Studio Progress – Process Log

Week 9 – 15 Feb

This week’s big question is:

What are the other ways of working that show the nature/quality of the generative process? (so that viewers can view the generative process)

In the emoji work, I purposefully moved away from “impressions” of the emojis or normal story plot/sequence(?). I figured the initial goal of the emoji work is to generate new content + explore language + translation/interpretation. So, why not
—> a dictionary (keyword = emojis combos —> drawing —> writing), in which emoji combos are words ; drawings are the definitions.

I made a small low tech prototype, replicating the use of a dictionary on my website. www.lilykong.co.uk/emoji

Week 02 – 08 Feb

This week I continued to find ways in identifying things happening in my practice. There are transitions in the form of work recently, in which I write, draw, staged an object in a setting, draw, write and so on.

Linkages in the little fragmented work may not have to be its themes, perhaps the linked content in different generative approaches/methods –> forms.

Now I think there are two main things happening in my project:

Abuse Instagram (which I post my usual illustration + emoji challenge)
Get out of Instagram (Thinking about platforms)

Here is a trial from Object –> drawing –> photograph(staged) –>comic

Week 26 Jan – 1 Feb

This week I did some overview of my work from 2018 – 2021, so as to identify some of the common themes in them.

Small crisis in daily lives
Awkward/depress/a little sad
Situation that only happen in your head
Pervert
Moments of peace and love
Angry moments
Climate crisis related

And then I realised the illustrations have some common things: some are responses of the event, some are honest/not-so-honest look of the event, some are conversations about the event.

Now that I made these booklets of themes. I am thinking of picking one or two themes to work on in the next four weeks.

I also made booklets to show/find narratives in emojis, emoji drawings and writings. The booklets are like comics but the process starts from collecting emojis from others, draw from emojis, write from those emojis, then draw and write. Repeat.

Here are some examples.

Week 20 Jan – 25 Jan

I started working on new exercises, including:

15 mins writing everyday
Emoji writings everyday
Drawing with lefthand/different medium everyday
Emoji challanges occasionally on Instagram

I started learning C4D but I don’t think I will incorporate it at this stage of the project. Needed some advice on articulating + explaining the practice and finding linkages. Maybe I will go to peers for advice. Other than that I am thinking if I will continue exploring the psychological aspect of “drawing fast”. I am definitely working towards the pattern and/or structure at this stage.

Perhaps I will post my progress on my portfolio site instead. I am just writing as I think btw. Thoughts that may or may not matter.

20 Dec 2020 – 11 Jan 2021

Over the break, I took notes from the symposium feedback and Q&A session. A few main questions came up:

How do you plan to continue this work forward?

How might it have a life beyond this presentation?

How do you explore collection information from others?

Emoji Drawings

And so, I started a few different approaches to collecting information, translating and communicating it with others. I worked on “internet language”/“colloquial language” —> in this case, emoji and text language. In December 2020, I asked people on Instagram stories to send me emojis without textual explanations. I drew them with my interpretation of the message plus imagination.

This approach was unfamiliar. There were lots of mystery between the sender, me and the message, which was super interesting. Most of the times, I guessed who they are, what they are doing. It is almost like a one-sided conversation, or confession. It opens up new things to draw/imagine. I had to think of “story” using these emoji elements and compose a properly-completely-different story in these drawings.

“Send me emoji(s)” seemed very broad. I wanted to know how different it is to work with a more specific question –> “How’s your day?”

This time I felt a slightly different “vibe”. Since the answers were directed to a more specific question, the emoji messages seemed to be more static. They were more predictable, so as the drawings. I wonder what would be happen if I ask people to write me a much longer letter. But would it lose the immediacy of a text?

Lefthand Drawings

During the break, I also started drawing with my lefthand. I picked the quotes and poems that I collected over time and made drawings with my unfamiliar hand. It was very slow. I lost much control and preciseness in comparison to using my right hand.

How can I lie to you

now thread my voice
with lies
of lightness
force within
my mirror eyes
the cold disguise
of sad and wise
decisions

- Maya Angelou

Week 18 – 24 Nov

Triangulation 2 is a website. It is meant to be an archive of drawings and little writings. I wrote while thinking about the linkages between swear words. One of the most obvious example is “YOU”. A lot of emotions and violent thoughts can be concluded in such simple words. I expanded the “YOU” word into different one liner poems.

https://lilykong.co.uk/Taking-the-Piss

I would also like to present the linkages between writing/language and drawings. I used drawings with the theme “Life”. (“Life is shit” and “I love my shitty life.” to be precise) The original idea is that – the page filled with the word “Life”. And when you move your mouse to each of them, a drawing about “Life” will pop out. I haven’t gotten there yet because I didn’t know how to.

Drawings wise. I decided to take it slow. There was a lot of stress trying to rush to making anything meaningful and related to what I have previously done. So I am drawing things that come to my mind. They might not make any sense just yet.

25 Nov 2020

I started posting a drawing everyday since the start of Lockdown 2.0 on instagram. I had been doing it all by myself but today I wanted to introduce others’ effort aka I needed help. So this morning, I asked others to give the birdie drawing a caption. Here are the results.

Week 12 – 18 Nov

This week I worked on my research. A pdf of writing in progress is sent via email.

Supplementary references for the writing:

Rick and Morty Netflix Show, Jean Julian, Classical Fuck, Unknown painting in PMQ Hong Kong, Joan Cornella, David Shriegley, Liana Finck, Mr.Bingo

Extract from “The Art in Humor, the Humor in Art” by Wendy Wick Reaves

“The Shallows” This is Your Brain Online by Nicholas Carr https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127370598&t=1605623688428

How to Swear by Stephen Wildish

Amusing Ourselves to Death – Public Discourse in the age of show business by Neil Postman

Week 4 Nov – 11 Nov

This week I worked on 3 different triangulation projects:
1/ Iterations in drawings focusing on angle and position – 52 pages book
2/ Research from an archive (The Art of Humorous Illustration – Nick Meglin) and expand the scope of research
3/ New drawings on collected foul language from conversations

This week, I continued drawings on the three sentences. The drawing has changed from various viewpoints, from viewers looking at an object to involving a protagonist in a scene. I definitely felt that it is easier to iterate if the text sounds like a dialogue aka anything that starts with a “You”. “Do you…”, “What do you…”, “I wish you…”

(side talk) Also, the more I work on it, the more boring it becomes. This seems pretty natural – since I have to move on from my most comfortable ideas, the thinking process is not as easy as it was before. I had to look through all my visual references to keep me excited. I don’t think it is a particular bad thing to do – I know for a fact that I cannot come up with good ideas staring hard at blank paper. SO yes references.

I started my research by linking keywords. Starting from “Humour” to Cartoon – satire – caricature – meme culture – twitter – social media – media – knowledge transfer – form of illustration – content transfer – text based to image based – elimination of information

I also started reading about how media changes our culture, history, knowledge of the world etc. Amusing Ourselves to Death – Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman was super informative about how every new media reshapes the generation, storage, transfer of knowledge.

There had been debates/conversations about how particular kinds of art/ illustration are more likely to become popular in social media. (Here social media generally refers to image-based social media aka Instagram and Facebook) The content is naturally shaped to fit instagram. The media has gradually becomes a concept deeply rooted among us. The metaphor in media could possibly be that the importance of visual is taking over text based information. More and more people receives information from visual-heavy social media instead of traditional informative text-based media like books and newspaper. The new media has become a concept, in which we think and make with it in mind.

I am also reading about humour in art, particularly since the twentieth century, when caricature started to rise in newspaper to memes in social media nowadays. I started to understand humour (in art) as a historical cultural product and as a subject to changes in style as music or literature. Just as modes of humour differ from one language, tones of humour and comic meaning change over different applications/media too.

I am working to narrow down and find an interesting focal point that not only relates to but also supports my studio practice.

DOWNLOAD The many ways in being rude book

84 pages just the way I like it:-)

Week 28 Nov – 3 Nov

Week 28 Nov – 3 Nov

This week I took the advice from the last crit and worked on the following things:
1/ Angle, position and scale of the drawings
2/ Use text without swear words

During this week, I picked three images from the previous drawings to iterate and reiterate.
The three drawings are: You, My foolishness and I wish you have no arsehole in your next life.

They best represent the three different categories discovered from last week, which were a/ Comment about myself, b/ Comment about others and c/ Curse directed to others.

It’s not easy to redo the same theme/topic repeatedly.
The first idea is always the work that makes me most comfortable to work with. Rethinking a work feels like if someone is trying to push open a very heavy door.

I noticed that I have changed how I draw. I added more details, used a different facial expressions, enlarged a certain part of the character to exaggerate/put it on focus.

Details make it easier for audience to read the image. It is more familiar to us since the drawing is closer to the impression of an object.

Having said that, I still need to work on the polished output, instead of drafts.

Drawings-til-3-Nov Download

Week 21 Oct – 28 Oct

21 Oct 2020 / Group Crit

I took one of the advice from Jayoon and decided to work on the tune of the illustrations. I have always worked a mild cute tone, trying my best not to offend anyone in the jokes I made. It sounds super interesting to set a different tone of voice in the exercise.

In this triangular exercise, I will make a

4 paged tabloid newspaper through conversation or interaction with other people about [confusion/anger/embarrassment/dislocation/greed]

24 Oct 2020

Considered using swearing words like cunts (ref: mr bingo)
But I felt uncomfortable using them because the swearing words that were considered the worst/most offensive are all words of women’s genitals – cunt, twat etc
Why are the names of women’s genitals abused not men’s?
I mean there is “dickhead” but it was considered fairly mild, kind of like “bastards”.

If I want to make drawings more offensive, I could either work on the drawing style or the text.
Drawing style is pretty straightforward – the uglier the characters/ scene is, the “more disturbing” the drawing seems.
Does “disturbing” equals to “offensive”?

Text wise – is harder to explain. At this point (24 Oct 2020), it seems that the bigger the contrast between the drawing and the text, the more disturbing it seems.

Also I tried using first person speech vs third person speech. When the speech is towards others aka sentence starting with “You”, the more bothersome/crisp it seems. It was like trolling others. If the sentence starts with “ I”, the story is about me and my life only. I troll myself to a point it seems more pathetic than offensive.

Next I will keep iterating. Meanwhile I will trace these drawings digitally and anologuely – find a way to polish and present the offensiveness.

26 Oct 2020 / Joke
Omg he is so straight
No
and no I dont want him for any of you girls

27 Oct 2020

I had been collecting materials whenever I was in a conversation – pubs, uni studio, home etc. I did numerous drawings and recreate a gag out of them. I wanted to look at them again as an overview, hoping that would give me more insights. So I put the ones of similar themes together.

Click to download