Rita

 

 

 

Title: Rita
Type: Drawing And Erasing Device
Date: 2005

Rita is a recording and playback device for drawings, capable of reproducing line drawings and erasing them again. It is a fixed installation on a wall that functions on a predefined area. Through the drawing and erasing capabilities it can display constantly changing content within that area.

Rita allows the instrumentalization of the drawing and the play with its narrative qualities. It is a machine that constantly reproduces drawing processes but never really produces anything, as its results are not there to stay. The main focus is on the moment of the creation and the simulation of the dynamics and the ductus of the drawing rather than the finished form.

Rita automates the process of drawing and simulates the artist’s ductus, it turns the personal drawing into something reproduceable. This tension between the personal drawing and the automated reproduction and simulation of it holds ambiguous qualities. The drawing becomes something more abstract, a sequence of movements and forms.

Through this automation, Rita allows the play with the narrative qualities drawing always had. By deciding in which sequence elements are added and by taking away existing ones, stories can be told.

Rita is currently available for installation. Ideally, it would be part of the architecture of a building, mounted for example in the entrance area and drawing from the inside against half transparent glass, so that the process could be seen from outside the building.

 

WAH LAU EH, HOW COOL IS THIS?!

Found this while flipping through Altitude, contemporary Swiss graphic design. More info here.

Stardust

“She walks with a limp to this day, although no one in the Stormhold would ever remark upon it, any more than they dare remark upon the way she glitters and shines, upon occasion, in the darkness.

They say that each night, when they duties of state permit, she climbs on foot, and limps, alone, to the highest peak of the palace, where she stands for hour after hour, seeming not to notice the cold peak winds. She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.”

 This was such a wonderfully enchanting book that I could not help but feel saddened when I turned the last page to find nothing more than acknowledgments. Nevertheless,  it made me believe, for the 2 days that I spent on  reading it, that Faerie did exist. Damn, now all I have left is ugly reality for company, and the movie to watch. And I’ve got to find a new book for comfort.

Seat Warmer

“Do you remember when your brother brought us to his primary school and showed us a list of the top secondary schools? He pointed to the one at the top, and he said, daddy that’s where I want to go.”

I’m all used to the fact that I’m always taking the back seat when it comes to me and my brother, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel the ache when my brother comes home talking about his psychology discoveries in school and amusing our parents. Its no fun playing second fiddle, and when you’ve lived with it for a good part of your life, you sort of become resigned to it, the same way I am. Of course my parents are supporting of what I do, and they have never really been against me in any way. In fact they’ve just been too good to me about it. I smoke, I drink and I party and they hardly ever blink an eye over it, and even though I enjoy the freedom, part of me kind of wonders whether they’d be this less worried if it was my brother, because he’s the university boy, he’s the RI-RJC kid who’s almost always gotten what he dreamed for with what seems like zero effort. Head boy in primary school, prefectorial kid in RI-RJC and pilot trainee in SAF, though he didn’t quite make it to being a fighter pilot, and now, Mr University who’s doing well in school.

I’m wondering why the gene pool was so unfair. Sure, I’m in VSC (my course of choice), I worked my ass off for it, but what seems like something so easy for my brother is just so goddamn difficult for me. Everything I have now I had to work for it, and I’m not saying my brother didn’t work for his results and dreams, but its just that he seems to be enjoying a lot more while he does it, and that worries me. I like my course, but I’m fucking it up even though I’ve been working so damn hard these few months, and what frustrates me is whether or not the only thing I have a passion for is what I was meant to do in the first place. Like they say, you should never make your passion your job.

My parents can tell me that they’re always behind me in whatever I do, and that they love us both the same, equally and wholly. But there’s always a nagging doubt, and there’s always disappointment in not being able to be someone like my brother who has always made sure his dreams became reality. I have dreams, but most times I just don’t get near enough to even see it, and it just fades and then all I have is bloody reality.

But to my big brother, I am so damn proud of you in every way. It makes me swell with immeasurable pride when I mention that you’re from RI-RJC and my friends go, wow. And I don’t care if I’m just the seat warmer, I’m just glad I get to play on the same team as you do. (But you really do have horrid fashion sense.)

 

 

“People are like lice – they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can’t get permanently deloused. Everywhere I go people are making a mess of their lives. Everyone has his private tragedy. It’s in the blood now – misfortune, ennui, grief, suicide. The atmosphere is saturated with disaster, frustration, futility. Scratch and scratch – until there’s no skin left. However, the effect upon me is exhilarating. Instead of being discouraged, or depressed, I enjoy it. I am crying for more and more disasters, for bigger calamities, for grander failures. I want the whole world to be out of whack, I want everyone to scratch himself to death.”

How can I not love endings?

SoI’m finally done with Advertising. Just started Prepress and Layout today, and all I want to do is hide behind the class and hope no one ever notices me and leave me to my own devices. I’m such an introvert but I love it. Friday went well, except for the photo-taking. Too many awful pictures, too few ones that would blow your flowered panties off. Was so upset about it when I was editing it today, but I’ll be getting a speedlight soonish so I hope it all works out. For now I’ll just probably wrap tissue around the flash and hope it diffuses the harshness.

I heard global DJ gathering kinda sucked, not too upset that I missed it now hehe. Nightmares and Dreamscapes is on now, I’m out!

P.S. If there’s ever a good band to catch, its Good Fellas! Caught them at Timbre on Saturday and they were just ingeniously good. They’ll probably be playing again soon, I’ll be updating here!

“I don’t hate him. I loved him until i figured out it hurts a lot less to just not care. You don’t expect him to turn up at your football match? No disappointments.  You don’t expect him to call on your birthdays, don’t expect to see him for months? No disappointments. You want us to go make up, sink a few beers together, nice family hug?

I’ve given him enough hugs, he’s given me enough disappointments.“

 

 So maybe this is the sorry state that I’ve succumbed to after so long. No expectations, no disappointments. I’ve stopped hoping for a long time, for anything, and the less I expect, the less I am embittered, and the more I seem to be satisfied. For me, hope is an illusion, hides the truth and makes everything seem alright again, while behind your back its morphing into something much, much worse, and by the time you realise it, you’re losing control. Hope makes your situations much sweeter when the outcome is what you wanted, but when it disappoints, hope just makes you crash much further down, so deep till it hurts to breathe. Its something that makes you feel like you’re in control, just like the close buttons on lifts are installed but don’t really work. Its just there to make people feel more in control when they’re rushed for time.

I’m so tired of people nearest to me, so sick of having to comply till I feel as though my bones are malleable. Disgusted, really.

Hazel

I have 2585 songs on my ipod, amounting to 11.64GB  of space, and if played continuously without stopping, can last me for 7.1 days.

I don’t know why but this amuses me so much.

Unimpressed

“Like I always say, there’s no “I” in team. There’s a “me” though, if you jumble it up.”

 I’m sorry to say this, but people sometimes come up with the weirdest and not to mention, imbecilic ideas. Actually, I’m not really sorry. Because I work my ass off to pull my GPA from 1.4 to 1.8, and therefore I’ve got a reason to be ticked off. That’s why I’m always alone, why I prefer to work on my own. Because I don’t want to be burdened by moronic people who suggest moronic ideas. And I’m not the first in my class to say this. I don’t like to be bogged down by people who find such a need to engage in insanely “hilarious” chats and merry joke-telling sessions, when there is an obvious shitload of work to be done. Maybe now I might still have the tolerance to pretend the joke is funny, but 2 months down the road, don’t think so. And if joking and chatting gets us somewhere in coming up with good ideas, I don’t mind. But if it just distracts the crap out of people like me who actually want to get work done, then please shut the fuck up or get out of the room.

No, I don’t have a people problem, I’m just allergic to the amount of stupidity that fills the room when people don’t think before they speak.

Stop This Train

“So scared of getting older, I’m only good at being young.” 

 I’m beginning my cycle of solitude again, and as much as it makes a loser to say this, I am quite enjoying myself. There’s just something comforting in going to school, sitting alone and slaving over advertising class (though I don’t really have anything to complain about. Work is immensely satisfying), heading for a smoke in the staircase before heading home. Some call it therapy, and I can hardly deny it so. Or maybe its more of a release from this banal lifestyle that has gotten my heart and soul thoroughly piqued. I feel like giving the night out tomorrow a miss, and stay home with cookies and milk and Ugly Betty, but at the same time, I guess I have to try and live a little, the normal way. Not complaining though, friends are always a welcome treat.

I suppose the reason I’m so satiated with living this way is because I’m afraid of growing up too fast. Sometimes I just want to stop this train…say, hey this is going too fast, we need a breather. Life is so fleeting, sweeping up everything in its path. So little is left to settle, so much is churned up and transfused, creating a hodgepodge of leviathan proportions. All we have to do is take a step back and just halt time for a little while, maybe just enough for us to take things into perspective before barging onwards.

On an abating note, I’m glad to say I finally persuaded my lecturer to allow me handle a project on my own, the final project for Advertising to be precise. Its exciting, yet I am chewing my nails  and being surprisingly skittish. Something tells me I might not have enough brain power for this kind of thing, but I’m glad I can put my skills to the test. Best of class gets to present concepts to Director for the diploma show! R-e-s-p-e-c-t, let’s go let’s go!

Copywriting

I had Advertising today and we went through copywriting. I discovered copywriters are much in demand in the advertising industry, and I decided that’s what I might want to do as a career. Imagine the respect people would hold me in if I invented some really catchy phrase like Just Do It. Now!

But after a whole 2 hours of brooding over a piece of paper, my inner alter ego is going, “har har, like that’s ever gonna happen.” I have an assignment to complete by tomorrow. I’m supposed to come up with different ways to interpret a couple of statements. The first on the list is: “The Rolex of bottle openers.” All I could come up for that is…”Only the best.”

So much for r-e-s-p-e-c-t. This is not even worthy of a scoff.

Marvelously Tragic

Its been a nice night out, having a realistic conversation with people who matter significantly to me. You could say its been a pleasantly surprising night, and I’m nonplussed that the people I never expected to ever have a decent conversation with are actually the best ones, with whom I can be comfortable and perfectly truthful without the dogged fear of being double-crossed by Judas wannabes, of which I seem to be a magnet for lately. Even though plenty of repulsive innuendos by these Judas players were discovered on this lovely night, I’m glad to say I’ve reached a level of maturity to not give a rat’s ass (and I say this not to boast, but to hope that you readers would see it as an achievement).

But of course my maturity only limits up to eighteen years, and its been steadily reducing to a low these few months. I really do hope with all my heart that people will learn to grow up soon, and quit being so goddamn condescending all the time. It drives me up with wall, a pretty tall one at that. And the fact that I say this is because my tolerance has been stretched pretty much as far as it goes, and if people don’t start acting their age, then I really hope they won’t take it to heart when I really decide to give them the sock, one fine day which might just come in the very near future. Perhaps the friendships have run their course, and after all, things nowadays are all tagged with an expiry date, and I would be beleaguered if I had to pretend any longer.

p.s I am seriously considering deleting my facebook. It annoys the bejeezus out of me and I have this real oddball of a fella who thinks its highly amusing to add me 5 times a day even though I ignore every one of them with a vengeance. You’d think he’d get the idea wouldn’t you, but no, this guy could win the fucking lottery at least fifty times in his miserable lifetime if he went on with his ticket-buying like he did adding me. I kid you not. Some people really do need to get a life. I don’t care if he sold his soul (what little its worth anyways) or his mother’s flowery teapots, but he better do it real quick before I castrate him and throw him in the path of a speeding truck.

Spectacular Spectacular!

School has once again began its usual drone, but I am still persistent in my goal to get a decent above-three GPA by the end of this semester. You’d probably be screaming, “BE REALISTIC, GERMAINE!”, considering my GPA for the previous sem was 1.8, but to hell with the improbability of it all, if I DO manage to achieve it I’ll be all the more proud of myself. Thank God this semester started out with Advertising, a nice little module that will make me feel like I’m learning something that I might use in future, instead of some feckless module like Communicating Design. Which I only got a C+ in despite working my butt off writing 2000 words on my illustrations. Life is unfair I tell you, unfair.

So school is peachy, and so is everything else. The fact that everything is slowly being fitted into the giant puzzle of Perfect is starting to look immensely suspicious, and I cannot help but be wary and on my guard for the shit to hit the fan. Call it instinct, call it unnecessary vigilance, call it whatever you want, but I’ve nursed this beast of a guard only because I don’t want to be caught with my pants down again. And anyone who’s had it this peachy like me would no doubt have this noteworthy acumen for looking out for the shit from miles away.

I don’t know whether to hope that the effort expended in nurturing this will be put to good use, or to hope that it will be wasted, because then I wouldn’t have to deal with cleaning it up and dissolving into my little hole again.