the2ndrule Issue 53
the2ndrule
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March/April 2005 email edition
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web edition: http://the2ndrule.com
Contents
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0. Edit
1. space-time [Ginette Chittick]
2. Instant Cafe Radio Episode 30 [djdrem]
3. Reaping what was sown [Andrew Goh]
4. Love [Jonathan Chan]
5. Product Design - Empowering Change [Mustafa Mohamed]
6. SpIcy rAnDOm thoughts as a designer [William Mathovani]
7. "Have You Ever Seen a Pink Sunset?" [Zulkarnain Abdul Khalid]
8. 2046: Of Memories Wet with Change [Daniel Hui]
Edit
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Designers are in the white-hot centre of creating images of the desired. In this potent century, where the hungry comes to feed, our generation is one that circles the globe in search of something that we haven't tried before.
Imagination is what's important. You are in a place where assorted areas like design, sex, globalisation and culture intersect-from fashion photography, computer graphics, foreign films and music videos. All we need is just to open our minds and suck in the entire experience. And if it hurts, you know what, it is probably worth it.
In this Design Issue, we explore designers' role and responsibilities within the given context and we document and illustrate the abundant shifts in taboos, idea generation and desires in all aspects of our local visual culture.
I hope to give a deep and lasting impact on the way we relate to society, to our own sexuality, thoughts, inspiration and to each other.
- Joselyn Sim, Guest Editor
Lecturer, LASALLE-SIA, College of The Arts
(joselyn.sim@lasallesia.edu.sg)
Please send your comments, suggestions and contributions to: editor@the2ndrule.com
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2ndrule team : Koh Beng Liang, Shannon Low, Benety Goh, Russell Chan, Jason Tong, Adelina Ong
Contributors : Joselyn Sim, Ginette Chittick, djdrem, Andrew Goh, Jonathan Chan, Mustafa Mohamed, William Mathovani, Zulkarnain Abdul Khalid, Daniel Hui
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space-time
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http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue53/ginette.jpg
- Ginette Chittick,
FruFru & Tigerlily, Wallwork Records &
Lecturer, LASALLE-SIA, College of the Arts
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Does your mother have a gambling problem?
The Simpsons take on casinos:
http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue53/simpsons_casino.3gp
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Instant Cafe Radio Episode 30
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This week's guest mix is by djdrem. Enjoy!
Playlist:
SalSoul - Hustle
Breakestra - Getcho Soul Togetha
Breakestra - Deuces Up, Double Down Pt.1
Kurtis Blow - The Breaks
Earth, Wind & Fire - Brazillian Rhyme
Jackson Sisters - I Believe In Miracles
Eric B & Rakim - Know The Ledge
Bel Biv Devoe - Poison
Vaughn Mason - Bounce Rock Skate Roll
Def Squad - Rappers Delight
Monie Love - Born 2 Breed
James Brown - Static
Ice Cube feat. George Clinton - One Nation Under A Groove
Digital Underground - Humpty Dance
EPMD - So Watcha Sayin
Mary J Blige - Real Love
Time Zone - Zulu
MC Shan - The Bridge
Roxanne feat. Biz Markie - Def Fresh Crew
Biz Markie - Nobody Beats The Biz
Tribe Called Quest - Oh My God
Pete Rock & CL Smooth - Straighten Out
Frankie Cutlass - Puerto Rico
Rasco - Takin It Back Home
5 Deez - The Rock Rule
Notorious BIG - Dead Wrong Instrumental
Dawn Penn - No, No, No
Sean Paul - Infiltrate
Ninjaman - Murder Dem
Beenie Man - Who Am I
Chaka Demus & Pliers - Murder She Wrote
Nadine Sutherland - Action
Cutty Ranks - A Who Seh Me Dun
Notorious BIG - Hypnotize
50 Cent - In Da Club
- Selection and mix by djdrem
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Welcome to Clash Hi-Fi
Jazz Raggae Soul Drum and Bass Hip Hop Funk Breaks Etc
http://www.soundclash.org
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Reaping what was sown
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In today's fast paced world, people all over the world feel a constant need to display worth in order to attain affection, accomplishment, or pursue a certain sense of well-being. In the end, we can all attain, what most of us deny we do not need. Which happens to be "Acceptance in Society". Each of us believes that we have a will, strong enough to change everything. After all, we're humans. Humans who invented the wheel, Humans who built buildings that stretch high up into the sky, Humans, who will stop at nothing, to survive. Humans, who wonder after all this while on earth, what are we actually doing?
Things were much far simpler in the past. A farmer planted potatoes and watered them daily so he could feed his family and his wife would care for their family. When the time came for his children to take over the responsibility, he would know that his family would be in good hands. But in this life of Ferragamos and Ferraris, WE, hope to have good jobs, attain material wealth, and in the end, we hope after all we've done, is finally to be accepted as an individual. Like 6 billion other smug apes on the earth that think that they stand out just because they bought that latest season's handbag before you did.
Along the way of our lives, we've been too caught up with everything else which side tracked us from what we once thought was truly important, like our values as human beings. To live life with much less complications, one would be able to see much clearer. The buildings you live in, the beauty products you've used and all that fast cars you've own, won't get you a truly blissful ending.
Sometimes, we should take a step back. And I hope this set of photographs will help to strip down everything into its once basic elements.
http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue53/andrew.html
- Andrew Goh, Designer
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http://www.commandogroup.no/ (The Commando Group)
http://www.goodfonts.org/ (Essential Fonts for Designers)
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Love
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http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue53/jonathan.jpg
(desktop wallpaper)
- Jonathan Chan, Founder of Weekend Warrior & Designer
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http://www.australianinfront.com.au/ (Australian Infront Magazine)
http://www.isketch.net/isketch.shtml (I-sketch Game)
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Product Design - Empowering Change
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Over decades, we evolve to be more sophisticated. The transfers of "power", from hands to hands and gender to gender, make up our dynamic social fabric. Along with that is the dramatic shift of lifestyles that defines what we are today.
Behind these evolutions is a powerful discipline and profession that considers multiple issues and futures into clever usable creative outcomes that influences our daily lives. Product Design drives and empowers lifestyle cum social changes apart from many others in such a profound manner.
What is featured here is the conceptual product design proposal for a domestic power tool that is both innovative and ground breaking. It is revolutionary, aesthetically pleasing and usable product design domesticates what used to be a hard industrial product that only a handyman could use.
Psychologically, challenging a power tool's traditional pistol-like form to a sleek yet reliable ergonomically curved morph, this innovative product design outcome would greatly widen market potentials by welcoming new user segments on board. Specifically intended for domestic operations by amateurs of both genders, its no fuss ease of use provides that remarkable portable empowerment for new lifestyles.
One could now drill a hole in tight spaces, drive a screw effortlessly, polish a car at the porch and if you fancy a perfectly perpendicular drill into the ceiling without dust in your eyes, this is the tool you'll need. And the separations of the battery pack from the main driver takes off the weight and stress to ones wrist empowering weaker users.
I think this might just spur a new strain of handymen and women. Hmmm.
http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue53/mustafa.jpg
Mustafa Mohamed is an active practitioner in the regional design scene especially as the founder of Creativasia; he practices professional product design apart from design management, branding, packaging, communication and advertising. His works are manifestos of the his design paradigms and he could be reached directly through mustafa@unswalumni.com
- Mustafa Mohamed
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http://www.thebestdesigns.com/ (The Best Designs)
http://www.lowbright.com/Comics/comics.htm (Comics to make love to)
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SpIcy rAnDOm thoughts as a designer
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Q: How do I kick start a career in design?
A: Be the right man in the right place. So, while you focus on doing what you do best, whether it is Corporate Identity, Ads, Web or any Print Collaterals, try to make a list of companies you're targeting at. In the bigger companies they are specialized in their trade. In smaller ones, they need 'Supermans', basically a multi-tasker to do everything. Do a little bit of research on the company's culture and know what they look for in a good portfolio. Then, you 'doctor up' your portfolio to match that standard.
Impress your prospective employers with a small Direct Marketing piece. It could be a self-promotion or it could be an ambient advertisement that you put at the entrance of their office (hmm... but this one sounds difficult to execute because they would think your piece could come from a terrorist and they'll report it to the authorities.) However, be catchy and tease their senses.
Q: Is pursuing free-lance and participating in competitions a waste of time and energy?
A: While it doesn't give you that much money to spend, it gives you an edge in terms of design experience. This will add on to your resume and portfolio. Most definitely, when it comes to a job interview, you'll know what to write in the 'work experience' section.
Q: How to create a logo?
A: Simple design is about planning. Therefore, conducting research and planning would be the first two things you want to do. In the fishy world, it goes this way. Know the other fishes and what they're good at. Know which aquarium you're in (e.g. shampoo, fast food restaurant, etc). What are the key issues? Claim and position yourself as a different fish. Find an essence (For example, you are about a fish with the nicest scales). Be a human and have a character and personality. After completing these steps, start sketching & doodling. Then you execute.
Q: Idea vs. Execution
A: Ideas count for a majority part of your communication piece. However, execution does make or break your communication. (A simple test: say "I like this monkey" then say this "I like this, MONKEY!").
Q: What is Through-The-Line (TTL) advertising?
A: You've known ATL (above-the-line) and BTL (below-the-line) for ages. TTL is a combination of this two plus event, plus interactive, plus everything in fact. The idea is to complete the "what to say" and "how to say" with "where and when to say." So you must know what their daily schedules look like. Where they work, which places they pass/go to, when is the best time to talk to them. Ogilvy calls it "360 degrees branding." It generates things like Ambient/ Guerrilla advertising, Event, Interactive Banners, SMS advertising and many more. Live examples are "Mini-cooper big toy box @ Orchard" installed last year. "SingTel Trilogy music outside Orchard MRT last month." It seeks to interact with the audience.
- William Mathovani, Graphic Designer
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http://threeoh.com/ (Digital Design Journal)
http://www.adbusters.org/home/ (Adbusters)
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"Have You Ever Seen a Pink Sunset?"
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Sitting at a bus stop on a Friday evening, after a downpour.
It was 6:55pm I think, and the clouds cleared just enough for a sunset to weave its way through. This was no ordinary sunset. It was pink. I was the only person out of the 20odd at the bus stop awestruck by the spectacle. Somehow, what went on made me relate to one of those few things which irks me. Ignorance. The way people are ignorant to what is going on around them. Here's how I feel:
Have you seen a pink sunset?
Probably not
As you were too busy
With your own life
Never once cared to stop and bother,
On what the world has got to offer.
Have you seen a pink sunset?
Not once, no.
Always cooped up with your own insecurities,
All by yourself in your own world
Have you ever seen a pink sunset?
Probably never.
Too selfish to care
Too proud to ask
Too deprived of your own love
Too void of your life
Have you ever seen a pink sunset?
No?
Thought so.
Maybe you should try asking the boy by the road,
The lady at the park,
The man selling ice-cream,
The beggar on the street,
With his coin-filled cans
Blisters on hands and feet,
And torn, tattered pants.
Maybe if you asked,
They would know.
- Zulkarnain Abdul Khalid, Graphic Designer & Musician
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http://www.xnografics.com/porno-grafics/ (Coolsex T-shirts)
http://www.sleepsex.org/ (Sleep Sex Journal)
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2046: Of Memories Wet with Change
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'All memories are stained with tears,' sighs an inter-title near the beginning of 2046, the latest film by internationally renowned auteur Wong Kar-Wai. It is made especially significant due to the placing of this inter-title - during the
transition between the futuristic sci-fi settings and the 60's; caught between the anticipating the future and grieving for the past, setting the mood for the pensive reflection of shifting time capacities and emotions that is to come.
A magnum opus spanning 5 years in production, this film acts as a continuation and summation of Wong's previous films. Alike his previous films, Wong is like a kid who is never afraid to color out of the lines in his color books,
often stretching the boundaries of the film medium and populating his otherwise bleak worlds with rich colors. Except the kid playing with his crayons is now a man, and every color and detail he employs are mixed with the tears he has secretly
shed over the years, tears of dull heartbreak and painful regret. And these colors are the colors that make up the drunk, pregnant world of 2046.
That 2046 took 5 years to make and comes at the point of the later career of Wong is only reasonable, since it shows us the peak of maturation of an artist that has produced a chef d'oeuvre that rivals the rest of his films in composition of style, and bests them in terms of its brushstrokes of nuanced emotions and its full-bodied evocative moods.
In its entirety, it can be defined as the direct sequel to Wong's 2001 mellow romance In the Mood for Love - taking shape from the whispers of Tony Leung in the hole of a wall in Angkor Wat and flourishing into an epic poem of love in itself. As it opens with the camera drawing out of an enigmatic impression of a hole accompanied with hushed whisperings during the credit sequence, it is no doubt that the secret Wong has been trying to tell throughout his entire oeuvre, but not finding the right expression to, has finally come to life in the open, living and breathing in its nostalgic remembrances.
2046 comes to life in many identities: it is a hotel room that Tony Leung stays in, the number reminding him of the lost shadows of his past; it is a place where everything stays the same in a world of change, where people board a train to and never come back; it is the year when the promise China made to Hong Kong of 50 years of no change will end. The many meanings it symbolizes is probably clear as day and has probably been caught on by too many glib reviewers, but it is with this multi-layered reflection of the inevitability of change and the remembrance of things past that permeates this film as it boards, heavy-hearted, the train leaving the place where memories reside and toward the realities of change - a deed we will all eventually have to embark upon.
It is a poignant reflection on the ever-changing world that we live in and the rushed relationships that do not pause to regret or grief. It is mourning not for the new life that is waiting to embrace us all, but for the loss of the old life, the life that we knew so well. It is the painful acknowledgement of opportunities not seized; times wasted that are so now so fleeting in retrospection; the times that bloomed like flowers in the short midday sun, and wilt irreversibly with the course of time. It is a poem about stopping to think, and the sadness of the people who engage their lives in this.
If the fact that Wong still cannot bear to bring himself out of the world of the 1960's - he originally intended 2046 to be a purely sci-fi film - is any indication, we see a filmmaker here who pours himself wholly onto the canvas of the film, and inviting everyone who might feel the same way some time or another into joining his beautifully rendered funeral procession of life that has to pass. A faculty that his previously brash kinetic style of film (with little substance, I must add) can never achieve. We see here, a master that is finally confident enough to draw out the best performances ever seen in all the actors with a stately style that is able to perfectly match the powerful emotional story.
Though the film hardly features Maggie Cheung, her ghost is present throughout most of the film. Especially when diving deep into Tony Leung's melancholy, she is all we see, and all we feel; she is all that is not there. But 2046 extends beyond Tony Leung, the film's universe is also populated with many characters - from Zhang Ziyi's young dancer infatuated with Tony Leung; Faye Wong in an impossible relationship; Carina Lau who thinks only of her dead lover; to the mysterious Gong Li who finds herself unable to penetrate Tony Leung's thick fog of memories - which is the main reason why most people find this the most fragmented out of Wong's works.
But this can hardly be a crime when these characters coalesce and form a mosaic of love lost. Wong's fans might find many of these characters all too familiar - some of them directly from Wong's previous films, and some of them being derived from them - but where they were merely shadows of real people in the past - one of Wong's favorite styles is adjusting the shutter speed of the camera, creating a drug-like hazy effect that makes the actors look like shadows racing in a neon-filled cosmopolitan hell - where we have nothing but glimpses of them, here, Wong indulges us in a full-fledged character study that shows us their every change of emotion in close-up detail. Of course it helps that he has a brilliant cast that puts up their uniformly best performances ever, making it fascinating just looking at the player's face and being embroiled deep into their intense emotions.
And yet, this barely skims the surface of this rich and complete universe that the film inhabits; the universe, which extends and envelops around the viewer and later becomes part of the viewer's memories; lamenting itself in the transient nature of time, and how we have to face its passing. The manner in which it unfolds - we see Tony Leung with a completely changed personality from that in In the Mood for Love, gradually coming to terms with the fact that this change can only be superficial and, deep inside him, he is still drowning in his sea of lost memories; the fugue in which Tony Leung imagines himself in, with nothing changing even in the futuristic time period - allows for Wong to examine the ambivalence that lies inherent in humanity: nostalgia and pushing on.
Wong makes it too easy for us to get drunk in 2046 (both the film and what the number represents) because he has created an atmosphere so heavy with longing and regret and, in its finality, hope, in this eternal cycle of bliss and the loss of bliss, such that we are drawn like moths to the flame and lose ourselves again and again only to find ourselves back and realize that we will always lose ourselves yet.
Since In the Mood for Love, we have seen a Wong Kar-Wai that has finally broken free from his blank poeticisms of his previous works in the 90's to a style that marries poetic expression with the vicissitudes of life - the sign of a master finally taking shape. In 2046, Tony Leung - the author figure - is always muddled with the problems of inarticulateness; he is faced with the eternal problem of articulating love, the same problem that artists have faced from the classical times up to now.
Yet, (if he is to be seen upon as the metaphor for Wong's creative progress) Wong has hardly any need for worry, because 2046 succeeds in all respects in articulating this inarticulateness of love; and in finding a style that brings across his emotions so directly, succinctly and powerfully, Wong has overcome all the inarticulateness and awkwardness in expression that plagued his earlier work. In writing about 2046, similarly, I find myself hard-pressed to articulate this inarticulateness that my love for it brings upon, but nevertheless, I shall try - in Wong Kar-Wai's spirit - and try again, until this is achieved.
- Daniel Hui
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See you at the 7-11, Yoko.
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space-time (c) 2005 Ginette Chittick
Instant Cafe Radio Episode 30 (c) 2005 djdrem
Reaping what was sown (c) 2005 Andrew Goh
Love (c) 2005 Jonathan Chan
Product Design - Empowering Change (c) 2005 Mustafa Mohamed
SpIcy rAnDOm thoughts as a designer (c) 2005 William Mathovani
"Have You Ever Seen a Pink Sunset?" (c) 2005 Zulkarnain Abdul Khalid
2046: Of Memories Wet with Change (c) 2005 Daniel Hui
