. In my project "The Consequences of Taking Your Time", I will try to convert my boomerang clip to an audio work. I think I can consider creating a melody piece. This is because I have some some knowledge on composing and playing music, and I also had some experience on writing melodies using programs and apps. Since I wanted to distort my clip, I can try to compose music via outlining the specific images into music notes and then converting them into melody pieces. In this case, the music that I've made would be remote from what is seen in the original clip. When choosing the instrument sounds, I can also try to work on something that sounds more digital, perhaps, e.g. synthesiser and electrical drum set.

Francis Alys's work "The Last Clown" is an installation consisting of series of drawings, paintings and a short looping animation of the persona encountering a dog and had a fall. The installation aims to show how the artist started off with a concept and tried out different methods of displaying it to the audience. The storyline started off with a simple incident of the artist's friend falling on the street, where he began to think how the fall represents a sense of joke and laughter. 

I got really inspired via the artist's continuous change and improvements to the work. The change in medium and composition helps to slowly develop a storyboard to the piece and gradually made the work richer and visually interesting to see. This action reminds me of the telephone game (known as Chinese Whisper) we used to play in a team. When bringing on to develop the message, the property of the message also slightly distorts until another new context was formed.

I wanted to try to bring this progress to a more exaggerated state, where I start off with a simple image/clip, and to play the telephone game with myself until the outcomes more towards the final becomes totally unrelated to the original piece.

 "Unicorn" is a photography of the artist wearing a set of props that she made. The prop resembles the body parts of a unicorn and demonstrates a symbolisation of purity and innocence. The way how she stands in the middle of the yields and wears the piece portrays an unrealistic realistic scene, which kind of hints the possibility of absolute purity.

I think it is quite interesting to see how the artist made good use of objects on body. I really like how the prop acts as a cover to the skin, where to me, it resembles a kind of camouflage to cover imperfections on a body. This is something that I can consider about in my project. I can make good use of the concept of applying and covering the body, and make this action to represent the fixing or improving the surrounding elements.

The artist Haroon Mirza created a work called Chamber. The work is a dark, muted room with only 1 red laser spot. When I visited the gallery, I was invited to experience 5 minutes inside this isolated room. The experience was supposed to be experimental about how the laser could be shown in wave or particles form. However, I gained something completely different from that and became more of a self-reflection and visual/audio transformation time.

When I was alone in the room, I had a lot of thoughts happening in the short period of time. At first, the absolute nothing reminds me of life and death. It drives me to a situation where I felt like the nothingness might be what I'll be facing after death. After the first 2 minutes past by, since I was not used to the complete isolation, I started to have illusional sights/hearings. Looking at the laser helped me in grabbing onto the focus, which made the isolation less painful, but the hallucination still bugged me til I leave.

I think that this is a very unique experience. This is because it reminds me of some of the acts I tend not to tell be in the past. Seeing illusional sights was something that has been accompanying me through out my childhood. To me, these illusional sights are like filters that doesn't effect what I actually see. The experience gave me an interesting start to think about working with these sights. It would be nice to see how filters reacts/collaborates with my own body or other people.

I've visited the National Portrait Gallery and saw Sarah Lucas' work "Self Portrait with Skull". In terms of the composition and effect, I think it brings a really strong effect to the audience due to the symmetrical form created by the persona and the object. The posture of the artist conveys a wild feeling, where she tries to make the stereotypical gender type less distinctive.

I enjoyed how the artist makes good use of objects in her composition to bring out the atmosphere. The including of the skull highlights the ominous mood and kind of brings out a serious tone of the artist. After looking into more of Sarah Lucas' other self-portraits, I think I can adapt some of the techniques that she've used, such as showing the engagement of herself with the highlighted objects. If I try to use probs in my project, I can consider the relationship between me and the objects to persuade the audience.

Francis Alys worked on a series of video about children's game. One of the videos (Children's Play 15 in specific), the children were playing war games around an abandoned house. According to the caption, it was filmed at the Juarez City, which was known as one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico. The location and type of game shows a great juxtaposition with respect to the character of a child. In the film, the children were innocently playing something they see as "interesting" and "fun". The wilderness of these young kids reminds me of how crucial the world is, because these children were able to get involved with knowing a lot about wars and violence at a young age, this is most probably because they were being affected by the grown up surrounding and adult's attitude. 

Francis Alys's video kind of made me in think about the actions of children. It's interesting how children's action differs from the adult's world but at the same time, from their thoughts and words, you can determine the surrounding factors of this person. The artist's videos pushes me to try starting off my project with the observations of children in public, or I can also try to recall some of the actions that I enjoyed doing as a kid but would be seen strange as a grown up. To start off with my project, I think I will try to observe and pay more attention to my surroundings.