clara

Mr. Freud, why are you so strange?

2012-01-04T14:42:00.000-08:00

Coffee

2011-11-10T08:19:00.000-08:00

I finally understand designer's addiction to coffee... the feeling you get from a dawning inspiration is similar to a dozen cups of espressos.

nationality of my friends

2011-10-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

I recently met up with a friend who just moved to study in London. And while I sat there listening to how cool it was to have European friends and purported higher social status therefore, avoiding unfriendly asians in a clique, how I didn't seem to be making any friends of my own etc., I was torn between amusement and exasperation.

Other than the fact that I was thoroughly insulted, I am surprised at how that incident persistently annoyed me. I wasn't affected by the sweeping fallacies, the stereotyping of races or the very negative impression of my supposedly sad life, but the argument used to support the behavior – being a good expat.

According to said friend, being a good expat in a new country involves making new friends and adopting the local culture.

Fairly said. But it was strung along and mutated into
being a good expat involves making new friends based solely on their race/nationality
(so you can classify them as 'look at my international friends!')

adopt the local culture by trying your best to impersonate their accent

You can draw your own conclusions here.
I still wonder what does being a good expat mean and the idea verges on spatial territories and the psychological conditioning of adopting a different set of behaviour when in a different territory. Isn't it interesting how the change in space can infect the psychology of someone so deeply?

In a small scale, the 'rules' of behaviour is easier to understand. Walking from the bedroom to the bathroom, there is a sudden urge to associate with the different territory by activating the objects in the room or taking off your clothes. But in a much bigger scale like flying across the globe, what defines the 'rules' of behaviour?

To end off, this is a blog posting by an American lady staying in Singapore:
http://expatbostonians.com/2011/03/04/bad-expat-part-1-ur-doin-it-rong/

2011-07-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

2011-07-17T13:46:00.001-07:00

2011-06-10T18:26:00.001-07:00

is it possible to be nostalgic for a memory that is not mine?

time and adults, a formal proposal

2011-06-08T19:15:00.002-07:00

In Einstein's theory of relativity, gravitational time dilation is explained as the effect of time passing at different rates in regions of different gravitational potential.

Therefore, the closer you are to the ground, the slower time passes...

and therefore I would like to conclude that time does indeed pass faster when you're an adult and further away from the ground as compared to children who are closer to the ground and therefore time passes slower for them. There's just no other reason for this lack of time... now.

CSM POP UP SHOP!

2011-06-08T19:15:00.000-07:00

CSM POP UP SHOP

slightly slow on the up take, but i'm doing metal etchings for the pop up shop...

metal etch work in progress

2011-06-08T19:14:00.000-07:00

and more pics of the work in progress... special thanks to Harry, Shiho, Gareth, Douglas, Mus & Harvey who made this possible!

and pepper for listening to me whine through my panic and flu...

press print

2011-06-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

from the metal tags... this is the only print available and I sold the actual metal plates so there's probably no chance of ever printing them together ever. Until the day milo is extinct and the purple cabbage in your fridge turns blue with pink stripes, then the new owners will all get together and all shall be one!

2011-06-08T17:51:00.000-07:00

for mcqueen

my drawings for mcqueen scarves! had to wait till the season passed before i could show them due to copyright reasons. :D available in black, beige and the prettiest shade of jade/turquoise.

yummy!

2011-06-08T17:46:00.000-07:00

2011-06-08T17:43:00.001-07:00

pok u pok u for leather company

work in progress

2011-06-08T17:32:00.000-07:00

The Thought Collector

don G

2011-06-08T17:22:00.000-07:00

and he made us all cry... girls and boys alike!

this is about the mushroom fields in a brief meant for don giovanni

chinoiserie

2011-06-08T17:16:00.000-07:00

before

during

after!

the chinoiserie room & hot air balloon

for per lindstrand at glenwood

2011-06-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

i always liked this... it was never used though. and now that both my boss has quit I don't think they'll mind me showing this!

copyrights withholded

lauren jasmine

2011-06-08T16:57:00.000-07:00

for HJGHER, client Lauren Jasmine

zebra head

2011-06-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

charcoal doodle

triple rainbow

2011-06-08T16:41:00.000-07:00

off topic but psychedelic enough to warrant a break from my updating spree.... I saw a TRIPLE RAINBOW! the 3rd rainbow isn't that clear in the photo but.... use your imagination!

2011-01-20T06:32:00.001-08:00

One who believes all of a book would be better off without books

bad bad school...

2011-01-12T16:55:00.000-08:00

So we've all gone through this, or are going through it. What are we going to do in the future? The jump from secondary to tertiary education is enormous. And even after that, most of us are still wondering about what to work as in the future. We leave school feeling clueless about what to do next. So what exactly have we spent the last 13-15 years of our lives learning?

Schools came up when civilizations evolved enough to support entire groups of people not working. A complex society would need people with at least basic education to function efficiently. The word school, came from Greek, originally meaning 'leisure spent in pursue of knowledge'. A lot of times, schools were built as part of a religious center, and if you were not of an upper class or a aristocrat, being a scribe at a temple was probably the only way to learn how to read and write properly.

Strangely enough, Britain was one of the last European countries to have compulsory education (Aztecs being the first... woohoo! those were smart heads they were chopping off!)

But if you check up Deschooling the Society, or just google miseducation, you will find alot of opposing views about the actual benefits of going through compulsory public education. Schooling that confuses grades, theories and ability to memorize with success in life, knowledge and competence. Schooling that inhibits your ability to think instead. I especially find fault with the fact that for so many years I've been taught to pronounce flour as 'flar'. And then after you graduate from school, it becomes an artifact in a museum, completely removed from you. Something you gaze at and go "ahh.... school" as if you have stopped learning and stopped having a real life.

After all, if you spent all your life so far in a daily routine of reading books and doing homework, how on earth are you suppose to accept that the Monday after your graduation you're suppose to... well, just do something else. And isn't there something wrong if school is suppose to prepare you for life, but then all the adults tells you the best part of life was being in school? Wait a minute, so all that preparation didn't work anyway?

So, yes, if you do come out of school feeling lost and confuse, blame it on the education.

History of Singapore

2011-01-08T22:51:00.000-08:00

Heraclitus said that “everything is constantly changing and opposites things are identical, so that everything is and is not at the same time”

My guess is that he's saying that when you change forward, you need to change backwards as well. But what is changing backwards? By changing the present to fit a fuzzy memory of a happy utopian past. Simply put, nostalgia, tradition, customs. However else you'd like to call it.

So to be a revolutionary civilization, forward thinking and always keeping with the times, it needs also to be grounded in identity and habits. You've probably heard this many times in different contexts.... that Singapore is changing too fast. Maybe we forgot to change backwards while we were sprinting forward at massive speeds. We sacrificed a slice of our heritage in exchange for economic and political stability. And to fill that gapping hole we feel, we created artifacts of history to adore.... the Merlion, Shangnila Utama, do we even truly know what they are?

But yea, seriously, now I'm distracted... who exactly came up with the story of the Merlion? I know Shangnila Utama thought he saw a lion, I don't think Sir Stamford Raffles saw anything other than the Sultan... And I remember going to Sentosa's Merlion where they had a little video of the legend of the Merlion where it rose out of the ocean one rainy day and stared shooting laser beams from its eyes.
That's the version I told my friends when they ask about the history of Singapore.

I guess we can't really dig for archeological sites and we probably already destroyed whatever was left in the soil with the Circle line, so we're left with what the first bunch of immigrants who arrived in Singapore came up with while squatting by Singapore river eating Hokkien Mee.

Personally, I'd like to think that the Merlion was a very rare high level Pokemon.

Just Beautiful

2010-11-26T20:19:00.000-08:00

insane! insane!

Tim Minchin's Storm

Inner North London, top floor flat
All white walls, white carpet, white cat,
Rice Paper partitions
Modern art and ambition
The host’s a physician,
Lovely bloke, has his own practice
His girlfriend’s an actress
An old mate from home
And they’re always great fun.
So to dinner we’ve come.

The 5th guest is an unknown,
The hosts have just thrown
Us together for a favour
because this girl’s just arrived from Australia
And has moved to North London
And she’s the sister of someone
Or has some connection.

As we make introductions
I’m struck by her beauty
She’s irrefutably fair
With dark eyes and dark hair
But as she sits
I admit I’m a little bit wary
because I notice the tip of the wing of a fairy
Tattooed on that popular area
Just above the derrière
And when she says “I’m Sagittarien”
I confess a pigeonhole starts to form
And is immediately filled with pigeon
When she says her name is Storm.

Chatter is initially bright and light hearted
But it’s not long before Storm gets started:
“You can’t know anything,
Knowledge is merely opinion”
She opines, over her Cabernet Sauvignon
Vis a vis
Some unhippily
Empirical comment by me

“Not a good start” I think
We’re only on pre-dinner drinks
And across the room, my wife
Widens her eyes
Silently begs me, Be Nice
A matrimonial warning
Not worth ignoring
So I resist the urge to ask Storm
Whether knowledge is so loose-weave
Of a morning
When deciding whether to leave
Her apartment by the front door
Or a window on the second floor.

The food is delicious and Storm,
Whilst avoiding all meat
Happily sits and eats
While the good doctor, slightly pissedly
Holds court on some anachronistic aspect of medical history
When Storm suddenly she insists
“But the human body is a mystery!
Science just falls in a hole
When it tries to explain the the nature of the soul.”

My hostess throws me a glance
She, like my wife, knows there’s a chance
That I’ll be off on one of my rants
But my lips are sealed.
I just want to enjoy my meal
And although Storm is starting to get my goat
I have no intention of rocking the boat,
Although it’s becoming a bit of a wrestle
Because – like her meteorological namesake -
Storm has no such concerns for our vessel:

“Pharmaceutical companies are the enemy
They promote drug dependency
At the cost of the natural remedies
That are all our bodies need
They are immoral and driven by greed.
Why take drugs
When herbs can solve it?
Why use chemicals
When homeopathic solvents
Can resolve it?
It’s time we all return-to-live
With natural medical alternatives.”

And try as hard as I like,
A small crack appears
In my diplomacy-dike.
“By definition”, I begin
“Alternative Medicine”, I continue
“Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
You know what they call “alternative medicine”
That’s been proved to work?
Medicine.”

“So you don’t believe
In ANY Natural remedies?”

“On the contrary actually:
Before we came to tea,
I took a natural remedy
Derived from the bark of a willow tree
A painkiller that’s virtually side-effect free
It’s got a weird name,
Darling, what was it again?
Masprin?
Basprin?
Asprin!
Which I paid about a buck for
Down at my local drugstore.

The debate briefly abates
As our hosts collects plates
but as they return with desserts
Storm pertly asserts,

“Shakespeare said it first:
There are more things in heaven and earth
Than exist in your philosophy…
Science is just how we’re trained to look at reality,
It can’t explain love or spirituality.
How does science explain psychics?
Auras; the afterlife; the power of prayer?”

I’m becoming aware
That I’m staring,
I’m like a rabbit suddenly trapped
In the blinding headlights of vacuous crap.
Maybe it’s the Hamlet she just misquothed
Or the eighth glass of wine I just quaffed
But my diplomacy dike groans
And the arsehole held back by its stones
Can be held back no more:

“Look , Storm, I don’t mean to bore you
But there’s no such thing as an aura!
Reading Auras is like reading minds
Or star-signs or tea-leaves or meridian lines
These people aren’t plying a skill,
They are either lying or mentally ill.
Same goes for those who claim to hear God’s demands
And Spiritual healers who think they have magic hands.

By the way,
Why is it OK
For people to pretend they can talk to the dead?
Is it not totally fucked in the head
Lying to some crying woman whose child has died
And telling her you’re in touch with the other side?
That’s just fundamentally sick
Do we need to clarify that there’s no such thing as a psychic?
What, are we fucking 2?
Do we actually think that Horton Heard a Who?
Do we still think that Santa brings us gifts?
That Michael Jackson hasn’t had facelifts?
Are we still so stunned by circus tricks
That we think that the dead would
Wanna talk to pricks
Like John Edwards?

Storm to her credit despite my derision
Keeps firing off clichés with startling precision
Like a sniper using bollocks for ammunition

“You’re so sure of your position
But you’re just closed-minded
I think you’ll find
Your faith in Science and Tests
Is just as blind
As the faith of any fundamentalist”

“Hm that’s a good point, let me think for a bit
Oh wait, my mistake, it’s absolute bullshit.
Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved.
If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
Then I will change my mind
I’ll spin on a fucking dime
I’ll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It’s a miracle! Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And while it’s memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo it’s had in it!

You show me that it works and how it works
And when I’ve recovered from the shock
I will take a compass and carve Fancy That on the side of my cock.”

Everyones just staring at me now,
But I’m pretty pissed and I’ve dug this far down,
So I figure, in for penny, in for a pound:

“Life is full of mysteries, yeah
But there are answers out there
And they won’t be found
By people sitting around
Looking serious
And saying isn’t life mysterious?
Let’s sit here and hope
Let’s call up the fucking Pope
Let’s go watch Oprah
Interview Deepak Chopra

If you’re going to watch tele, you should watch Scooby Doo.
That show was so cool
because every time there’s a church with a ghoul
Or a ghost in a school
They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The fucking janitor or the dude who runs the waterslide.
Throughout history
Every mystery
EVER solved has turned out to be
Not Magic.

Does the idea that there might be truth
Frighten you?
Does the idea that one afternoon
On Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you
Frighten you?
Does the notion that there may not be a supernatural
So blow your hippy noodle
That you would rather just stand in the fog
Of your inability to Google?

Isn’t this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?
If you’re so into Shakespeare
Lend me your ear:
“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet… is just fucking silly”
Or something like that.
Or what about Satchmo?!
I see trees of Green,
Red roses too,
And fine, if you wish to
Glorify Krishna and Vishnu
In a post-colonial, condescending
Bottled-up and labeled kind of way
That’s ok.
But here’s what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant lump of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short
And unimportant…
But thanks to recent scientific advances
I get to live twice as long as my great great great great uncles and auntses.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine
Of sharing curries and getting shitty
With good-looking hippies
With fairies on their spines
And butterflies on their titties.

And if perchance I have offended
Think but this and all is mended:
We’d as well be 10 minutes back in time,
For all the chance you’ll change your mind.

what the dinosaurs did….

2010-11-21T07:21:00.000-08:00

The last set of lectures is possibly my favourite.

Mark Fisher’s talk on Capitalist Realism was difficult to follow without plenty of background information and definition of words but nevertheless I thought he brought up an interesting view of how we are deemed to be at the last stage of everything. Us being the last men, and reality being the last form of illusion. At a stage where everything has been done and “original” has lost its meaning. That is something we as designers had to struggle with. In a time where cultures are no longer distinctive and “sacred relics of the past (are) viewed as aesthetic history today”.

But rather than the bleak picture he paints of the current overtly-saturated situation, I think that this is instead an important “recycling” era. Like a pasticcio (from which you get pastiche), over centuries, ingredients have been laid down layers after layers, each one integrating into the next. The over piling of food though might make the entire dish tasteless and gaudy and give you the same bloated and unhealthy feeling as too much junk food. Perhaps this is where our current climate comes into play, recycling and aggressively turning over and consuming and digesting everything that history recorded, from fashion to art to mathematical theories. We break it down, over-simplify things and remain rather superficial about it all (because we can never actually experience it). Eventually, the pulp created will form the new basis for whatever there is to come. Maybe new forms of culture related to a universalised world.

If the universe is indeed built on numbers as David Orrell mentioned, then indeed I think men has not seen the last of our species or even glimpsed what is truly meant by reality. Something that particularly stood out of his lecture is that of a cosmic harmonies of the world heard by Kepler. It is such a beautiful magical idea that something as complex, bewildering and incomprehensible to mankind as the universe can be explained in something so simple, pure and so accessible as a melody. Isn’t that quite touching?

If David Orrell thinks that our mental models shape the world that we live in, then perhaps he had better convince Mark Fisher to change his forecast of the last species of men to something much more optimistic that can hopefully tie in Nina Power’s ideal of gender equality and Mattew Taylor’s enlightened society that can be pollinated into the minds of human worldwide (shaping a planet would probably require the mental strength of a planet too) at a universal world fair. Meanwhile, we could all try to convince Saul Estrin that either a) we are not driving ourselves to extinction or b) extinction with the promise of an answer is the way to go… after all the dinosaurs have already done it.

Androgyny

2010-11-21T07:20:00.001-08:00

Men look at women and women watch themselves being looked at.

I think that forms the basis of why the media is perpetuated with images and stereotypes of women. Because women like to look at other women too. Perhaps more so than more so than men tend to look at themselves. This constant bombardment of images also makes it a lot easier for people to stop seeing women as individuals but rather as objects. Just like how the butcher at the slaughter house can stop viewing each pig on the conveyer belt as individual living entities.

Nina Power mentioned that men fear and feel that their roles are being undermined by the new liberation of women and constantly try to add a list of terms and conditions while loosening their grip on the lease. I find that sense of fear baseless because women and men hold different forms of power. Of course this would hold a certain degree of generalization because human are an infinite diversity of possibilities and it is not possible to discuss without any form of generalizing, but the characteristics of authority held by men and women are essentially different. For example, women might prefer to not to approach power in a singular, possessive attitude.

In our seminar, we discussed about the objectification of men. But allow me to digress… It may not seem as prevalent in the West but I find an increasing trend towards androgyny and the blurring of clear classification of gender roles. As the world shifts away from the traditional roles of men working the fields and tough manual labour whilst women run the domestic household, the new age men can have long wavy locks and softer silhouettes whereas the women could have pixie-short haircuts and dress in suits and tapered pants. Whether or not this hints to a new distant future of ambigender, where we start to lack obvious forms of gender distinction other than purely roles of reproduction. But then again, that might essentially be impossible and against genetics.

Paul Greenhalgh’s topic on World Fair is immensely interesting as I have never paid attention to this rather historical event before. I can imagine the wonderment of people in the past as they see people of different races and languages and encounter new technological advancements on display. Perhaps the decline of such world fairs could also be due to globalization and the increased accessibility to information from distant countries which makes it less necessary to travel long distances to a world fair. I feel that the future world fair would have to be less about exhibiting and more about creating an environment for an intensive rapid flutter of interactive opportunities for the short period of the fair.

elective series part 1.

2010-11-16T19:47:00.000-08:00

Matthew Taylor's lecture on 21st century enlightenment was particularly intriguing, especially on hearing that 3 of the main values in my country's national pledge are inadequate myths. What I found most puzzling was his mention that increased incentives decreases the ability to perform complex tasks because that drives against the idea of setting target goals and working towards a fulfillment.

But having watched Dan Pink's take on Sam Glucksberg's experiment on verbal behavior and problem solving, it became clearer that incentives narrow people's mind and increases ability to perform mechanical tasks as opposed to cognitive tasks. Does that mean we should pay the manual labourers more and give white collared workers less incentives to increase productivity?

Also, perhaps affluent societies have lower levels of happiness but (no references here) we could be less unhappy as well. In other words, we have a neutralized wavelength of emotions. If you're a dialectic then working towards a happier/ more contented society would also mean you create a one which experienced bitter sadness as well. But if we are able to experience sadness through empathizing (let's say with a less fortunate society) instead, and in doing so fill the gap in the "required" emotional polar, are you able to cheat your own moral compass and become a truly selfish, happy community?

Let's give a crude example... a charity organization runs a campaign and tries to educate us on the sufferings in a certain country. We are shown pictures and told stories about their plight and we empathize with them. Compelled by our morals to help, we donate to the organization and then walk away feeling very blessed and warm and happy with the thought of helping someone and a sticker to prove so. But the organization is a bogus that just swallowed your cash as administrative fee to make you happy. Blow this up big scale and you get a twisted dystopia of suppressed sufferers to feed the emotional quota of the happy folks.

__________________

I also think that people have an idealized view of what our future would be like. *warning: generalization* Something not too far from the flying vehicles and sci-fi dreams that started centuries ago. Or maybe the dream of utopian society of lush green fields and evolved intelligent beings peacefully co-existing with nature? And as we work towards creating that vision of ours, we create a lot of by-products that are unfinished or failed experiments and low grade prototypes of what we imagine in those visions. Like the sketches you do before the final piece.

But experiments and creations like these take time and resources. And of course finances. So these by-products are then marketed to the mass, aka ourselves, and advertised and touted as desires of the individual in a society. As such, our bigger inert desire for the future fuel the market to sell us what is essentially the rubbish sketches, and in order to sell those, the market creates in us a sense of desire for these failures. Before long, we demand for more and improved versions because they are merely pale comparisions of something that we think we know deep inside us. And that demand drives the market to supply us even more of the rubbish, faster and with more ting-tongs to distract us.

Anyway, that is my explanation for where the demand the fuels a consumer capitalist market comes from.

Abney Park Cemetery

2010-11-08T13:56:00.001-08:00

so i've been tombstone hunting for the past few weeks and I came across this beautiful etching

How terrible it is to love something that death can touch

Tree of Life

2010-10-30T17:28:00.000-07:00

"et egredietur virga de radice Iesse et flos de radice eius ascendet "

Sadly, you're happier now.

2010-07-12T08:11:00.000-07:00

do you think that in searching for happiness, you find more sadness instead? Or perhaps in becoming a more cheerful person, you also had to experience the bitterness of deeper pain? Would you pay that price then? When you achieve a goal but instead of delirious jubilation usually associated with achievements you find yourself confused what would that mean? Hey! Just imagine what would happen if I mismatch all your emotions to wrong situations. You'll never know what to work for again!

I know people always look back at their childhood and say that times were happier back then. Perhaps it is not that childhood was a happier time. But that emotions in childhood was more moderate and mild? Or maybe it just became a distant memory of a hazy utopia we project into our own minds.

2010-06-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

is faith a chemical reaction?

just like anger, emotions, feelings, love, though processes are discovered to be chemical and electrical reactions within the human body, is faith also as such?
If it is then discovered that faith is a complex process of hormones and chemical/electrical reactions of synapses. In that case, if scientists were able to recreate this chemical process through artificial means, wouldn't you be able to physically inject 'faith' into a human body? Just like how there are now pills to increase your endorphin levels to counter depression, hormonal injects to turn a man girly, would you soon be able to increase a person's faith in something?

2010-06-22T18:35:00.000-07:00

"Expecting life to treat you fairly because you're a good person is like expecting a bull not to charge because you're a vegetarian" Dennis Wholey
.
is life fair?

i wonder...

what if I try to be philosophical and say "it's not what life gives you, it's what you make of it" and thus life is fair?

but don't you need materials to create something? do we all have the same amount and same quality of material? If you give one person a pack of blue-tac and the other modeling clay with all tool provided and a kiln, and both are of equal talent, who would be able to reproduce a more accurate model of Beethoven's bust?

or maybe i'm too shallow to understand

how did it change?

2010-06-04T18:47:00.000-07:00

do you remember when you're young and you were accidentally given a few extra coins in the change while buying a little snack or toy from the corner shop? And being the virtuous little child, you return the extra amount and the shopkeeper and everyone around beams with pride at the honest little kid while you're secretly chaffed at your amazing mathematical skills.

then you grew up and the few extra coins turn into hundreds of dollars and suddenly the beaming faces change into twisted swirls of agony and little beady eyes with weary wrinkles around the corners. You're no longer the bright honest angel but simply a foolish foolish naïve thing giving away cash that could be yours. The shopkeeper no longer smiles warmly at you but narrows his eyes in suspicion. You little cheater. The story changes.

was it just a superficial moral?

McQ Red Velvet

2010-04-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

A McQueen cupcake leftover from Press meet! The entire box was almost untouched and when they brought it in I thought it was a gigantic box of PIZZA! slightly chestfallen....

It's red velvet vanilla with cream cheese frosting and black dye for the logo that turned everyone into zombie mouths. Apparently the cupcake's from Hummingbird. I can now very safely say, I've finally tried Red Velvet and i hate it. It taste simply of food coloring and I got an upset tummy from the chemicals. lol! so much for a pretty thing.

But i must say i love love love it when there's someone's birthday here. We get Marks & Spencer double chocolate gateaus and because everyone's on fad diets and being really skinny, I usually get to eat a couple of slices. :P

Love it!

2010-04-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

I'm on sale! Well, technically, Conversations in CMYK is on sale. But taken apart and given completely new names by my boss. -_-! this does feel surreal....

Artist-Clara-Yee

2010-04-07T19:31:00.003-07:00

T.T dear greater one, please protect me from my foolishness

from moorgate to barking

2010-04-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

There must be some days when you just wake up with an 'Information Desk' sign stuck across your forehead.

When you get pass your days making minimal contact to strangers, having five approach you consecutively in one single morning is enough to make you wonder if maybe your dark blue windbreaker doesn't make you look like a Tube security personnel. And the best part? There's only one line, in one direction on that one platform.

So anyway I've come to the conclusion that us humans are forever thinking about running away to another planet when Earth finally fails us. But in actuality, we fled to Earth... from Mars! *nods seriously* That would totally explain the history of water existence on Mars and the asteroid killing the dinosaurs theory (that would be our spacecraft landing on Earth). woooahhh... that's the answer to life right there.

Well, yes, I do suffer from lack of sleep. Why do you ask?

2010-03-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

Grey is nothingness

the distance between

Undecided

Grey is everything

2010-03-14T16:12:00.001-07:00

Ghost (幽) from moshushi on Vimeo.

2010-03-07T18:24:00.001-08:00

Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still.
— Calvin Coolidge

Sometimes I go... Huh?

2010-03-03T17:04:00.000-08:00

The best part of my try out. I don't like to fail. Failures look ugly.
I want to make beautiful.

but then ugly is a lazy thing.

They say you reap what you sow. But the packet of beans I bought doesn't say how many beans I have to sow before I grow a giant bean stalk.

of failed projects and which matters more?

2010-02-27T19:07:00.000-08:00

tragic tragic handling of project management. I spent all my time on Sony and my job and instead and guess what? We didn't get shortlisted for Sony, I got a pay cut on my job for being slow, and I seriously hope I get at least a passing grade for Mac's brief. (T_T) That bad.

Fractures from Anxiety

2010-02-20T16:42:00.000-08:00

σ applied

is the loading stress,

a

is half the length of the crack, and

ρ

is the radius of curvature at the crack tip

sour nectarines

2010-01-30T08:47:00.000-08:00

of Alexander the Lion Head

2010-01-30T08:44:00.001-08:00

of socks! stuck between my toes

2010-01-30T08:43:00.001-08:00

My cravings

2010-01-16T08:49:00.000-08:00

Because I had serious cravings for Chey Tao Kueh. Black. UGH!!! With a cup of warm milo. hmmmmm..... and some Chinese New Year goodies. *runs around hysterically*

Chilli Con Carne

2009-12-16T14:17:00.000-08:00

Don't ask why there's a strawberry on my chilli con carne.

Of bikes and tired eyes

2009-12-12T18:11:00.000-08:00

I smell of beer and cigarettes. It makes my throat itch and entertain thoughts of another organic tofu diet. Now if only tofu wasn't quite so expensive here. Shio was right. I am falling sick right after her.

I'm just a selfish bitch

2009-12-12T18:08:00.000-08:00

Of Wills and Secession

2009-12-07T16:25:00.000-08:00

Exciting! I hope the turn-out will be good. :D

Of Mozzarella balls!

2009-12-06T17:44:00.000-08:00

Brick lane artwork on a construction plank!

And cheese lovers rejoice! Fresh mozzarella balls for only 40 pences each.
Maybe I should start cooking again... oatmeals only taste good for that long.

Sleepyman Reminds you laptops blink too

2009-11-28T15:07:00.000-08:00

Sleepyman.qtz
stare hard enough and his eye twitches
1024x768

Instructions for screensaver
1. download file to /Libary/Screen Savers
2. open up System Preferences - Screen Savers and select 'Sleepyman'
3. crank up itunes volume and activate screen saver

Instructions for itunes visualizer
1. download ivisualizer (Mac)
2. download 'sleepyman.qtz'
3. restart iTunes and select /View/Visualizer/iVisualize
4. select /View/Visualizer/Options, click the + button and find 'sleepyman.qtz'
5. Crank up volume and enjoy!

Of laptops that suffer

2009-11-28T14:09:00.000-08:00

That's how my laptop looks like when I met him in person. He hasn't had a proper shut eye in 3 days now.

Oh Holy.... my god.

2009-11-28T04:40:00.000-08:00

Oh my lord I am scared. I was wondering why I suddenly felt so so tired that last night I slept from about 1:30am to 11am today. Then I work up and realize it must have been a freaking freaking blessing from someone watching over me.

That photo above... if you can see the man in it, he's wearing a surgical mask and an apron actually. I can't tell if he's the forensic detective or just the clean up man. But he's taking notes and walking to and fro.

This is directly outside my window. This is where the forensic or clean up man has been walking to, bend down and then walk away again. Then I checked my phone and realize my flatmate tried to call me but I was asleep so she messaged that there was a dead body found at 3am so the entire area is closed to the police now. Guess where the dead body is?

Shit. Can you imagine if I was still awake, on my laptop, which is right by the window last night at 3am?

I'm going off to work later. I can't decided if I want to come home early and be safe or to come home late and stay away.

Of Canned Tuna and Darwinism

2009-11-19T16:28:00.000-08:00

Dinner of canned tuna in sunflower oil. Dolphin safe and Omega-3 destroyed.

Was reading about Darwin's Beagle journey and how he came up with his theory. It's quite amazing how throughout history inventions and break-through has always been a case of who presented it best. For each brilliant new theory or invention, there is always a series of people who has done it before albeit in slightly different methods and with different intentions but with the similar conclusion. And of these, some faded into oblivion only to be rediscovered long after their lifespan, some ended up looking like bitter and sore losers, some were beheaded and yet some just don't make that big an impact.

So what makes that perfect equation of Marketing + Idea + Correct Timing = Genius of the Century and how do you make sure you don't end up as some others you see at the end of the wikipedia page?

On another note, it's quite amazing how a bald monk who spent his entire solitary life staring at bean stalks and probably eating beans, one day decided to call us all BB, Bb, Bb. bb and the entire world nodded seriously in agreement. Isn't life logical!

The Greeks were probably doing the same when Socrates said that being born a women is the ultimate divine punishment. *nods seriously in agreement*

can you tell I just had a really crappy day?

Okonomiyaki

2009-11-15T14:24:00.000-08:00

Okay or should I say a mutation of okonomiyaki. I don't have bonito flakes or okonomiyaki sauce so I substituted them with baked beans and tomato sauce... don't ask me how baked beans replace bonito flakes. Beggars can't be choosers! Fortunately it tastes better than it looks.

I used flour, eggs, cabbage, lettuce, bean sprouts, carrots, mushrooms, onions, broccoli stalk, peas, chicken strips, cheese and hotdogs. Doesn't sound Japanese at all!

Next up... canned tuna.

Of understanding and what is that?

2009-11-10T12:34:00.000-08:00

If someone explains something to you, do you understand or do you conform?

When a person of supposedly better knowledge of the subject produces reasonings and theories and talks their way inside your mind and it slowly dawns on you that you are agreeing with them. Does that mean you now understand? Or does that mean you just lost your own opinion?

Truth is, if you take it just at surface level, you are generally conforming. Moulding yourself to a shape casted by many others. Anyone who's been through school will have experienced that regurgitation of formulas, scientific facts (only so called because they have yet to be debunked) and whatever it is that they call education. But unless you take each piece of information and analyze on it, reflect and draw up your own conclusions, you are simply taking a very watered-down version of another person's intellect, isn't it? But come on, who in the right mind would be able to take that sheer amount of information piled on them and dissect each and every one? So that's it! Every single one of us is a copy!

Michael Bierut once wrote an article on his 'accidental' plagiarism of a Willi Kunz's typographic work. One of very first comment that popped up was by someone who feared this act of unoriginality so condemned by the design world that he refuses to read design magazines.

That's silly isn't it? It's like saying "I insist on being original and hence I will not study the dictionary or read any books". How on earth is he going to learn? Besides, it is not just Communication Arts or Grafik that are design related. Every single object produced by man is design related. That means Vogue, that crappy tabloid newspaper, receipts from the supermarket, the power socket on the wall... chances are whatever you're touching now has been through a design process. Now try avoiding all these and come up with something totally original. I'd give 2 pences (I'm broke) to bet someone else has thought of the exact or similar idea. Hah!

Going off on a tangent, my prof recently mentioned Design for Life the BBC series kind of like Project Runway for product designers. It's pretty crappy even though Philippe Starck is the big boss insulting British design at every episode's beginning. Not surprising the series has faded into the thermosphere of public consciousness. You can catch it on Vimeo if you have an hour to spare.

Of Hello and キティ!

2009-11-07T14:35:00.000-08:00

Guess who I saw? Guess who was in my school? HELLO KITTY! Alright, not her but the lady who designs her! Yuko Yamaguchi was giving a lecture in school but I missed it as I was having class crit. By the time we sneaked in it was the last Q&A question. This is my best sneak shot of her giving autographs!

(from what I recall of the last question)

Q: As a designer, are you not bored of Hello Kitty after 12 years?

A: Trends change and there are always something new to try or do, so no, she will never be bored of Hello Kitty.

Of Curry Spice Chicken and Stuffed Mushrooms

2009-11-07T14:23:00.000-08:00

Broccoli with cheese, stuffed mushrooms, potato cake with sausages and pan-fried chicken with curry spice. This is my next 4 meals! The chicken turned out surprisingly well. Okay, so curry spices is really just cumin and turmeric. But the best part is the hot steamed rice. Ah... so comforting.

A hearty meal after I finally went grocery shopping again! Otherwise it would be rice and pasta sauce again. But I've effectively used up my monthly allowance. If only transport isn't so costly here! It's a shame they have one of the world's most expensive transportation and yet stations are often closed on weekends, delays are normal and it's not entirely surprising to spend the ride home in a dark carriage with bad ventilation (does that sound like a medieval torture chamber?).

Coming up next, Okonomiyaki!

Of Speech and Stupids

2009-11-04T15:10:00.000-08:00

Part of what I love at Central Saint Martins is that we get to do Academic Research. I apologize for being a geek! But really, doesn't it give you pings of joy to find out that UPPERCASE and LOWERCASE were so called because that was how they stacked letterpress in drawers?

So it's all great fun to find out that Italics were once favoured by the Italians (well, duh.) as a sort of Carolingian script revival, Romans used to write in full majuscule WITHOUTSPACINGBETWEENEACHLETTER (god know how they read without going cross-eyed) and BOLD typefaces only came about pretty much in the advertising boom of the 19th century. (makes sense, who can read Futura Extra Light on billboards? or a 12th century scribe furiously thickening the lines of an entire sentence with a sharp nib and blotchy ink?)

So the next time someone tells you nobody writes entire books in italics and that not using commas in your essay makes for uncomfortable reading, remind them that once upon a time, people wouldn't have been able to read properly with strange markings next to their words.

But reading textbooks are pulling my eyeballs out! I am still unable to read normal spaced books without the lines blending into a starry mess occasionally. I need a leading of at least 20pt for a 12pt text to be really comfortable.

Do you find speech superior to writing? Or vice versa?

A school of thought is that much of western languages are phonetic built and therefore a poor rip off of trying to reproduce sounds on paper. Which is an interesting thought since such languages have a particular set of phonetic alphabets that you rearrange to create new sounds like music notes. But either way, the entire span of vocabulary will always be limited to the base sounds which defines a language.

On the other hand, ideogram based languages like Chinese or Sanskrit are more or less like polished forms of pictograms where a specific image can mean a whole lot of context. You can either see this as a more primitive form of communicating, or a more sophisticated alternative to writing down sounds.

Which ever way it is, ideogram languages may be more romantic and culturally relevant but the business world will never give up speedy efficient grunts and squeaks.

Evil Bao

2009-11-01T17:33:00.000-08:00

okay. So staying alone with serious lack of sleep and thinking too much can do strange things to your brain... what else?

Spinach Ricotta

2009-11-01T17:29:00.000-08:00

Spinach and Ricotta with Pitted Black Olives and Hot dogs. Potato cakes with cheese on the side.

Not too bad! I don't really like the hot dogs though. They taste salty and unhealthy... but what do I expect! They're hot dogs!

I learnt my lesson after spending Halloween with an upset tummy from eating potatoes gone bad. Now I'm sticking to fresh hot food! (Okay frozen food that are within the expiry dates are considered fresh in this case.)

Things in London are different

2009-10-30T03:25:00.000-07:00

1. The tap water stains turn milky white.

2. My cup of tea has flaky light brown stuff after a night.

3. The dust is visible.

4. Steaming hot water on one tap and freezing cold on the other. (turning both on doesn't give you warm water. It gives a jet of water that's half hot and half cold so you'll burn your left hand while your right hand gets frostbites.)

5. They love warm orange lighting for everything.

6. Wolfberries are called Goji Berries. And they don't come in packs for chinese desserts. They come in pills for men.

7. Salami and cheese are a lot cheaper here.

8. Make eye contact and say 'Sorry' or 'Thanks'. You are not to withdraw into your own cacoon or hide behind your shadowing bangs.

9. Most people don't wear heels. That is until they go clubbing and they suddenly add pilings.

10. Can you spell M-I-L-O? (Ovaltine and Horlicks are favourites though.)

11. Plenty of clay animation advertisments on TV.

12. "'You alright?"

13. 'Cheers' can be used for anything. Anything. Cheers!

14. Can you say 'crips-ss-ps'?

15. Umbrellas are ridiculously expensive for a rainy country (no 100Yen stolen umbrellas stands?). Wear a hoodie. Or look cool (i.e. stupid) and walk in the rain.

16. They either love cold food or have something against selling hot food... which to them means rice and curry, potato and curry, or sausage rolls.

more to come!

Of Gunshots, Fireworks and Pegion Poop

2009-10-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

Graphite and brown pencil (acrylic for the poop)

Ugly is such a lazy thing - Project on the River Thames

"When you are disinterested in something you lose control of your mind and fail to see beauty. Ugly is such a lazy thing!" clara.

I finally heard gunshots today! Not like that's a particular occasion to celebrate but at least now I know how to distinguish between gunshots and firecrackers. Firecrackers goes "pop-pop pop" quite rapidly and the more obvious ones crackle and whistle at the end. Gunshots goes a quite deep "pop" pause.... and "pop" and is usually followed 10 minutes later by police sirens.

Not too big a concern unless you start to hear people screaming which fortunately hasn't happened. I just need to know how they sound like so I don't pop out happily for milk and eggs at Tesco thinking they're celebrating Halloween with firecrackers.

The majority of Singaporeans would never have encountered a gun and so am relatively clueless what in the world you'd do with one. My classmate told me gangs usually fire it into the air to mark locations, threaten (I'm thinking howling at the moon doesn't go down well with macho-looking hoodie man) or celebrate birthdays. Woah, they sure know how to celebrate in London! And here I am thinking only Countries and the Queen gets gunfire salutes on their birthdays.

Of Autumn and Black Fur

2009-10-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

It's winter but only starting to finally look like autumn. A quick sketch of a guy who's originally staring at the paparazzi chasing an unknown British star (at least unknown to me). But hey, that doesn't fit in the romantic surroundings!

The dust here is strange strains of short blackish thread or fur like things. I thought they descended from my coat but realise there's no way threads from my coat could magically float into my bathroom and settle on the basin or get stuck up my nose when I'm not wearing it. But that's too much information.

I'm sleepy, but I need to work harder.

Illustrators play with the synapse

2009-10-26T23:48:00.000-07:00

Oskar Fischinger - work 1920s to 1940s
http://www.tudou.com/v/PvmbCzO1q48

Brick Lane

2009-10-26T23:39:00.000-07:00

Found this lady along Brick Lane waiting for people to exchange portrait drawings with. It's really interesting! We have to hide the sketchpad under the table and stare at each other across the table while drawing a portrait of each other. Not sure if you can see it well but on the left is my portrait of her, and vice versa.

What's strange is that we're complete strangers but drawing requires such intensive focusing on the details that it would've been really awkward if we weren't both preoccupied. Can you imagine staring at a stranger's lips for a prolonged period of time? Anyway we must have looked pretty funny to others since what they see is two people frowning at each other over an empty table. If I remember correctly, her idea was to use this project as a way of getting strangers to know each other. I hope it goes well!

Which reminds me of my lesson today! My animation lecturer, Katerina said people are born to draw yet as they grow older and gain oral and written skills that somehow eliminates drawing and for some people, it stops forever. Strange isn't it? How we ignore an inert ability and re-categorize it as a skill only certain groups of people have.

Did anyone read Children's Britannica when they were younger? I loved it! I read the entire encyclopedia set back to back several times over. One of the stories under 'D' was a poem about a girl who dreamt of all the dolls in the world but was awoken by her own doll which got jealous. Okay, it sounds freakishly like Freddie Kludger when I put it this way. But I deviate. Saw this ancient Roman doll at the British Museum and it's the exact same doll illustrated in the Britannica! It's not exactly surprising since the Britannica was published in London but the exciting bit is seeing something from your childhood come alive!

Paper Pulp People

2009-10-24T16:38:00.000-07:00

Working with RJ Paper was a dream! The people were so lovely and I get to spend hours and hours, day after day painting alone on a huge canvas. Not to mention the joy of having huge bottles of acrylic paint by my side. Ah, Bliss! Can't wait to see the paper catalog project out of the oven too!

River Thames

2009-10-17T13:03:00.000-07:00

watercolour

Mile End

2009-10-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

watercolour and ink

めrci beaucorp!

2009-10-17T12:40:00.000-07:00

My door finally has something pretty! And my third wisdom tooth is growing. I hope it doesn't give me any trouble.

I found a plastic bag floating by the hedge of my hostel last night. It looked like it was stuck in a air current well, spinning and fluttering in mid-air. Apparently that's bad Feng Sui (anyone watched My Lucky Star?). Or maybe it's a zone of zero gravity and the plastic bag got caught in a constant eternal orbit in the tiny space. Or maybe it's ghostly...

When I woke up this morning it was still floating there and I very excitedly pointed it out to my flatmate. She took one look and said, "It's caught in a spider web."

So much for adventure. Back to my breakfast then. For a mould update, 4 slices of bread I meant to have for lunch has gone half white with bluish grey crust. I didn't even keep it for that long! One week perhaps?

2009-10-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

Nothing is Original.

Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows, select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent, and don't bother concealing your thievery - celevrate it if you feel like it.

In any case always remember what Jon Luc Goddard said:

"It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to."

Jim Jarmusch

Of Mashed Potatoes and Farewells

2009-10-14T18:17:00.000-07:00

3rd week in London and my sister and brother-in-law just left for home today after 10 days holidaying around the region. To distract myself I made a huge jar of mashed potatoes with butter and cheese, a box of sautéed mushrooms with onions and packed lunch for the next 2 days!

Unfortunately my apple juice kind of coagulated and grew blackish fur... I thought it could last for ages. Hopefully my food posts in the future will be more exciting even if they lack any presentation (note the desperate use of ribbon!)