dey... dream.

A summary

2006-07-11T22:40:00.000+10:00

Looking back at my graduation project, i kow see how our past becomes our present and perhaps someday, our future. Bits and pieces of my past works have subconsciously influenced this particular project. Summarizing my time here, most parts of the outcome are parts or whole of previous studio explorations.

The concept of remnants came to me in the early stages of the project relating to how the client infuses new life into scrap metals or various material that go through her hands. As I researched deeper into the subject, I came to realize that I have in fact steered towards a direction of “Preservation”. Perhaps it is due to a subconscious desire to preserve the beautiful pieces. Though it seemed to me that the concept of “Remnants” contradicts with the notion of “Preservation”, I have discovered that these two in fact, do work well in tandem; Supporting one another in many different levels.

By somehow preserving the piece in a suspended state, it will await the start of its new life with a new owner when the buyer opens the product packaging.

Part of the brief was to design a jewelry retail display, i designed a modular system that allows the client to compose a visual montage via coupled lenses that projects images onto the display counter. The jewelry pieces can therefore be displayed within a space that welcomes interaction between the pieces and its audience. The projections in this context subtly reflects upon the impermanence of style/fashion/trend which exists only within fleeting moments in time and disappears in a flicker, like how lights can be turned off.

last piece, for now.

2006-07-06T12:07:00.000+10:00

Last piece for jewelry class. We were tasked to come up with a memento for future graduates. Mine was about capturing/treasuring the sands of time. Made from perspex, nickel and sand. Given buget on the brief was for no more than $20.

A little time left in the work shop

2006-07-06T11:43:00.000+10:00

Knowing that soon i'll be off and there won't be a jewelry workshop for me to work in anymore, i spent a last couple of quiet days in the workshop. The peace and calm, i will remember many years down the road. :)

Made a ring for char.

And cuffs for my brother. ;)

And a ring for myself which i don't really like anymore... haha..

Oz in my sink

2006-06-29T01:44:00.000+10:00

I was giving the kitchen towel a wash in the kitchen sink and look what i found! Australia! yeah yeah, i know its lame! hahahaa!

Poke goes the pin hole!

2006-06-29T01:33:00.000+10:00

Made a pinhole camera out some card stock. Now to pop in some film and make some pictures!

Something from back home

2006-06-29T01:14:00.000+10:00

Guess where i found some little things brought back to Sydney from Singapore? Never expected it but when i chanced upon the war memorial in Hyde Park many weeks back when it was opened, i took a look around inside and saw a beautiful bronze sculpture. It was the body of a fallen soldier, laid along a sword upon a shield which was held up by four figures. Have a look at the pictures. Its beautiful.

Anyway, as i was saying, down in the basement, is a small collection of war relics brought home by the veterans among which i found a series of miniature figures carved from wood. One prisoner of war held at Changi spent his days carving the little figures, depicting the simple peasant life in Singapore.

Then there was the crucifix and candle holders for a church the soldiers built. Fashioned from the shells of their bullets, this was where the tortured souls found solace.

June 14th 2006.

2006-06-29T01:02:00.000+10:00

Had my final presentation on the 14th and then it was over. Two years. Poof... and thats that. All the good times and bad i'll look back upon in the years to come. I can still remember that cold winter night when i arrived. Oh boy.. kinda crazy how all that has gone now. Anyway, the final project went well and once again its time to pack my life into a box. Where next? Time will tell, i guess. Thanks to the beautiful people i've met along the way who made life so much better and happier, who inspired me each in their own way, who i'll miss dearly. To those who i will leave soon and to those who are already far away, take care! IT WAS FUN!!!

the big leak

2006-04-26T01:24:00.000+10:00

The Dream of Pale Gold

2006-03-01T02:17:00.000+11:00

I dream of the pale gold
at night's end
almost morning
airy

upper floors inhibited
by pleasant lodgers
blossoming
untainted nieghbours
of the chaste moon

the return.

2006-03-01T01:29:00.000+11:00

dropped by HK a couple of weeks back after spending the entire summer break working back home, though i had this strangest feeling of being a stranger in my own home. Probably been away too long. It was great seeing my folks again. Before i know it, it was time to go. I stayed up most nights working and it was a nostalgic.

i had a bout of flu/fever/cough that refused to go away till just about a week ago. wicked stuff.

anyways, the semster has started and i've taken on integrating graphics media and jewelry design for my graduation studio. i've managed get myself a client for the project. great, now i can begin. :)

i'm putting up at my friend's place now, struggling to find a place of my own. it's been two weeks now and i still can't get a place. (will the people with too much money on their hands stop throwing in extra money to get the apartments? its getting really annoying..)

Rain rain stay a while, help us cross this thousand miles.

2006-01-10T06:18:00.000+11:00

By day, by night, It's been raining for days now.

16 months.

2005-11-12T08:56:00.000+11:00

Not exactly, but its been about 16 months, since i came to sydney. Finishing yet another semester, we had an exhibition of our lighting design we worked on the whole of this semester. Pictures pictures! Mainly based on the theme of "Emergency", the class produced some really cool stuff. I made a suspended lamp that projects an image onto the floor. It was a more of an abstract interpretation of the brief which was pretty different from most who created practical design.

Our exhibition at the Palace Hotel.

Wing.

Here is my lamp in the top left corner.

Tiff's Explosion Lamp.

Wing.Tarryn.Me

Wing.Tiff.Me.Angel.Jenny

The projection from my lamp. Thanks to Wing for the white canvas!

Left to right: Yosuke.Tiff.Wing.Tim.Angel.Chris.Me.Jenny

Tiff's lamp is so elegant alone in the dark.

Come next friday, i'll be away for the summer. There'll be some that i'll miss, some i won't miss and maybe some i'll never meet again. Whatever the case, to those that'll i never had the chance to thank, thank you.

Time to pack my life into a box again.

Forgotten post

2005-11-12T08:34:00.000+11:00

heres one long forgotten post that i discovered last night while clearing out my computer. just some pictures i took while waiting for my resin casts to dry.

Just Checkin' in

2005-09-02T23:14:00.000+10:00

hohoho, i'm still alive and kicking. Just too busy to blog this couple of weeks. Theres way too much to do. Busy but glad. There so much to learn. Here's food for thought from research. I'll be back soon. ;)

"True freedom, i realize now, comes from embracing the basic needs of life. Fishing, chopping wood, gathering water: all acts that are motivated by needs and as such are inherently meaningful. It’s simple truth, and one that i know i glimpsed on my trips into the wilderness. But they were always fleeting glimpses, like viewing a landscape through the window of a moving train. Well, the train has come to a screeching halt and our system is unraveling.

I wonder how many others are discovering that life is not a struggle to be free, but just a struggle to be. The irony is that by failing on a grand scale, we actually succeeded in reaching the ultimate goal - freedom."

Kevin Arnold

..Beauty in Chaos//Beauty in Grey..

2005-08-17T23:52:00.000+10:00

Made several fractals based on chaos theory investigating possible beauty in chaos. The second in sequence is based on Fibonacci's golden series, achieving an almost organic looking structure. Each of them contains at least 200000000 vertices. I had time to make a banana split while waiting for it to render. mmm... ;)

ring ring...

2005-08-16T20:46:00.000+10:00

Our stuff from last sem.
The squeeky old shelf feels like its going to fall apart!
Wing's.
Mine.

What a long day... Tuesdays are the worst.

i can't breathe... snortsnort*

2005-08-12T23:35:00.000+10:00

It's been a while since the last entry. Two weeks at least... I've been so caught up with work that i didn't realise that two weeks slipped by. Came down with flu and a cranky throat since last weekend. I now sound like a toad. I had a light day at school today and went for an exhibition with my friend, Wing. I got us lost on the way there and we had fun taken pictures and trying out his sx-70 polaroid camera that he just got. cool one. Reminds me of the one that dad got us when we were little. It's still sitting that neat & near mint in my shelf back home.

The exhibition turned out to be kind of a disappointment, having travelled so far. Presented with a tiny room sparsely littered with jewellery pieces which were relatively uninteresting, we stepped out and took a picture of the "gallery" as a memento instead. Pity the poor souls who work in that gallery which looks no bigger than a bathroom.

Some good did come out of the trip though. I've discovered a nice little part of pyrmont that's really cozy. It almost feels like a tiny beach town, although that was no beach, it was by the wharf. It costs a whopping AUD$1750 a week to rent an apartment next to the wharf. It is a quiet place that warms the heart and lifts the spirit. Wing and i both concluded that the people who live there probably do "evil stuff" to amass such wealth or perhaps robbed their grand daddy and left him the bushes. Just kidding... but do you really think ALL the people who live there earned every single cent with a down to earth job? hmm..

As we headed home, an interesting mess of bills along the road caught our attention. Posters and adverts have been layered over time but interestingly it was the first one on the board that lasted the longest. A vignette of tattered mess surrounded a poster promoting one of Wong Kar Wai's films. Her eyes have been removed along with the thick layers that used to hide them. Beautiful but nothing lasts forever nonetheless. Soon there'll be bills promoting some crappy band or some insane discount trying to make you buy something you don't need.

Good night guys, have a good weekend.
I hope this flu flutters off into the night along with that toad thats been living there for a week.

i'm still full from eating so much ;D

2005-07-31T12:28:00.000+10:00

Char & i stayed over at hy & jun's place on friday night and ate and ate and ate... It was GOOD!!! Hy & jun made mee siam and we made satay. I feel like having more mee siam right now! arghh.. Hy made some wonderful oreo cheese cake that we had after dinner. It tasted as good as any you'd find in cafes! Watched a hilarious korean movie that i found kinda twisted & we stayed up chatting till 4am before we called it a night.

Morning came with pancakes made by Jun. Sorry i forgot to get pictures.. :/ Then we were off for sea food! Yay! I was waiting to go eat since last semester. Never had the time. Ran into a couple of pelicans waiting for scraps from the fishermen. They were huge! Probably 1.5m tall, almost to char's shoulders. Small hy went chasing them for pictures. haha.. it was funny! We got some sashimi and went inside for more food! Hy & jun took a look at the counters and returned with their decision... "We want one of everything. HahAha!!!". It was great, sitting by the pier with all that food, nice warm sunshine, cool air, noisy seagulls and unfortunately some gull droppings that splashed from above, getting both hy and char square on the arms, twice!

Hey, we gotta go again ok? ;D

Cai Tau Kueh for kicking off semester 2 '05

2005-07-25T20:36:00.000+10:00

First day back to school today. It didn't really feel like i had a holiday at all though. It felt like i just had a long weekend or something. Anyway, first day back was nice. Seeing a couple of familiar faces and it was nice to find a couple of my friends from last semester in my class too. :)

The timetable for this semester is pretty tiring. I've got 9am - 3pm on mondays. No breaks in between. 9am - 5pm on tuesdays with an hour's break at 10am. Urghh.. but the rest of the days are fine. The lecturer for design & computers 3, speaks funny. He sounded like he just had a joint before he came in for lecture. Trippy as hell. He kept muttering "dah, dah, dah, dah, dah... dah, dah, dah, dah, dah... dah, dah, dah, dah, dah... dah, dah, dah, dah, dah..." under his breath. Heh.. i don't know what to say. He's just a funny bloke.

I made cai tau kueh today. A little too mushy. A little too salty. So, a little disappointed. Better luck next time. Arghh.. >:(

mmm... pineapple rice. :)

2005-07-23T19:55:00.000+10:00

The two darling twits invited us to their place for dinner. Pineapple rice! It's been so long since i last had that. It probably was when i went to Thailand with my lecturer back in '99. OMG... that's almost six years ago! We watched a hilarious episode of The Family Guy. Funny as ever guys... keke..

We sat around and had a great time catching up. Found out that we had a common friend back in the army. All of us nearly burst our guts laughing about that unforgettable bloke! Haha.. classic..

wonky~madness

2005-07-19T17:20:00.000+10:00

i've just got these few back after firing. Turned out fine other than some blobs at the base where the glaze dripped. They'll be fine after some sanding. Hardly slept a wink last night, so i'm a little woozy today. It's almost dinner time, so i'll have dinner, some root beer and i'll do some work and turn in early tonight. The new term starts next week.

It's going to be a rough one...

Wicked old games... harr-deee-harr-harr!

2005-07-16T23:31:00.000+10:00

People don't make games like they used to. no brainer 3D engines and irritable GUIs... They should make people attend "old-skool-romz" class in colleges. What happened to two player games? What's the point of having state of the art gaming consoles that come with two or four controllers when there are no decent two player games in sight? WHAT? For SPORTS games? Why don't i just save the five hundred bucks and buy a ball instead?

Found a mac emulator for nintendo roms and it found me some really nice childhood memories.
Any of you know of rampart, gun smoke, double dragon or perhaps donkey kong?
woo~hoohooooo... i'm sure my bro does. And yess... two players games.

no sleep tonight. :D

to be similar or dissimilar, that is the question.

2005-07-15T23:23:00.000+10:00

here we see a stack of ceramic wares of similar dimensions. interestingly, they vary as individuals in the sense that they are not completely identical and do not create a perfect column.

Would you like your dinning wares varied like these or would you like them perfect to the T?
Character or Perfection? (assuming that perfection in this context refers to physical symmetry.)
Would it make a difference if i told you that this shown here is the work of a reputable designer
and it costs significantly more than your average run off the mill dinning set? (nah..)

i personally like these. think i have an affinity with wonky stuff.
which brings to mind, i've finished glazing and i've sent my little friends into the kiln. come monday, i'll see my very first set of willfully~wonky~dinning~wares. woo~hooo! :D

harhh harhhh i see my breath...

2005-07-15T23:06:00.000+10:00

the rain just passed, the air is icy and the streets are wet. left school and went for a stroll with char across the park to get some groceries. there was a second wave of storm clouds coming in but we went anyways. i miss spending the whole day out taking pictures. its... relaxing. :)

if all keyboards were like this... ooOoo...

2005-07-14T23:53:00.000+10:00

oh man, this is sweet...
but then again, if all keyboards were made like that, everything would be SO expensive.
argh.

http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/

Invasion of the poo-poo-slug.

2005-07-13T23:24:00.000+10:00

Was preparing for tonight's cooking and found a big fat slug getting cozy with my veggies. The uninvited guest survived my freezer for the past couple of days and decided that since he was gonna stay, he'd make himself cozy. So, he went about pooping all over my veggies from leaf to leaf. Urgh. Coils upon coils of SLUG POO?! Who would have expected such a surprise? What did i do? Well, i decided to invite him for dinner tonight since it was just char, me & the tele at home. Maybe having a guest drop in for dinner would break the monotony. We had a nice warm dinner of pasta shells with tomatoes, basil, garlic, button mushrooms and baramundi. Mr Slug had salt. :D

this goes way back!

2005-07-09T16:10:00.000+10:00

Oh man.. this is such a blast from the past. My brothers and i used to go crazy over this. Which reminds me of the Western Bar game that i still have at home! You guys play with it once in a while and make sure the batteries are good yeah? We'll keep that around till little xavier grows up & he'll be the coolest kid on the block. Old skool.. heh heh heh... 8}

it takes a little getting used to.

2005-07-06T23:32:00.000+10:00

went back to campus to get some practise using the pottery wheel. i had the nice fella who works there show me how to use it not too long ago. (thanks grant, you've taught me more than what my tutor did the entire semester in your 5 mins.) he made it look so easy, too easy in fact. when i had a go, man i went home with aching shoulders. so far i've managed to get the hang of it and i've started making bowls and cups for practice. i've got one specially done for baby xavier back home. extra tiny, just for him!

nice day, cool after some rain. cool breeze, quiet campus, warm sunshine from the setting sun, young punk smoking pot next to me in the bus, beefy gay construction worker making a pass at me while waiting for the light to turn green and stinky streets littered with drunk bummers all the way home. just another winter afternoon here down south. it takes a little getting used to.

dey dream begins... yay.

2005-07-05T00:30:00.000+10:00