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"identity" Tag


I’m new here


Friday, May 24, 2019

.

*****

I don’t really know the way, but I want to. I have this habit to wander off randomly when I’m unknown with a place. Just to see where I’ll end up if I let go of control. “Let fate decide” says the romantic in me.

After a while I see patterns and I believe that I know where I am. Finding attractive by-streets in every corner. But that’s an illusion. By the next turn this pattern is shattered by reality.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I don’t want to stay. Just keep going, till this frame turns into bedlam. Borders can’t contain me anymore. Looking back I can’t trace back my origins. I’m not lost. I’m new here.

I am chaos.

.

{any suggestions for a good title?}


Sunday, February 3, 2019

By reading an interview about Åbäke, a design collective of four, I found out that they decided to work together using one name, one emailadress, one bank account and one invoicing system. The group started in 2000 and at that time they always worked together on their projects. Nowadays they’re working more individually as “It seemed that only working within the four of us was leading to implosion”. I find this promise that they made very beautiful and intriguing, since I personally think it’s very unusual and brave to commit to each other like this. Because it’s so unusual, it also raised a lot of questions.
After reading this interview I wrote the following text about my thoughts around the decisions they made. I asked Åbäke to read it and to cross out certain statements that they don’t agree with and questions that would have a negative answer, those are marked red. Logically, the green stands for positive answers and agreement. I would advise you to read the interview before continuing reading.

The construct Åbäke made (sharing name, money) is really similar to the essence of marriage. People mostly marry out of love and therefore they feel the need to share (name and property) and promise each other (financial) support unconditionally. Even though the idea of marriage got romanticized, the foundation is really practical and pragmatical. But, the main goal of it is to become happy together forever. When it comes to work though, I’ve learnt that the main goal is to become successful. I wonder, did Åbäke become a group just because they liked to be together? Or to become successful? Most probably a combination.
If the reason would be success, would this need to be a group also state the presence of insecurities of one’s own abilities? If so, is that necessarily a bad thing? Or is forming a group actually proof of self-knowledge and honesty?

In this specific interview it’s really clear to me that being successful for Åbäke doesn’t necessarily means earning a lot of money, having a lot of free time next to work or becoming famous, it’s mostly being able to develop great work.
For myself and with me many others, I believe that I have the same goal, but I’ve learnt that the way to measure the “greatness” of a work is simply by the reward. In a way money or acknowledgement do translate back to me how much effort or work is worth. That’s also a reason why I find this promise so fascinating. Do you gain or lose acknowledgement when you share a name? Does it feels as nice to be acknowledged for a work someone else made under the same name as it does when you’ve made something on your own? Would it be more rewarding to receive money straight away to your bank account? So you can measure for each project separately what kind of work you delivered. Or does it work the other way around? That by getting the same amount paid every month, no performance seems worth less or more than the other.
Now that I write this I also realize a part in the interview about how interesting projects pay less than boring ones. Maybe that’s the reason to not even choose money as a way to measure achievements, since it’s apparently not that reliable.

But then there’s still the shared name. Although I think I’m understanding it more and more while writing this, I still don’t think I would be able to share my artist name with my boyfriend for example. Even though I would marry him if he’d ask, share everything together, both using the same name feels like I’m giving up a part of myself. I think it could have a lot to do with pride as well, and that’s mainly because of the creative part.
For example, if I would work as a waitress in a restaurant, I would also make a commitment to my boss, under specific terms and conditions. But, in this situation there’s a hierarchy; I’m working in the name of my boss, following his rules, not out of my own ideas. Everyone visiting the restaurant is also aware of that the way I work isn’t out of me as a person, but me fulfilling my boss’s expectations.

When working creatively though, the whole point is ideas being executed by this one exact person. The maker is crucial when it comes to creativity since that’s the person that creates the outcome. You could say that the work is carrying the makers identity. And aren’t we all proud of our identity? So what happens with your identity when you share it with multiple people? Does it gets lost? Or does it become even bigger/better? Is it even possible to identify an identity in a name at all? And if so, what happens then with this pride when you share a name? Is this identity actually as important as I just stated? Or is it just a way for artists to cover up their ego’s? Is it my ego that makes me hesitant to even thinking of sharing my name?
And when you’d look less into the emotional side of it, but more to the actual working process, does it releases work pressure to share a name? Or does the responsibility of others makes you work even harder?

I would also like to get back to this implosion they mentioned before in the interview. Something implodes when the pressure from outside is higher than the pressure inside.* Would the outside in this case then mean work related expectations from outside the group? Or, would both the outside and the inside represent the group itself? And again, what is the motive to stick together after a near-implosion, is it love, loyalty, or the pursuit of success?

In any case, I personally think it’s a very admirable way of being a collective. Also I’m happy that it invited me to rethink motives, certain constructs, and being an individual. It actually made me feel disconnected from myself and the reasons why I like to be busy with art. After I had a talk with Åbäke, a lot of questions still remained. What do I want? What do I need to get there? But, I also ended up with one really good advice. – Although it can be helpful to think about these things, it can also be helpful to let go of this assume that there has to be one higher goal. A better question to ask would be, why do I like what I’m doing now? In that way a person could spent hours on finding the right curve for the letter Å. The key isn’t necessarily to strive and long for “the great” but to find joy in small things and make them as great and important as you feel like.
“Success is mostly about being able to develop great work.”

*Åbäke did point out to me that after an implosion, an explosion occurs.

 

AT TWILIGHT // SIMON STARLING

When our teacher was explaining us in the Rietveld library to choose a book that the library obtained last year to eventually write about the design of it, I couldn’t really focus as there was this book sticking out on the shelf of which i thought i liked the texture. I went to have a look at it. As the teacher’s voice faded, the book cover became clearer. Turned out that it didn’t look like how i thought it did, but after going through the rest of the library, I still preferred this one. 

What made the book catch my eye was first of all that it was wrapped in plastic, as if it’s something really precious. And secondly it was a, I thought, white book that had brown bakery paper around it, as if it was handmade. This wasn’t the book though, and neither did it have brown bakery paper around it; I think it’s an extension of the actual book. The reason I do is because this “extension” has the form of a newspaper which makes it seem less important than the book that was also inside the plastic. Also in this newspaper there’s mostly big pictures shown, that probably aren’t the subject of the book but are there to support the context of the book.

The book itself has a very minimalist appearance, brown matte hardcover with black letters and three lines. But, when you open it, the first page is a very bright purple paper. After that, for the first half of the book it has brown paper and an often used font. Turns out it’s a play: probably the reason to choose an easy readable font and well structured text over the pages. The second half of the book has white pages and a more playful appearance. The font comes across less mature to me and also there’s a lot of pictures, even scanned in papers with written notes on it in this half of the book. I find it quite interesting how these simple choices changed the book into something special.

Simon Starling : at twilight, a play for two actors, three musicians, one dancer, eight masks (and a donkey costume). designer: Åbäke,  publisher: Dent-De-Leone, Rietveld Library Cat. no: star 2

Fear and Loathing in the Library


Wednesday, November 28, 2018

 

The library in the Rietveld Academie is organized in a spiral form and looking through the books in it’s shelves is much like wandering the streets of Amsterdam as they circle around and around. This layout motivates random discovery but abstains in aiding any targeted intentions.

Luckily, the assignment did not require any knowledge of the library or the contents therein.

With a vague idea of which sections we were to choose a book from, I gazed upon the tall typography section. The individual shelves are lined with countless textbooks and magazines; each bearing their distinct design along the spine. The magazines tend to utilize bright colors, which, when aligned beside one another, blur into an inaccesable mass. Amidst this sea of color I spotted a tall beige book with a black title. The contrast to the surrounding books made it unique. The book’s individuality in this context can be attributed to it’s age; It was printed in 1955.

I took the book off of the shelf the study it in detail. The cover is made of laminated canvas and the title on the spine reads: ALBERT KAPR DEUTSCHE SCHRIFTKUNST.

The font reminded me of the font found on my family grave. Sturdy and very legible with well proportioned serifs. The front depicts a small white on black graphic of writing tools in a frame of black letters. The graphic is humble and unassuming; almost disappearing into the distance of the large beige cover. The first page reads in German “Versuch einer neuen historischen Darstellung” almost apologetically labeling itself a mere  “attempt”.

This honesty won me over immediately and I started leafing through the book. Old battered pages depicted forgotten fonts and the names of their creators. I recognized the name Schneidler from old correspondences between him and my grandfather that I had been reading that very morning. This made me feel like a historian piecing together the forgotten past of his ancestors. Maybe F.H. Ernst Schneidler held this very book. All speculation aside, I seem to have picked the book because I subconsciously recognized aspects of my own identity presented in print. I am book. Book am I.

 
757.3 kap 1

    This is honey.

Again and again, the gothic.


Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Gothic Fraktur is a typeface that has been used in many different contexts ever since it arose in the early 16th century. Fraktur loans its name from its broken up characteristic. Compared to the smooth curves of other calligraphic typefaces, the Fraktur has many angles and letters stand more independently in relation to others around them.

What intrigues us about the typeface is that it has been picked up by various social groups with contrary beliefs, that have used the typeface as part of their identity; which can be quite confusing, two opposite groups with different values and focusses using the same typeface for expressing themselves. We were wondering in what ways the identity of objects and public spaces surrounding us would be affected by incorporating the gothic fraktur typeface in and on them.

Everything around us is focussed on being modern and looking towards the future, and the fraktur typeface is one that represents craft and passed times. On the other hand something we have observed in our surroundings, is that people have an interest in more traditional artisanal products and have a new found appreciation for the past. We see this coming up in brand design of products but also the interest in vintage design. To us it makes sense that this is an aftereffect of living in a fast paced society that is always living in the tomorrow, and artisanal design and craft give people a nostalgia that they may never have experienced.

Typeface design and identity plays with references as certain forms can relate to modernity, the past, technology or artisan and by using a typography you can direct a product or public space into certain contexts containing certain associations.

 

Apple pie Fraktur

Appeltaart

This apple pie may not be artisanal and fresh, however after changing the title by using the Fraktur, the pie seems a bit nicer to me. I would expect this pie to be made with fresh creamy butter and a lot of cinnamon, whereas before I saw it as a pie that would taste a bit artificial maybe, due to its shiny coating.

 

 

chocomel

Chocomel, de enige echte

I usually like drinking chocolate drinks in the winter, because they have more calories than petrol. My depiction of a chocolate drink is chilling outside in the cold, in the winter, or inside, watching a 1960’s cartoon,  and therefore it accepts Gothic Fraktur very well, and what I also liked is the fact that the Fraktur worked well with colors in this case, which is something I didn’t quite expect.

 

 

Singel bord fraktur

Singel street sign in the Centre of Amsterdam

The Fraktur typeface looks quite good on the street signs of Amsterdam, especially the signs in the center that are a bit older. I think if I would have seen this picture, I might not have noticed it wasn’t the actual typeface of the sign. On a closer look, this typeface would never be used in Amsterdam. Being a country that has been shaped quite strongly by modernist design, you wouldn’t see a Gothic typeface being implemented as a design decision in any public sphere.

 

 

kebab

BBQ Runder Kebabspiesjes

The barbeque kebab worked to the extend that it is meat, but to me it doesn’t look like very high quality meat, yet packaging design can bring a change, but people will feel like they have been lied to, since they expect the packaging design to follow the quality, and therefore typeface is also a very important player, since it gives a reference, besides the very packaging.

 

 

rabobank

Delta Loyd Building in Amsterdam

For some reason, the postmodernist buildings accept typefaces pretty well, at least in my opinion. Maybe the building accepted it so well, because there is no frame, and the building’s facade is a background of the logo which is made out of typefaces, instead of the logo having a background, which is then put on the background which is the building itself.  Therefore, if I had a 3D option, I think I would have been able to give a much better impression of what I wanted to do.

 

 

Red bull fraktur

Redbull

I was quite curious if the type would work on a can of Redbull, I could see certain teenagers who would wear hoodies with text in Gothic typefaces also drinking Redbull. It works quite okay, it isn’t the best choice for a drink that promotes itself as an energy booster, however I expected it to not work at all. I think this typography is quite versatile, it can get away with being used for so many different purposes without immediately questioning the identity of the product or context.

 

In practice, we can choose any typeface for anything, but in our minds it wouldn’t always make sense. Typography and logo design speak, and they are something that give us a bigger picture of the meaning of a logo through references and comparison. A logo can consist of forms, but also of typefaces, where the letters are the carriers of the form, design and message. Some newspapers have very little colour which cause them to lean more towards the content. Meanwhile, Newspapers can also be in colour and they are usually combined with explosive designs where the image is a more relevant factor in reporting. Of course, there still are newspapers with Gothic Fraktur typography that try to show more research oriented journalism, where the text is of main importance.

Thus here we come to a conclusion that a typeface in combination with colours can change the meaning of words and how you perceive something, for example the logos of brands of water depending of its typeface, it will tell you what they’re trying to sell you and what you want to buy. The same way you want beer to be written in the way you will think: This is it.

The public space usually accepts it pretty well. In smaller sizes, but also on bigger, on all heights, and on different heights it had a different effect. Also, to me the angle and the place influence the choice of the colors. I think it works well on 1890s Amsterdam architecture, but then everything would look very neat, but I think that the city has a very neat design, and an element as a different era typeface can bring a change in the space and break the feeling of only one correct answer.

Sometimes more practical ways for doing things are found, but the practicality would not be compatible with what is trying to be advertised to us.

 

Beccio


Thursday, May 3, 2018

After studying and researching on William Benson cube colour system, based on a geometrical approach to the harmonious use of design colours, we had the announcement of creating our own colour system.

I looked to my predecessors and so, I decided to create a colour system based on a personal approach and a personal use. As a starting point I tried to figure out elements and interests of my life that could be and not be related to a colour system.

The thing that interested me the most between all the ideas I had sketched down was wind. I was really intrigued how to combine such a powerful element as wind to a colour system. The similarities between this two element is the representation of both of them.
The diagram of the wind (Wind Rose) is used in order to know which directions the 8 major winds (and sometimes 8 half winds and 16 quarter winds) blew within the planet. In fact there’s no difference between cardinal directions and the winds which blew from the same points. Wind roses use 16 cardinal directions, such as north (N), NNE, NE, etc., although they may be subdivided into as many as 32 directions, so that creates a distinction between the degrees of each cardinal point ( North corresponds to 0°/360°, East to 90° exc.)

circle rosa dei venti R

At the beginning I tried to give more of a strict or scientific approach to the work and to create something actually handy. In fact many airport, such as Amsterdam have records of how the wind had blew during the years. The diagram below demonstrate how the wind rose for Amsterdam shows how many hours per year the wind blows from the indicated direction. Example SW: Wind is blowing from South-West (SW) to North-East (NE).

My idea was to create a system based on how the wind blows in the city of Amsterdam, during a period of time, I wanted to actually use the records from the airport so to relate each cardinal point to a colour.

amsterdam rose wind

After reflecting on my idea for a while I realize that I was unsatisfied and things such as the difficulty of reaching the records and a big lack of interest and real personal approach on the theme were influencing my working process.
I started to reflect again on the idea that I have of wind and how I feel about it and after a while I found the perfect way to combine my interests to the work.
Wind is really almighty element that influence our existence, something that never stop blowing and will never stop. So I had to put this power in to my work and include it in to it.

I decided to work with coloured smoke emitter, and to bring my colour system where it belongs.
My initial idea started when I went to the beach and under the “eyes” of the camera I positioned 4 coloured smoke emitter on the sand. One for each cardinal point and then turned them on.
Since the regulation of the Netherlands doesn’t allowed smoke emitters with an high percentage of gunpowder, as expected due to the power of the wind, the emitters in my possession barely worked (result in the picture below).

Screen Shot 2018-05-06 at 17.18.43

 

The attempting of creating a land art piece, worked quite bad, consequently to solve the problem the solution was to work with the idea of the wind as an untouchable and floating element.
I decided then to create a performance in the spray-painting room of the main Rietveld Academie building, a really loud place caused by the ventilation of the room that reminds me a lot of the sound of the wind or how loud the wind can be.
click here for the performance.

A Bipolar Wardrobe


Monday, April 2, 2018

For many people colours have stark connotations related to their moods. Think of sayings like “feeling blue”, “being green with envy”, “seeing red” or think about mood-rings that supposedly change colour every time your mood changes. Undoubtedly moods and colours are intertwined in one way or another.

Thinking of mood swings related to colour makes me think of my mother, who has bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder causes swings in mood, energy, and the ability to function throughout the day. It is known for alternating periods of depression and mania that can last from days to months. Thus she has experienced extreme mood swings. How does she relate her moods to colour? She personally doesn’t clearly remember what happened during her manic episodes, I however do and noticed how her mania and depression greatly influence her way of dressing. She has a wardrobe filled with exotic clothes in all colours of the rainbow and lot’s of different prints and styles. When being manic she dresses herself as an artwork before going outside, making heads turn wherever she goes. When being depressed she doesn’t really dresses herself, but instead stays in her grey pajamas’s at home all day. I think that a lot of people might experience that they wear more colourful clothes when feeling happy and wearing more neutral toned clothes when feeling sad.  I decided to create a colour system based on my mothers way of dressing, and not on people’s way of dressing in general or on people with bipolar disorder’s way of dressing. I thought it would be generalizing people’s experiences too much and I think that especially dealing with people who have a condition like bipolar disorder one must avoid that to avoid stigmatizing the disorder. Not every person with bipolar disorder has the same behaviour towards their wardrobe, or the same experiences in general.

After having decided to make a colour system based on my mother’s way of dressing, I read a lot of general information about bipolar disorder, which didn’t bring me any further in the development of my project. I could also hardly ask my mother any questions about it, as she doesn’t remember how she was when being manic. I later found an interesting article written by someone who also has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, about what having this disorder means for their gender identity. The writer of the article identifies as a non-binary person, and thus I shall refer to them as “their” and “they”. They experience that when being manic they feel more feminine, and when being depressed they feel more masculine. This shows itself in many ways, one of them being the way they dress. When feeling manic, they will wear a dress, when feeling depressed, they will wear baggy clothes. This made me realize how my mother’s way of dressing doesn’t only change in colour when her mood does, but also in how traditionally feminine versus masculine her clothes would be. When being manic it wouldn’t be a bright yellow sweatpants she would put on, but a bright yellow dress. When being depressed she wouldn’t put on a grey miniskirt, but grey oversized sweatpants instead. This was something to keep in mind in the development of my colour system.

After researching I figured it was time to start working hands on. I collected all the traditionally feminine colourful clothes and the traditionally masculine baggy neutral toned clothes from my own wardrobe. I realized that I order my clothes by colour in my wardrobe, in some way I was thus already working on this project of making a colour system before it even started. With the clothes I tried making a small installation without damaging the clothes, this was very frustrating. Somehow nothing I tried seemed to work for me and I soon decided to quit trying. I felt like the best ways of displaying clothes without damaging them already existed and happens all the time and everywhere, which is putting them on mannequins, on hangers or folding them neatly. I didn’t feel like playing clothing store, so this was not the way to go. I took a step back from the whole process, let some time pass to then later come with new insights again. I concluded that the colour system I was trying to create already existed and just needed to be documented. I decided to make a video with my mother, of her wearing two bipolar outfits.

dav

The filming went very smoothly, my mother and I enjoyed putting the outfits together and enjoyed spending time together, which to me makes the video feel genuine too. We tried to make the contrast between her two outfits/moods very clear, but still true to reality. This lead to us filming her depressed outfit inside on the couch, and her manic outfit outside in a field of flowers with more movement. I later also edited the video to be slowed down when her depressed outfit was shown, and sped up the video when her manic outfit was portrayed. When presenting the video, I went back to trying to make an installation using my own clothes but now including the video shown on a tablet. I felt like just showing the video on a big screen would not fit how personal and tangible someone’s clothes, and thus my colour system, are. To make it even more personal/intimate, the viewer of the work needs to wear headphones to hear the sound of the video.

Here are some stills from the video:

Fast walking in a flowery field

Comfy outfit

Colourfull outfit in a field of flowers

Reading glasses with tape

Exactitudes


Thursday, November 30, 2017

I chose this project because I find really interesting how every human in the world even the most peculiar looking ones can be catalogued in a group. It always intrigued me how much you can express with clothing and where are the borders between being unique or just following fashion. The photographer Ari Verluis and the stylist Ellie Uyttenbroek have been working in the project Exactitudes for more than twenty years, the name of this project is a fusion of “exact” and “attitudes”.

01--Gabbers-Rotterdam-1994

Vetements which was also in the exhibition Change Makers used Ari and Elli’s work as an inspiration for the autumn/winter 2017 collection. This underscores the critique of the fashion world. After the collection was online big chains started copying it. This open really important questions about actual fashion.

The presentation of the photos they take are always the same, a grid of three by four, making it almost a catalogue of types of persons where you could find your urban tribe.

Exactitudes started in Rotterdam but actually they work all over the world. It analyses how depending on your surroundings your style will be different. They say sense of style is something you’re born with, using as an example the kids who use school uniform, the ones that even wearing the same exact thing make a little difference like wearing a chain or rolling up his sleeves.

This project is not that much about fashion but more about people and it really has an anthropological quality that it’s admirable because slowly it’s documenting the changes in society thru the years and how some factors like social media.

 

To understand better and interpret my subject I decided to recreate Exactitudes but with a twist: doing it on Tinder. Tinder is a dating app where you swipe left or right if you like the profile of the person or not.

 

cat owners dog filter

cat owners and dog filter

 

In the profile you create, you are able to post four photos where you have to sell yourself. You can also write about you, (but no one reads that). This dating app works visually. The pictures you post will make you have a match or a sad love life with no matches at all.

In the interview for the catalogue, Ari talks about the process of finding / collecting people and how they just sit in the street and wait for the right person to pass by. For me that process was more active, I first had to find which group I wanted to categorize. As soon as you start using the app, similitudes between the users pop up, and even though you can’t take photos of them with a white background and the same pose, when I arranged the screenshots in grids it was impressive to see how similar the photos were.

 

The research I made wasn’t that much about clothing, but there’s something in common with clothing and the images you post on Tinder to introduce yourself. They both are talking about you without words. You want to reflect your personality with them, it’s like a mute introduction of yourself.

 

soccer players

soccer players

 

Probably the people I put together in some of the grids won’t think they belong to the same urban tribe. I focused more on the attitudes they reflect on their profiles more than on what they wear. For example the soccer players, by making the choice of introducing themselves with a photo of them playing this sport place them in an idea of the kind of person they can be. The same exact thing would happen if someone shaved his head and wore a bomber, these decisions reflect a statement of who they are or how they want to be seen.

 

world saviors barbies

world saviors and barbies

 

World saviors is another example of how with a single image you can make a strong statement. They try to sell their person and reflect how merciful and helpful they are with the most needed ones. This could not be shown with clothing,

 

Now that Tinder and other social media platforms are opening opportunities for people to give the image they want to show of themselves is time for a new Exactitudes, but now in the virtual world.

 

Identity and Copy Culture.


Wednesday, November 29, 2017

 

  ‘This art work is designed by one American artist’ ‘ She is one Chinese designer’ ‘This is one typical Dutch design work’ ‘German style‘… No wonder, nowadays, the introduction of the modern art works is commonly and normally to be started in this way : start with identity defining. It seems like identity is something necessary when we are going to know something new. Does it mean all cultural exists have to find one sense of belonging ? Does it mean the original influence from our mother culture background always take the leadership when our brains start to work?

Globalization is like the invisible hand which is moving the modern world to keep going forward, and the mixture of cultures seems like the direct result of  the international moving and communications. Being influenced is different from Copying, but how can we define what is ‘copying‘ and what is ‘being influenced’? Do we have to take the negative attitude when we look at ‘copy’?

Tons of questions may be thought about identity and copy as they have such a close connection with each other. Here, One young artist, He Jing ??? whose art work is ‘Tulip Pyramid, introduced her own thinking and reflections

The Tulip Pyramid by DDW scouts favourite Jing He at the 2016 Graduation Show

about copy cultures. When we talk about who is she,we may say ‘One Chinese  artist’, ‘ The graduate artist from Dutch art academy’ or ‘ He Jing’. Three kinds of introductions may bring three feelings to the public audience,’oh, she is Chinese which means her works must be influenced a lot from her mother cultural background.’ ‘ oh, she was educated by Dutch art education then she may think about art in dutch ways.’ ‘ oh, who is He Jing?’.  She noticed these kinds of questions about identities and then she developed a series of research based on the cultural identities questioning( you can find in her website He Jing). As she keeps discovering about her own art identity, she noticed that there is one phenomenon among China nowadays, which is the industrial copying. For those copied products, what is their identity? Seems like those copied things live in a parallel world where is in the gap of two original identities.

When we back to the copying culture, obviously it’s not a Chinese thing only, it’s a common humanity thing. There are so many examples of ancient cultural copying behaviors, which finally created some unique and wonderful works at the end. Delft blue; The Japanese cultural origins from Ancient China and so on. (The Culture of Copy).

As she develops and researched more and more about the copying culture between China and The Netherlands, He Jing finally created these two tulip pyramid which shows the combination of Chinese copy products and Dutch copy cultures. She implies her own education situation with this tulip pyramid-mixture of two original cultures and their copy culture gaps.

As a new freshman who came to a new culture for just one and a half year, what attitude should I always cary with me when I am facing two different cultures everyday? Apparently, the open mind should always be put first place but how can I take the sprit of other cultures without the directly copying?I think the answer is to get the way and the angles of another culture about how they look at the outside world instead of the shallow images or shapes.

Keep in mind about the originals and embrace new cultural influence as much as possible, get their sprits and melt cultures in heart then turn those into new art institutions.

Graphic design and Museum Identity


Monday, February 6, 2017

The most interesting thing about the book I chose in the library: For Every Dog A Different Master [x] was oversized texts which were intolerable for me. I was very confused how to perceive the texts on the book which did not seem like texts because of illegibility. At the beginning I thought it has something to do with different cultural background, which is that moderation from the balance between negative and positive space is highly valued in life generally in Asia. However, soon I had to admit that graphic design no longer can be classified its style by borders.

Since I have researched about Radim Peško [x] who is, editorial, typeface designer as well as photographer combined, I gazed that texts could become images and be totally looking different with the other not only by its size and composition, but also typeface itself. There was no much things to get from his other books which were about his photographs so I made a research about typefaces that he designed. Furthermore, I wanted to know what kind of impacts typeface can have because I used to marginalize it.

b967762af8bc7401457c6061b1cfc83b

karl_nawrot3

Lÿon by Radim Peško and Karl Nawrot


Stedelijk Museum is one of my favorite museums in Amsterdam since I came to the Netherlands. Stedelijk Museum exhibits modern and contemporary art and design to give visitors insight in their connection between art and life reflecting social issues. The Logo of Stedelijk Museum caught my eyes at first glance because of its confusing flow. The font of the logo: Union designed by Radim Peško is simple without ornament. The design of logo by Mevis & Van Deursen is controversial due to its readability. However, I think it is clear enough to represent the identity of Stedelijk Museum symbolically. The shape of the S represents the dignified history of the Stedelijk Museum and vibrant atmosphere.

Stedelijk-Museum-Logo

Stedelijk Museum Logo

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Signage proposal

Usually logo reflects the value and direction that the brand pursues. Throughout research about many kind of logos, it was interesting to see how the image of the brand remains in memory by the logo. Also, I was intrigued to investigate conspicuous components in the logo design such as typeface. Union is a typeface which was designed by Radim Peško. Union was designed based on Helvetica and Arial.

 

Helvetica was designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger. Helvetica’s design is based on that of Akzidenz Grotesk (1896), and classified as a Grotesque or Transitional san serif face. Originally it was called Neue Haas Grotesque; in 1960 it was revised and renamed Helvetica (Latin for “Swiss”).

Arial was designed in 1982 by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders for Monotype (not Microsoft), it’s classified as Neo Grotesque, was originally called Sonoran San Serif, and was designed for IBM’s bitmap font laser printers. It was first supplied with Windows 3.1 (1992) and was one of the core fonts in all subsequent versions of Windows until Vista, when to all intents and purposes, it was replaced with Calibri. [x]

In brief, these typefaces have something to do with their intended usage. Helvetica was designed for print, while Arial was designed for laser printers and then adapted for use on computers.

 

Normally Arial has been considered as an imitation of Helvetica although both have its own uniqueness by each delicate details that they have. Look at the below pictures. For instance, the terminals of the lowercase in Helvetica cut off straight while Arial’s is cut at an angle. Arial has blander appearance and Helvetica has an overall less rounded appearance and slightly higher waistline. Due to these trivial differences, Helvetica looks more elegant than Arial.

Radim Peško explained about this combination, “Union is intended for situations where Helvetica seems too sophisticated and Arial too vulgar, or vice versa.”. Eventually the new is evolved from the combination with the old. I think that the intention of Union implies the position of Stedelijk Museum.

Helvetica-and-Arial

Helvetica and Arial

Typeface Union

Union

Frequently graphic designers design typeface only for museum itself. Another examples for instance are: the identity for The Chicago Museum of Modern art (commissioned by the same designer duo Mevis & van Deursen and designed by Karl Nawrot) or Bauhaus-Archive Museum. Design studio L2M3 looked to the typeface Bayer Universal reflecting the heritage of Bauhaus typographical design designed by Herbert Bayer. Universal encapsulates the Bauhaus’ stark aesthetic by basic principle of typographic communication of Bauhaus,

1. Typography is shaped by functional requirements.

2. The aim of typographic layout is communication (for which it is the graphic medium).

3. For typography to serve social end, its ingredients need internal organization (ordered content) as well as external organization (the typographic material properly related).

Bauhaus-Dessau_main_building

BauhausA

Bauhaus and Universal

The interesting fact in design process of new identity of Bauhaus-Archive Museum: Bayer Next is that it retained originality but did not restrained its possibility. Sascha Lobe of design studio L2M3 [x] updated more than 555 glyphs and we see more than 10 different versions of each letters. The goal of Bayer Next [x], he says, was to create peculiarities within the typeface. This idea is contrasted with Bayer’s original ideal for simplifying typography down to a universal typeface as we see Bauhaus’ philosophy.

Bayer Next

Bayer Next

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Poster of Bauhaus-Archive Museum

I had thought this expansion and flexibility of identity does not give exquisite image of the brand in memory of public. However, good identity does not mean tangibility as a one certain figure. These examples, see below another example of Moscow Design Museum, are ubiquitous. This museum is based on Moscow but it is mainly imagined as a nomadic, pop-up museum. And, their identity was designed by Amsterdam-based Lava design studio [x]. The identity of Moscow Design Museum does not even emphasize its name to identify them but numerous and changeable icons for logo, which was inspired by Russian glass patterns. Good identity is adoptable for various applications and formations in digital society. Eventually typeface is recognized as one of the strong image although sometime they are not readable.

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bus

Moscow Design Museum

 

Katerina Sedá : for every dog a different master = kazdej pes jiná ves.. /Rietveld library catalogue no : sed 1

Are you the clothes you wear?


Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Every morning when I dress for school, I’m in doubt. I put something on and it’s again the same. I have a couple of outfits I wear a lot and that make me feel safe. Though, everytime I doubt whether it’s good enough. I’m in a school that calls itself an art school and it doesn’t feel like I’m a typical person that belongs in an art school, even though I don’t know if that kind of a person exists. Because of that I feel like I have to proof myself, as if I have to pretend that I’m someone else, wearing clothes that suit art school, but that suit don’t me. I feel too normal, too average, too ‘different’. Too boring. Even when the clothes I wear I really like and I feel comfortable in.

The strange thing is: there isn’t something like a dresscode for an art academy. Everyone wears what they like or what makes them feel good. So no one cares what you’re wearing. Although it feels like everyone has their own unique style, different from everyone, and maybe that could be the dresscode. Being as unique as possible. And if you see it like this, maybe I do fit in.

For me this proves that your identity is for a big part in the hands of the clothes you wear, prejudices exist and people pretend that they know who you are. You can deny that it is like this, and I’m sure that came across your mind, but I think everyone realizes that this is true. Even when you don’t really care about fashion or clothing, it says something about who you are, about your identity. It expresses your culture or subculture. The group you belong to. Fashion is the easiest way to express, to make a statement. And we do, all of us.

 

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Beyond the Body, a perception of appearance and identity : video and publication 2012

Imme van der Haak is an artist who takes identity as an starting point. She says that fashion is, for her, the way to form your identity, to show yourself. But also and mostly to try and be someone else and experience how that is, to step in someones skin and mind. In that way you can undergo an metamorphosis and your clothes can function as an cocoon where in you can undergo that metamorphosis. Also without clothes there is an identity, in scars, hair, birthmarks and surgical adjustments. Our body is an product of nature and a product of science. There are tons of possibilities to give our body a certain form. In the end she says that even without clothes, fashion influences our body. This can come out in tattoos, piercings, the way we cut our hair, but also in the edit on photographs in fashion.

 

imme-van-der-haak

Configurations : Jewelry 2010

She makes works about changing the form of the body. This is shown the best in her work Elastic Mind, where she deforms her face and body with several tools, like elastics, balloons, tights, hairpins and treads. By this she does research to the form of the body, and tries to find new forms, that are not so normal but can be beautiful in a way. It was a research for a jewelry line she made, with really innovative and new jewelry. Also in her video work “Beyond the Body” shown in the exhibition The Future of Fashion is Now, a really beautiful and emotional video is shown, that makes us think about our own identity and how we express that. In the video two people are shown, covered by a transparent piece of fabric with the body of someone else printed on it, and by that they are given a second identity. The shape of the body changes because of the fabric and the picture, which is interesting and typical for Imme, like I said.

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Elastic Mind : publication 2010

 

Another artist that works with deformation of the body as a research for defining identity is Jeanne Dunning. She did kind of similar things, like putting balloons under clothing and creating extra bodyparts, which you can compare to Imme’s work in the video, because there you see two people at a time and by that sometimes there are more arms or legs. She creates surrealistic images as a result, not as a research like Imme does.

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Jeanne Dunning : in bed 2004

I think it’s an interesting subject to think about how easily you can change the way you look and by that your identity. You will be the same person from the inside, but a lot changes by how other people see you or how your look makes you feel. It’s something we are busy with everyday.
 

 

New [S] for Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam


Wednesday, September 12, 2012

23 /09 /2012

The visual identity of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam is undergoing a radical reconsideration by Mevis & Van Deursen. Internationally renowned as one of the most inventive and acclaimed design agencies in the Netherlands, the duo had previously created the graphic identity of the museum’s Temporary Stedelijk program from 2010 to 2012. The museum’s visual re-branding will be an ongoing process, to be seen in a new logo, website design, publications, newsletter, stationery and posters, among other applications. In anticipation of the reopening of the Stedelijk Museum on September 23, the new campaign will be gradually unveiled. Wondering what typeface was used is not that crazy. It is a new ‘font’ designed by Radim Pesko called ‘Union’. A blending between ‘Helvetica’ and ‘Arial’

Drag


Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The book contains a colorful set of images, as well as interviews with drag-queens, drag-kings, gender-benders and just awesome-looking people in their best.

The photos try to capture the real essence of the people in their everyday surroundings and environment. Most of the pictures are taken inside of their apartments, while they are dressing up – putting on their make-up, trying on their costumes. It also contains a series of nudes. The beauty of the photos lies in the fact that none of them are manipulated. What you see is what you get. There is no formula, no restrictions – only the apartment walls, where the pictures are taken, but which leave a great deal of freedom to the people, as the camera observes their everyday routine.

The interviews try to show how fascinating and crazy the lifestyle is that they are really living. In a very immediate and personal way, stripped of every artifice. They give us an image of true meaning of the mentality of the men/women, who like to dress up as an opposite sex member.

Most of the drags have developed several characters for themselves, throughout the years. With those different characters they are also trying out multiple lifestyles. They are also giving some advice on becoming a drag yourself (You should start with picking a name with a sexual slant to it).

 

 

The photographer captured the people from the circles he moves around in himself, which makes the images and the interviews extra intimate and open. It is truly possible to peak inside of that totally different universe. Here the photographer not only plays the role of the professional observer but is also personally involved in their lives. He succeeded on capturing all that joy and all of those sufferings. The involvement leads to extraordinary images – they are fascinating, than again touching. They show all the glitter and vanity, but there is also a great deal of vulnerability and fragility.

Photographers attitude and ethics has lead to images, which involve us but also force us to maintain a certain distance. Despite the often intimate images, which are shown, nowhere do we experience an invasion of the privacy of those portrayed. The viewer experiences respectful involvement and a bit of shock.

It is an eclectic approach, trying to show the true lifestyle of the people, whom we all have heard about, but then really know so few about. The book involves you to the magical world of people, who like to go extreme with their appearance. Doing that for just the fun of it and also for the name of entertaining. Their everyday life is all about standing out, competing with each other on different stages and situations and then again staying true to their own beliefs and dreams. It is a mixture of so many things, which lead us to a whole other level of seeing the world and the people around us.

 

this post is part of he subjective library project "Unopened Book"
the book can be found at the Rietveld library : catalog no : 793.6-cher-1

Why artists want to be different


Thursday, November 24, 2011

After visiting the Rietveld Schröder House(>) in Utrecht and listening to the guide’s explanations about Gerrit Rietveld himself and his approach to art and architecture, I started to think and wonder about our school, The Rietveld Academy. Everything the guide said sounded familiar; Rietveld started his projects by making 3D sketches out of paper or cardboard, rejected decoration without some kind of function, loved simplicity, searched for refreshing visual effects, but the most important; every time he took a chance by just doing something.

Why are we learning this way of expressing ourselves? What was wrong with the traditional academic approach? And why is the Rietveld Academy still known as being different then other Art schools? I started my research on this subject after reading about the Vienna Secession in the ‘Wendingen’ (>).

(more…)

Rietveld & Beatles, Identities with a content


Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Building & Identity became subject of plans to move Amsterdam’s Art & Design Academy (The Gerrit Rietveld Academie) to an other location.
Academy and building named after the same conceptual visionair Gerrit Rietveld cause an interesting concourse, in which the identity of our renown academy building is suddenly confronted with an evenly famous and internationally renown educational identity. (link to student research)

As part of a teachers and students protest against the “ad hoc” plans, celebrating the 42nd birtday of the Rietveld building, a T-shirt was designed after the famous “Beatles” T-shirt by Experimental Jetset, to emphasize this realation between content and identity. Rietveld is building and students and teachers as the Beatles still are John&Paul&Ringo&George. link

Rietveld for Rietveld
www.rietveldforrietveld.org
The goal of this website is to open the discussion on the preservation of the historical Rietveld building for the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam.

Read more about this and all ongoing facts and publicity  ¿GRA becomes GAK?

Design linked to Art: Designblog’s New Library Search Engine


Sunday, April 5, 2009

New Tags for the Rietveld Library:

How do you find interesting books when you don’t know what you are looking for? How do you stray through the collection in search of inspiration? Can the library catalogue help you or do you better construct one yourself, Exploring connections in the library between design- and artbooks, students created keywords/tags that linked them together.
a recount of tagging the library

Click the keywords/tags from the Tag-list [purple column at the left] to see all related postings, or use a yellow keyword link [below] to read the postings and experience how they are connected together. Use these keyword links to navigate between the postings!

overview, freedom, animal, elder, identity, intervention, repetition, connection, tattoo, self sufficiancy, structuur, illustration, pyramid, leader, visual language, individuality, playground, best, give, beeld, independent, shelter, West Coast, time, neon, develope envelope, fragile, construction, wisdom, invention, oppervlak, culture.

Time identity in photography


Wednesday, April 1, 2009

While I was looking for the book, which could give me some materials about identity, I found, that there are not that many books about photography in our library. So, I decided to stop on this History book, which includes photos from 19th-20th century. I have chosen a portrait genre. But I found that it’s difficult to talk about this topic objectively, showing just a few examples. The idea was to show changes in society, that led to the changes in photography also. Not only technical innovations had influence on it. I can say that now we have a good material, good inheritance, that we can use in our work. And, of course, our present time has it’s own identity, interesting, what kind of changes it will leave after.

book no: 761-WAR-1

keyword: identity

NATIONAL IDENTITY IN FILM POSTERS


Wednesday, March 25, 2009

This letter I want to attach to my last message about national identity present in a street signs in different cultures. For the second time I’m using this book, which you can also take in a library. This time I’ve made a selection of posters made in different countries, but for the same movies. My thought was about the possibility of existance of different schools of postering. This posters, that you can find below, were made in the time when there were no internet for sending files with information and a designer or an artist had to improvise making a new masterpiece for the public. But this problem had made movie presentation even more interesting in different countries. Each country had added something special, non cliche. So, enjoy!




cat. nr: 754.1-keh-1

keyword: identity


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