
For this final major project, my initial idea was this one must somewhat link with the previous projects. I wanted to see the progress of my thinkings as well as the practical skills. Therefore, I decided to continue the unfinished structure project, then this final work in foundation course would meaningfully connect with a broader idea development.

However, I do not want to use the old idea straightforward; instead, I try to find an entry point from old one and then expand it further. On account of I read an article called, Eight ‘invisible’ artworks you should see for yourself, the “invisible“ deeply attracted me, and it pushed me to think about the relation between void, nothing and emptiness because I just found Frank Close's Nothing in my shelf, which was the book explaining the physics. For "void" and "emptiness", I think they are respectively resembling the idea of nothing in Taoism and Buddhism. To sum up, I planned to introduce the science for this time and to compare the "nothing" in different context.
Proposal
Looking back on what I have done in the first six units of the programme, I am delighted to see my progress in various areas. In the last six months, I pushed myself to take a broader view of the art world, because through my research on each project, I gradually discovered the attractiveness of fine art, which is not limited in the current period, but also the concepts of some art forms from past centuries that are still influencing us. For example, after I began to study Greek and Hebrew art, I realised that these ancient art forms are still fundamentally affecting the current art world. Meanwhile, as I always want to stand between Chinese and Western art to view both of them, I studied Chinese art history as well as Chinese contemporary art.
For art skills, apart from the practice that we did on the course, I was profoundly inspired by the other artists’ works and gained experience from various experiments such as etching and plaster sculpture as well. My reason for studying on this course is to challenge myself more, in both the art forms and the material, which ultimately helps me to express my thoughts explicitly.
To sum up the work I did in the last six months; I tried to take photographs of painted ants, combined ready-made with video and hands-on crafts. I realised that what you want to make, may not be successful all the time, so I have to wisely plan the schedule and get ready for any problems that might occur in the process. In general, I genuinely enjoy the free feeling of doing fine art, which provides me with the possibility to work out a physical form of the idea that I have conceived in my mind for a long time. Therefore, based on my improvement of art knowledge, skills and understanding, I will continue to work on the ideas of the structure project by extending the idea of emptiness.
In the structure project, the theme I decided on was body and emptiness, which was an extension of a group of photographs that I did several years ago. I wanted to turn the pictures into a three-dimensional form for explaining an idea, that the body and emptiness in Buddhism are interacting with each other in the similar concept of Tai-Chi diagram, so how we regard this world is based on perspective. However, due to the limitations of time and material, I did not manage to finish my original plan. That was a pity, and I think if I can continue to work on it as the final project, it would be a meaningful thing because the whole process will demonstrate the progression of my thoughts, though I suppose this topic will take me a tremendously long time to consider the different stages of life.
Moving back to the main idea of this project, I am going to focus on ‘emptiness’ to make an installation. While I was thinking about this, I found another question - What is the difference between emptiness, formlessness, and nothingness? The reason I had this doubt is that I once found a book, called ‘Nothing,’ written by Frank Close, that introduced me to a fresh viewpoint of thinking that art was invisible. Emptiness, formlessness, and nothingness respectively correspond to Buddhist, Taoist and scientific ideas. As in my previous project, I used a Venn diagram to divide the research into two parts, which respectively connects with how the work will be presented and what I want to explore through it.
This time, I will specifically look up some artists who made artworks relating to invisibility such as Yves Klein, Song Dong and Art & Language, then analyse the materials and art forms they used. For the second part, I will research the meaning of emptiness from Eastern and Western points of view. The most vital problems that I need to solve are seeking a way to unify the practicality and idea and finding a company that can provide the material and technical resources that I need. For instance, I may need a company to help me to mould the plastic. Last but not least, for this project I have considered using video, light, and mirrors, so probably it will require knowledge of electronic and video making, and some construction skills.
For artist research, I will use websites such as Tate, MoMA, theartstory and artsy. I will use Youtube and other video websites to watch some documentaries and technical instruction. Meanwhile, I will use CNKI and wikipedia for further research, and religious sources to explore Buddhism & Taoism.
In reference to the evaluation, I will reflect on this project based on the periodic summary of each section as well as my progression comparing the result of structure project. For the secondary research part, I will analyse each artist that I specifically look at as well as the practical experiments. The comparison experiments on materials and techniques will be necessary for me to find the best choice. Although the plan may change through the project, I will try to manage time by using clear time blocks, so that I can be sure I will finish the outcome by the due day. I want to produce more innovative ideas that will be shown in the outcome, while my thinking about body and emptiness can go up to another stage after a comparative study of this topic in different realms.
Pitch

I am really inspired by what Richard Tuttle said, and that might be a reason why I would turn my sight on the "emptiness".

When I looked to the original description of "nothing" in Buddhist and Taoist books again, I found they were quite different, which could be regarded as "emptiness" and "void" to distinguish the difference. In the structure project, what I wanted to express was more leaning to the Buddhist idea, because I found that the Tai-Chi diagram can somewhat represent the relation of body and emptiness in Buddhist context. For this time, I am going to compare how people explain the "nothing", the invisible world in disparate culture.

As what I did in last project, I used a Venn diagram to compose the plan of research. The left part corresponding to the visible part that would influence the physical expression of the final outcome and the right part is the invisible idea that will affect the idea.

To further develop the visible section, I divided the essential elements into media, object and idea; hence, based on these three part, I researched some artists and artworks, then classified them into the suiting sections.

In general, I think it will be a great experience because it is the first time that I initiatively began to formally consider these invisible ideas. Maybe in the next step, I also need to consider why people's invisible worlds are so different and then find out something unspeakable that I want to say behind the illusion.
FIND MYSELF
Feedback
PROS
Good artist research
Deep concept makes the audience think
Unique/ spiritual
Challenging
Endless possibilities to explore
Passionate subject links to previous work
Extremely well considered and researched
Linked the development from the structure project
CONS
Time management - make sure you know what your outcome will be
We love it and looking forward to see or don't see it
What kind of installation
Will be a challenge
Summary
I feel really happy that I can receive so many encourages. To focus on the cons, I understood the reason why my peers would say it is a challenge because obviously I need to spend a lot of time and money on research and turning my plan into real object. However, I would say that I intended to speak my wish out in the pitch because sometimes I would be lazy because of no motivation. The pitch will propel myself to work harder and not disappoint the expectation of everyone.
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