Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Finalize Proposal - Sound-lligraphy

Application Title
Sound-lligraphy


Research Topic
Chinese Calligraphy

Background

Chinese Calligraphy is one of the Chinese traditional writing. Over the thousands of years, the style of Chinese calligraphy has evolved continually. About 213 B.C., under the famous Chin Shih Huang Ti, who perpetrated the 'burning of the books', the Prime Minister Li Szu drew up an official index of characters and unified the written form for the use of scholars. This is chuan-shu and contained more than 3,000 characters. From that time to the present, there are five major styles of calligraphy:


|  seal  |  clerical |  cursive |   regular |
(http://www.chinapage.com/callig1.html)


Calligraphy is not only a practical technique for writing Chinese characters, but also a unique Oriental art of expression and a branch of learning or discipline as well. As a branch of learning it is rich in content, including the evolution of writing styles, development and rules of technique, history of calligraphy, calligraphers and their inheritance in art, and evaluation of calligraphy as a work of art. This branch of learning is wide ranging and deep, forming an important part of Chinese culture.

The local name for calligraphy is Shūfǎ 書法 in China, literally "the way/method/law of writing"; Shodō 書道 in Japan, literally "the way/principle of writing"; and Seoye (서예) 書藝 in Korea, literally "the skill/criterion of writing". The calligraphy of East Asian characters is an important and appreciated aspect of East Asian culture. East Asian calligraphy is normally regarded as one of the "arts" (Chinese 藝術 pinyin: yìshù, Japanese 芸術 geijutsu) in the countries where it is practiced. But there is actually a debate as to whether East Asian calligraphy is a discipline or an art. Indeed, both may be true.

As a practice
As a discipline calligraphy is, at the basic level, a pursuit -書法 Chinese: shūfǎ, "the rules of writing Han characters"- focused on writing well. Students aim to obtain the characteristics of the writing of famous calligraphic masters. Elementary school students practice calligraphy in this way, as do elders practicing temporary calligraphy, without aspiring to artistic creation.

As an art
Calligraphy is also considered an art - 艺术 Chinese: yìshù, a relatively recent word meaning "art", where works are appreciated more or only for their aesthetic qualities.
The English word "Calligraphy" refers to that which is "beautiful writing", thus including both aspects.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_calligraphy)


Problem Identification
Many forms of the traditional ways is transforming into digital. Nowadays, the people are hardly remembering about the art of Chinese Calligraphy. They feel that using Chinese Calligraphy is a waste of time on the preparation of materials, and the traditional method of writing make their hand dirty and the smell of the ink is incredible, not everyone of us can accept. Chinese Calligraphy is great invention of writing created by our ancient, we shouldn't let it dies. What we can do is to improve and to do some transformation on the method of writing so do the traditional culture can have interaction with the human.

Aim and Objectives
To transform the old story into new media.
To encourage people have more interaction with the culture.
To let people understand Chinese Calligraphy.
To presented the relationship between sound and images.


Motivation
Encourage people to know more about Chinese Calligraphy and the meaning of Chinese text. People will be more interesting on this if there is interaction in between. Therefore, they can easily remember it all the time.


Ideation or Concept
My idea is to transform the old way of written Chinese Calligraphy into a modern and digital way. Sound and images always have big relationship between each other. Although you don't know what is the meaning of the text, but if there sound playing along, the meaning is always obvious. My concept is let the user hold the calligraphy pen and start following the text stroke and sequence, every moment they make, the sound of the text will be coming out along. The faster they write, the louder the sound play. The first text I plan to research will be Water, 水.

Review, Analysis and Precedence Studies
On reviewing the video and article while i doing research, I found out there lots more interaction on Chinese Calligraphy like tablet, water calligraphy and etc. While sound Calligraphy that appear is just simple and non relate sound play along while calligrapher writing. My concept and idea isn't appear before, so it might work and create a new interaction calligraphy.

Here some video i found.
                                
                                                                                                 


Design Approach 
The design will be in Chinese Calligraphy background with some simple Chinese style design while user can interact between the calligraphy open and the screen. The whole approach will be in Chinese mode.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Consultation

Today, Madam Forrest have require all of the students who attend classes show the update of our blog and progress. At my turn, since Mr. Kok Yoong have give me some blog to read on, I have ask some opinion from Madam Forrest as I quite confusing on what should be the final outcome of my FYP.

After reading the "Preview of a proposed multimedia performance by Rohan de Saram (cello), with live visual art by Denis Brown (calligraphy/mixed media).", I found out that the way and concept he presenting Calligraphy is outstanding and I have get some idea from it. As previously I'm confusing to come out with a device to help people on learning or create something that can be interact with human. Now I have the idea to combining the sound with the calligraphy stroke. As the interaction part, when the text on the screen being written, the sound of the text will coming out. Like the text 水 (water), when a person starting to write, there will have water sound coming out to show that this text is related to water. By combining movement and sound, human can more easy and faster remember.

Madam Forrest have told me to try on a single chinese text and test on it. While I'm still researching on using what kind of software to develop my idea. Hopefully my idea acceptable and I can successful come out with something interesting.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Report

From We Make Money Not Art

Interview with Milk and Tales

"We came up with a broader program that we called 'Keeping In Touch' which would aim to communicate ongoing activities to the general public via an interactive system on the RFH hoardings for the entire duration of the refurbishment period. This system was made up of a tactile surface, sensors and a sound system which would enable a series of hoarding to go up every 2-3 months. This would keep a momentum with the audience until the re-opening of the hall, and maximize the use of the interactive system."

From this article review, it has prove that, sound can remind or make people keep remember on certain thing or cases. Just like an advertisement who repeated every hours, there always a theme song or background music come across with it, human who watching it every hours will get faster to remember it in mind rather that told by someone around them. As Calligraphy is a very big topic, I have try to use sound to combine with it to let people can more easy remember the text and stroke of the chinese text.




From Rhizome

An Age-Old Binary

"The relationship between sound and image has been a ripe area of artistic practice for at least a century. The philosophical difference between the two 'objects' has often been debated, as have our processes for transmitting and perceiving them."

Image and sound always have a big relationship. Although we can't see the image but yet the sound of it will keep track with us. If there no sound of the images, then the images will tell you the story.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

FYP1 - Critique 2 - Idea Development 3

Place to set up my installation.


Of cause is at my University. Room DR 2016 =)
By the way, that is our exhibition places for our FYP. My installation can be install in anyway with the basic setup - table.