A Romatic scene

mOon

I

Mountains

W... e.... e....d....s

s.............a.............a............e

........e........W ........v......... s

U

This is not a post

These are not my IDEAS

--- in my head and maybe yours,

but not here---

(Zana, ft Magritte)

Image is only a representation of reality.

***

Text is only a representation of reality.

***

"Roses?

I see only shits?"

------------------

Art is not what lays before you. It appears inside you.

Art is not what you see. It is what you make of it.

Art is not what your eyes see. It is what your brain sees.

***

Therefore,

what is the difference between text and image?

***

I love listening to Murakami's

embracing Hugo's

and watching Walter Scott's

as well as tasting Caravaggio ...

Text. But rotated 90 degree clockwise, a picture.

My flash- SHENG

http://unix.rmit.edu.vn/~s3153823/sheng.swf

I got the inspriration for this flash from Chinese philosophy (Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism) and the concept of "metaphor" learnt in DIM 1.

Through this flash, I want to make a comment about existence as cycles of life and death. Death is only a form of existence. (you see, though there is a chapter titled "Death", the name of the flash is "Sheng" (live; life) since "Death" is a kind of Life. People can reach the highest or final state of living by death or buy meditation.


(I try to put it in a simple way for ease of understanding. A more accurate way of expressing my opinion, if you're interested, is that "There are two parts of existence: life and “non life”. Human can reach the “not life” part in two ways: by death or by meditation. In the “life” part, each human lives as self, as a part of a family and a part of the nation. In the “non life” part, people live as parts of the universe. People are born as parts of nature and will die as such- existence continues as cycles like that. Cycles of lives, harmony between yin and yang- existence is defined by definite natural laws. " (quoted from my Statement in Dim 1))

I intentionally used the two black rectangulars in this flash. They stand for the "yin". The white space in which scenes take place stands for "yang"- life, male, etc. You can see that when the soldiers die, they fall into the black area- return to the "yin". When the woman reaches the highest state of meditation, she dissolves into the white area-"yang". And at the end, these areas again transform themselves back to the image of the "yin" and "yang" circle at the beginning. => "Yin" and "yang" are materials to create this world.

This flash illustrate the three relationships of human in life: with family, with nation and with nature.

Some examples of how I used metaphor:

+ The black image of the woman (yin) on the wall: a metaphor for the inferiority of women in old China: they were only men’s shadows
+ The blurring of the image of woman meditating until becoming totally white: integrating into the infinite
+ The colour black (black frame, black woman): yin; death
+ The dying man disappears into the black frame+ the black frame covering the white circle (white circle- a metaphor for the world) then becoming half of it (at the end), repeating the first image: reincarnation; the division of the world into two world of life and death; life is a continuous cycle etc.
+ Three bows: wedding

+ The word "ai" (Chinese word for "love")

etc.

Some examples of how I created a Chinese atmosphere:

+ I listened to notice the Chinese music’s typical rhythm to imitate it in the two short music at the beginning and the end of the flash that I composed.

+ The title of each chapter is presented like in Chinese movies and written in Chinese
+ The image of the yin and yang circle
+ The word “ai” (love)
+ The temple
+ The sound of meditation usually heard in Chinese temples
+ The Chinese wedding
+ Etc.

Signs

One of the superiorities of human's mind over other animals is the ability to generalize. That gives human the ability to think "abstractly".

To illustrate this power, I have created a series of images. They are just lines. However, our intricate brain system can interpret them into meaningful images. Let's see.

First, this is what I will draw if asked to create an image whose title is "Help"

The concept is pretty easy, huh? You can easily guess the meaning of the next pic.

Yes, its name is "Hura!"

Well, simple huh? Now, let's try guessing the titles of the following images .

"Gaze"

"Kiss"

"Shall we dance"



"Ballet"




"Don't wanna say goodbye "



"Death "

Firework

"Take this knife

Cheer up my life"

This image captures one of my state of mind, when the brain is tightly squeezed and heavily pressured. I feel in my subconscious a yearning to be hurt to be relieve. That is because my brain has already been hurt so much; therefore it fades any other physical pain, turning it into something mysteriously attractive. It works the same way with fear- fear turns into an excitement.

This image is not to "say" smt. It only expresses feelings. And the emotion here is the joy of pain and fear.

"Pain" is expressed in the distorted image of a person. The image looks like an explosion, or at least like a shot. The joy shows itself on the smile of the person and in the title of the image- "Firework". The name gives a feeling of merriness and also expresses the feeling of explosion inside the person's mind. Death is a show- enjoy it!

The font I choose can be seen in films, where details of a criminal are shown for example. It gives a feeling of indiferrence and coldness, which are also the attitude of the author before this scene of damage. The colouring of the title's background also serves to aid this purpose, since the modern feeling it gives is also associated with neutrality (as they are often used in poster, they seem to say: nothing very important, just a show). The last parts of the title are blurred as if they had been burnt.

If you think all the analysis above sounds like making up- how can I think about so many detailed things when working with this image- well, in fact, when I created the picture I did not think in words as much. I just followed my subconscious. And now, I am trying to interpret what it was telling me. I think that is exactly what image analysis is- interpreting the subconscious. Artists think subconsciously.

Moon and Water (or My abstract portrait)

***
"So it is with the Cancer girl.
She's just a little mad, slightly sad and superbly imaginative. "
(quoted from Sunsign by Linda Goodman)

MOON and WATER
...............................................................

... Do you believe in fate?

Hey, isn't every action of you a consequence of the things that have acted upon you?Just as every motion in nature is a result of a sum of outside forces, every event in life can also be analyzed as a necessary accompaniment of past event and other forces. And as physical and chemical activities can be easily predicted on condition that several data is known, it follows that life events are predictable, does it? And if they are predictable, then there must be FATE! Yeah! Yeah!

I do

I strongly believe that a person's birthday decides much of his character. Mine has shaped most of my personality.

I was born in July 15th, under the sign of Cancer, ruled by Moon, according to Western horoscope. Cancerians are called moon maiden, or Moon's daughters.

I was born in 1988, the year of Water, according to Eastern culture.

(and to know what does this mean by being of Water element, read horoscope)

My logo, or my abstract portrait, tells about the element that characterizes me: Water.

The image represents number 7, which is my month of birth, the month of Cancer.
It also resembles the letter "G" in a reverse order. "G" is the first initial of my name, "Giang", which means River in Chinese. (Again, you see Water!)

The image represents a river
The background represents the moon and the night.

The image also speaks of my nature.

Metal and Water- Hard and Soft
Sword and Hair - Male and Female

I am interested in:

               mysteries
              dark corners of human mind
                   time and space
                      the past
                          love
                            life and death
                                 fear and madness 

and this is shown in:

                       the night background
                       the "universe background"
                            the knight sword and the princess's hair
                                       blood