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  Creative Visual Experience & Design Jan - Apr 2015


Syllabus for Creative Visual Experience and Design (CS 8070) taught at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Semester 2 Academic Year 2014 - 2015.


Download: Syllabus CS 8070 (4).pdf



About the Transformative Experience


The assignment can be a paradigm shift as it provides the opportunity for students to become/explore/experiment being someone they are not for 10 weeks in a 13-week course. As the saying goes, "A life unexamined is a life not worth living." In preparing for their transformative experience for the next 10 weeks, they will answer a list of questions designed to help the students to understand their true colors, their inner self. Once they have answered the questions, they will mentally reverse the answers that they have truthfully written to assist their choice in being someone they are not.

The idea is to let them "experience" being someone they are not as far from their comfort level as possible. Although a change in their perceptions, dispositions, thoughts, and actions are required to successfully experience the transformation, they are advised against 'experiencing' the following, for obvious reasons*:
- sickness or any physical or mental conditions that are *simulated or *artificially induced (introvert/extrovert, being happy, blind, color blindness, deaf, mute, dementia);
- *menial activities (exercising, painting, photographing, crocheting, blogging, etc.) which also include a *dare of some sort (cost-playing, cross-dressing, talking to strangers, being a superhero, etc.)

While the end result of the transformative experience is clear (that they experience being someone you're not), the path to get there may not be as clear. This is expected as they will experience the vagueness of exploring. They may choose to approach the assignment as a "job." E.g. a volunteer at an animal shelter, an intern at a bakery, etc. The beauty of this approach is that jobs, as an immersive experience, can define a person's life, which can add perspectives to their own experience. Looking through someone's life shall give them a better perspective of their own life.

For more images about the course or the transformative experience, click here.






Transformative Experience - If I were to do away with music all together?


In exploring what was called The Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Soundscope, Victor Ong came about from boredom. During his long train ride, he was often faced with a great sense of boredom. He would often whip out his iPad to blast music into his ears to take his attention away. He did not deny the fact that music was in fact one of the greatest tool to inspire and lighten up his day amidst heavy rush hour.

For the purpose of this assignment, he decided to go against his usual habit and flow where the main ideal situation was in immersing in the would be' How would he feel during the long train ride to his destination (Boon Lay) if he were to do away with music all together? And to further add to the experience, how would have the content of his hearing change? In other words, what is the music of the MRT?

As demonstrated in his horizontally oblong book format, he heard sounds of "Electronic announcements", "Rustling of newspapers," "Sniffing," "Track screeching," "Wind from doors," and so forth...






Transformative Experience - Black shoes


For Keyon Guo, the the best reward from being someone else that he is not is to find your opposite and in concluding the course to find a balance. Titled "Black Shoes", Keyon, once a science student for 2 decades who then decided to switch from Economics to Animation and began an artistic journey at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

The journey of being his opposite requires Keyon to be a pragmatic and money-oriented person who is interested in business, investments and human politics. As there are some things that an idealistic person would take for granted, he set down a certain rules for his journey by dressing up in business attire whenever attending any events that is towards his vision as a pragmatic and money-oriented person and to attend any seminars or functions that enable networking to get educated on business relations or with regards to investments.

He rationalized that the black shoe was something that continuously inspire and keep the breadth (one of the theoretical frameworks by Nathan Shedroff) and consistency and that the accumulation of thougths and lessons have inspired him to create an "artistic intervention" where he would cut out several peices of paper that look like the soles of a shoe and went around Singapore asking for their thoughts. From a banker to a Taiwanese expat, to a local middle-aged woman with 2 kids, to a teacher, to a friend and the list goes on.

He wrote: "The concept is simple: To make a black shoe. This black shoe symbolically represents the physicality of a personal ideal. This personal ideal is the thought that business is vibrant and jot just a one-way street. It comprises of multiple streets that criss cross with each other. There are rules but there isn't a system.

For a complete PDF copy of the newsletter, click here.






Transformative Experience - Stitches


Jolene Tan Gek Hian, a psychology major creates "Stitches" which documents her journey from a psychology major to a temporary fashion designer. In the following 10 weeks, she shared the creation of a fashion label from beginning to fruition which involves concept development, desiging of croquis, selection of fabrics and materials, transfering measurements to living fabric, sewing, branding and logo design, designing a packaging, and creating a name card.

To her, the whole transformative experience a thoroughly enjoyable process although she was initially daunted by the task and found herself questioning if she has the capacity to take on such a challenge, especially when she has never sewn clothes before or work on Adobe software before to take on the graphic design aspects in the process. The beginning presented many challenges because it was all about creating something from nothing and learning new skills. One of the general challenges during the project was the flow of creativity. another overall challenge faced was in ensuring the consistency of the fashion label and she found that it was difficult to ensure a consistency brand personality throughout each stage of the process such as in creating the packaging and the name card. She had to ensure that the final designs would represent the overall experience of consumers purchasing her fashion label. She overcame that by imagining to be a consumer and would ask herself if she would be confused by the brand she was trying to sell. She would also get feedback from people and every time there was feedback, she would be pulled in a different direction.

She concluded that she is now in full admiration of people who create brands and designs as each step posed its own set of difficulties but at the same time, were also packed with many lessons. She felt that from the transformative experience, she has picked up so many different life skills and gained knowledge that is not just useful for the course but for different things that she may do in the future. All in all, she felt really glad to have taken on the challenge to create a fashion label that she can call her own.






Transformative Experience - Poor me


Poverty is multi-faceted and has many definitions. In general, it is defined as a state of scarcity or dearth. to some, poverty may mean the deprivation of basic human needs such as food and water and to others, poverty is seen as a form of spiritual or emotional destitution. As James Baldwin cleverly puts it, Anyone who has struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor." This quote has intrigued Foo Yong Sheng, a business major to experience and empathize what being poor really feels like. For his assignment, he looks at poverty in its material form, the lack of monetary possessions and is in 5 parts: Sleeping, Commuting, Eating, Studying and Understanding.

For 10 weeks, he conducts the following:
Week 1 - Sleeping Poor: Sleep without a bed
Week 2 - Commuting Poor: Walking bare-footed
Week 3 - Eating Poor Part I - Growing food
Week 4 - Eating Poor Part II - Survive on S$5 per day
Week 5 - Eating Poor Part III - Cook using traditional means
Week 6 - Eating Poor Part IV - Consume self-grown food
Week 7 - Studying Poor Part I - No smart devices
Week 8 - Studying Poor Part II - Minimal electricity usage
Week 9 - Understanding Poor Part I - Sit by the Streets (shown in the image)
Week 10 - Understanding Poor Part II - Talk to poor people

He reflects that he is fortunate to be born in a well-to-do family and lives in a prosperous country where poverty is not as prevalent. The 10 weeks have provided him with a meaningful experience of what it is like to live poor. He quotes Alfred Adler who said that "empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another. He, for one, has experienced what it's like to walk barefooted and survive on a minimal budge and he feels fortunate and appreciates what he has now.






Transformative Experience - The girl who played with fire


As a young girl, Pearlynn Yong was burned by joss sticks and an episode of being trapped in the elevator due to a fire breakout further sealed her fate for fearing fire. Now, a 22 year old (in 2015), and an interactive media student at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, she doesn't know how to cook because fire scares her so for the transformative experience, she decides to face her enemy: fire!

She laid out the plan to confront 10 different task for the 10 weeks, starting with the purchase of a lighter and as she played with matches, she was inspired to create an art piece and eventually lit up the artwork (refer to the gif). On week 3, she watched fireworks up close in Batam, Indonesia and the following week, visited Haw Par Villa in Singapore where dioramas of hellish tortures invoking pain and fire further ignited her fear of fire. On week 5, she experimented with a cigarette followed by stargazing the next. On week 7, a visit to a hotspring and for weeks 8 and 10, cooking with her mother and a final art experimentation on week 9 was to color with fire soot.

Admittedly, there small tasks are hardly challenging and she admitted that she may not have conquered her fear of fire but she has channeled it into something fun and useful from creating art pieces to experiencing cooking with her mother as well as visiting interesting places in Singapore. she enjoyed the process of creating ideas that are linked to heat. It would have made a difference if she had interned as a firefigher. More importantly, the assignment got her out of her element and she wrote, "that's what makes everything memorable."

To view other gifs, click here.


Download: CS8070 Something youre not - Pearlyn Yong.gif



Transformative Experience - Armless, am I less?


Wang Kai Cheng Armless, Am I Less? Jan - May 2014, Creative Visual Experience, WSCI, NTU. In an individual assignment part of the Creative Visual Experience and Design course, which requires the students to become something they are not for 4 weeks, Wang Kai Cheng, an Art, Design and Media major at Nanyang Technological University tasked himself to find out what it means to be armless. To get the full impact, he creates a box that contains 6 strips of white paper and one strip of black paper and if he draws a white strip, he would carry on the day as per normal but if otherwise, he would spend the next 24 hours without using his arm by folding them behind his back. Being "disabled," he suddenly has to put up with lots of unwanted attention such as when he eats his lunch without using his arms. He unwillingly attracted more attention when he has to carry the bag of food with his mouth all the way from the canteen to his residence hall (top left).

He realizes that without his arms, many of his cravings could not be fulfilled such as video gaming, a favorite pastime. He also misses out on playing DotA online with his group of good friends. One of the most memorable moments was when he has to complete a seemingly impossible task of one of his "disabled" days. It was a Monday and he has to submit a portrait painting the next day and without the use of his arms, he has to attempt painting with his leg as well as his mouth which turned out poorly and his paintings looked as though they were done by kindergarten children. On the brink of giving up, he saw some students smoking outside which gave him a sudden burst of inspiration. He got under a table, used one leg to pop an A3 piece of wooden board against the underside of the table. Using the other leg to hold a burning candle, he slowly burns the portrait into the wooden board. Because the burning process was slow, the shakiness of his leg was insignificant and the portrait (lower right after he cleans up using an eraser with his feet) turns out rather well and his art professor praises him the next day for thinking of the box.

Through his armless journey, he realizes that his two limbs are a pair of amazing gifts which he has taken for granted. In the 96 hours of absence, even though he has to put up with frustration, unwanted stares and possibly a slight drop in his GPA, as he confesses, he writes that he has gained so much more because the absence has empowered him to think out of the box and find creative solutions to difficult problems, which also made him a much more disciplined person. Most importantly of all, it pushes him to achieve the seemingly impossible. When he looks towards nature, he finds disabilities everywhere. For example, bats are close to blind but because of their impairment, they have developed astounding echo-location capabilities. Similarly, penguins lost their ability to fly but they have adapted to become excellent swimmers. Nick Vujicic puts this point excellently in one of his famous quotes: "For every disability you have, you are blessed with more than enough abilities to overcome your challenges." Wang further writes that although the assignment is over for him, his journey of self-discovery and empowerment is just the beginning. During the recess week, he plans to put himself in the shoes of the blind and experience a day without sight and is looking forward to an even more exciting and meaningful adventure.

Lowest left: An re-enactment of how he opens the door without using his arms. Top right: A re-enactment of how he uses his toe to instant message on his smart phone.







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