Empty Vessel

One of Joel Yuen’s winning artworks in the latest UOB Painting of The Year. Photo extracted from Straitstimes.com

From Merriam-Webster dictionary:

AESTHETIC:

1 a: of, relating to, or dealing with aesthetics or the beautiful <aesthetic theories> b: artistic <a work of aesthetic value> c: pleasing in appearance : attractive <easy-to-use keyboards, clear graphics, and other ergonomic and aesthetic features — Mark Mehler>2: appreciative of, responsive to, or zealous about the beautiful; also : responsive to or appreciative of what is pleasurable to the senses.

From the ST article on the winning works:

In his comments for the award-giving ceremony last Saturday, chief judge Choo Thiam Siew, president of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, said: ‘The judges see the re-interpretation of the traditional Western still-life painting of the Italian 16th century and Dutch 18th century, but superbly executed in the medium of photography. It has drama and power, it has a strong message.

‘Yet it leaves the viewer room for imagination. The objects are arranged effectively and artistically. The message was very well-conveyed without the artwork being bloody or gruesome.’

Architect and art collector Tan Kay Ngee, 51, who was one of the five judges, tells Life! that Yuen’s entry elevated photography to the level of classical painting with its lighting and composition.

He says: ‘When we were judging, we were not looking for good-looking work. We were looking for something creative which breaks the mould and carries on a certain tradition. The set of photos has all these qualities.’

Say what you will about the image above, but personally I think all these so-called art critics and judges (ie. the judges of this contest) should strive to promote aesthetic appreciation among the masses, not just praise someone’s work for its lighting, composition and seemingly vague agenda. Give me a studio with lights and a flash transmitter and I’ll show you it’s not a stretch to create such lighting composition.

To paint with oils/watercolor to create such an effect, however, IS a real stretch beyond the abilities of most young artists today. Paintings should be regarded as paintings, and photographs ARE not paintings. Otherwise, one day we’ll have digital art proclaimed as analogue art just because the JPG was printed on paper.

Actually, if you see Joel Yuen’s website, he does have some really nice images there. These BnW works do not hint at his painting ability, which is actually really good (hopefully his paintings are not done with Corel Painter).

An artist should be free to produce whatever his heart and mind desires, but the onus is on those who judge the work in  public competition, to increase the level of visual literacy in the public.

We need more aesthetic works in the public sphere to inspire, to motivate future artists and to promote the love of human ability. There is a part of our human condition - the aesthetic - which needs to be stoked and massaged to relieve us from our daily stresses. I remember the long hours I spent in Rome’s art galleries, and letting my mind unwind and relax just staring at works of beauty. Singapore doesn’t have enough of that.

It’s a vicious cycle - due the lack of beautiful works around us, people don’t think the fine arts are worth a career in, and hence there are even less aesthetic work being done.

Personally I dislike these winning works and I don’t agree with the judges’ decision (oh yeah, please don’t diss the classical masters), but hey, at least they provoke a reaction. For that, the artist has accomplished half of his mission.

The other half - for me to appreciate and understand his work - ain’t going to happen. I prefer to eat my trotters and chicken feet, not hang them up on a wall. Ter Kar anyone?

But congratulations to the winner anyway, all’s fair in love and art.

I would tell the judges to go fly a kite though. You guys are doing Singapore a real disservice.

I remember the 1980’s when desktop publishing (DTP) became the rage. Pioneered by the Mac and Aldus Pagemaker, suddenly, everyone could call themself a desktop publisher. Of course, back then, few people could afford the laser printers needed to produce the high-quality output that was required for professional standards. But I digress….

The availability of fonts wasn’t anywhere near what it was today. Today, fonts can be easily copied and installed from a variety of sources. I recently had to find the Grand Theft Auto font and did that in a matter of minutes (it’s called Pricedown) using online forums and dafont.com.

But like I said in the previous post, fonts are easily abused. Few people possess the fundamental knowledge needed to wield fonts in an effective manner, but simply mimic what they see from MS Word templates.

If you think about it, the fundamentals for font usage is the very same used in this current series on visual literacy and art appreciation.

• Keep the number of visual elements (fonts) as few as possible. Remember this to your grave - less is more.
• Establish a certain composition or rhythm within your canvas. There is a natural order of things. Objects all have weight, and hence gravity. Some objects repel others, some attract - so you’ve got to intuitively figure out how much “personal space” each font or word or sentence requires.
• Colors + composition = clarity. How clear is your visual/verbal message? For example, I abhor artwork which are nothing but frenzied dabs of paints, because they tell me nothing and they are hence worth nothing. Only pretentious art critics believe they can see some meaning, because otherwise they have no career to speak of. The same goes for font use - they require strict discipline in use, or you lose their power to impress.
• Sometimes, the most boring fonts are the most effective ones. But do try to experiment lah.

So naturally, once you figure out the basics, you’d want to do fun stuff with fonts. If you keep to the principles of clarity and let your imagination fly, there are many visuals you can make with text. These are just simple examples of what is possible.

Ha! Bet you didn’t know that fonts are part of visual literacy too right?

That’s because text has become a visual language in itself too. The use of fonts in our daily lives is of utmost importance, because where pictures cannot be used, fonts can be used to convey meaning between the lines.

This is not a simplistic blog post on whether Comic Sans is better than Times Roman.

Or whether Arial is better than Century Schoolbook.

I won’t go into deep technical details over serifs, leading, kerning and the like. You only learn those terms if you’re earning dough doing designs! And also because I’m a lazy dog, I’m not going to name any fonts from here.

Instead, this course in visual literacy is meant to educate readers on how to better appreciate and use visual elements. In other words, how to tell someone to use a better font if he can afford to.

Font 101 : The above use of the font is poor.

Why so?

- Firstly, recognise the usefulness of a font and how long a sentence it can possibly endure existing in. Such stylistic fonts are better used where there is very little text.

- The black and red color scheme look cool, but LEGIBILITY is key when using fonts. If you find it hard to read at first glance, it’s a poor use of fonts. I deliberately put the lines of text closer together to reduce legibility too.

- The use of fonts reflects the type of person you are. Or perhaps, just how emphatic you are when you create documents for your audiences. If you have no idea who your audience is, you’ll probably safer sticking to Arial or Times Roman.

Now see a better version way to use the font and how to maximise its impact:

Like visual elements, some fonts need more space to breathe, others don’t.

The trick is to first ask yourself, how pleasing is the font to my eyes?

It’s pretty obvious which font most people will choose to read here. The deluge of fonts available today just spoils designers who have no basic foundation in legibility.

Don’t listen to people who tell you which fonts are best for your document. The most important thing is to print out your document, take a long hard look at it, and ask yourself if your font conveys your basic intentions.

Like all visual literacy lessons, learning to understand fonts is something that takes time, trial and error.

But here are some examples anyway.

You might think all this is pretty common sense right?

But trust me, there are lots of disgraceful uses of fonts out there in public. Fonts ought to be respected for the role they play on paper or on the screen, and few people even realise that fonts are painstakingly created for specific purposes.

BTW, you can actually download some cool free fonts from www.dafont.com but be careful not to abuse them ok?

Interestingly, according to some dude whom I largely agree with, here are five fonts you should never use.

Finally, a few more things for you to chew on - how colors, fonts, font sizes and placement affect the visual meaning of your text. Yes, please remember that text is not just text, but are visual elements too.

In the great tradition of visual literacy (a picture tells a thousand words), I have this for those who believe in the ERP system and who continue to erect ungainly and futile concrete and electronic structures to tell Singaporeans that other countries are looking more attractive to live in, largely because these other countries don’t punish the have-nots for having to work in the city area.

That’s a pretty long sentence eh, but anyway, here goes:

Thank you, Begbie, for the precise use of sign language to tell those who make public policy for transport in Singapore. It’s a little unsophisticated, but I’m sure there’s a few in our town who won’t immediately get this universal message until he keeps his index finger in.

You folks might make the traffic smoother at all costs (there’s a pun!), but man, you don’t want to be blamed for the next elections result.

Note: What is fascinating, as some ST Forum letters have shown, that the general public is very aware of what’s plaguing our transport system, and what needs to be done to fix the problem for good (three words: limit car population). But some guys (I’ll refrain from name-calling here), pretend to know everything from their computer simulations and traffic flow charts, and hide behind their data. For goodness sake, listen to the people lah. I want SG to be number one in emphatic politics, everything else is insignificant.

I’ve been reading unfolding news of the latest Malaysian scandal involving a motley crew of Anwar, Najib, blown up Mongolian girl, a wishy-washy private eye and a really confused judiciary.

My thoughts?

Man, whoever wrote this script needs to go back to school. It’s like a bunch of politicians saw some drama/political intrigue movies and decided to execute their own little show. Unfortunately, somebody didn’t connect the dots and it’s getting to the point of being ludicrous.

I’ll stop here lest I get a letter from our national press secretary that we shouldn’t meddle in other countries’ affairs. But we get to do our movie reviews right?

The cover of The Immortal Iron Fist #1, circa 2006

I think my classmates were surprised when they asked me in primary/sec school which hero did I like and I didn’t answer Supes or Bats, but Iron Fist.

Let’s face it, Iron Fist was always a comic-book ripoff of Bruce Lee and his mask eyelets were always too close to what Spider-Man was wearing. And until recently, his costume really sucked.

An old issue of Power Man (Luke Cage) and Iron Fist. Circa early 1980s. Note Daniel Rand’s terribly ching-cheong costume.

But as a kid, I found the concept of Iron Fist exceedingly cool. Who didn’t wish he could well up great chi in his fist and punch the heck out of evil-doers? Who didn’t wish to be a master of martial arts at the same time? And get to wear a mask like a Latino wrestler? Cool. Read all you want about Iron Fist here.

The character got a massive revival with The Immortal Iron Fist series two years ago, and yesterday, I finally bought the two trade paperbacks collecting 1-6 (The Last Iron Fist Story) and 7-13 (The Seven Capital Cities Of Heaven). Man, the artwork by David Aja is nothing short of inspiring and the writing by Ed Brubaker is rock-solid.

From Immortal Iron Fist storyline: The two Iron Fists give hell to Hydra!

Their interpretation of Daniel Rand - young, a little naive despite being a zillionaire, headstrong but with a throbbing vein of moral courage running through him that reflects the 66 Iron Fists that have come before him.

The addition of father figure Orson Randall, the previous Iron Fist, into the storyline, really fleshes out the curse heritage that has been passed down to Daniel. Suddenly, Daniel finds out he can channel the Iron Fist power into bullets or any other objects to rain lightning down on his enemies. Mega Cool.

Comic books are a paradox today. For generations, comic books were written for kids to inspire and to excite. Today, kids don’t read Marvel or DC comics not just because they are too expensive, but they’ve become too adult and post-modern. Iron Fist is no different, but I realised that each Brubaker storyline was written so effectively, the character continues to be a hero to its readers.

That’s a real breath of fresh air, because in an age where comic superheroes have become too imperfect (see Watchmen, Batman, Sentry, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and the super underpowered Superman) for their worlds, and a comic universe where Marvel’s Civil War has turned heroes into law-breaking vigilantes, the IIF books revive hope that heroes can still save the day without losing themselves.

PS: A lot of people don’t realise it, but when you watch superhero movies like The Incredible Hulk or Iron Man, they don’t have a fraction of the angst found in comics. Adults who don’t read comics probably think that the pulp fiction hasn’t changed much, which is largely because the movies are based on material written two decades ago. Comics today are largely very dark, very violent, and really not suitable for kids. I’d rather Isaac read the 70’s Savage Sword Of Conan first before he starts reading any of the current Marvel titles.

Saw some odd stuff recently….

1. People trying to give out flyers in the Raffles Place underpass at 830am when everyone is just rushing to get to work. Later in the afternoon, I saw people trying to conduct money-sucking timeshare surveys there.

Seriously, the best time to give out flyers and to do such surveys is during non-peak hours at areas where people are standing still. Common sense not to approach obviously busy people right? Sheesh. Sometimes I wonder if these guys know what they’re doing. For the record, I carried out surveys when I was a uni student and I knew better then.

2. MC who keeps talking about himself at his friend’s wedding.

By the middle of the wedding dinner, this chap had bemoaned the fact that he was still unattached for the 5th time. It was pretty obvious why, because this guy just couldn’t stop talking (too much even for an MC) and his jokes were mostly unfunny. At one point, as a filler, he even went up to one female guest and asked if he deserved a shot at being her boyfriend. The wedding was nearly perfect with great food, but the MC was the low note of the night. 

3. LKY says…

From AFP:

The Singapore opposition would ruin the wealthy city-state’s achievements in five years if they ever gained power, the country’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew said.

Lee, 84, warned Singapore voters against putting the opposition at the helm of government “in a moment of fickleness or just sheer madness” when they get “bored” at some point in the future.

Should this happen, “I think all bets are off because in five years they (opposition) can ruin this place,” he told delegates at an international forum late Wednesday.

Frankly, MM should give Singaporeans a bit more credit than that. We may not be the brightest lot around, but we’re not that dim either. Citizens do not vote in the opposition because they’re “bored”, but because they are upset/angry/frustrated/etc. The government also goes to great lengths to ensure it continues to dominate the scene, for better or for worse. I’ve repeated many times that I’ve been unable to vote due to walkovers in the Bishan estate by the PAP.

What I fear is that in the next five years, Singaporeans will just become more insular, more close-minded, less creative (ironically), more kiasu and worse of all, ever less gracious, thanks to the way this country operates. Those who can leave, will leave, and those left behind may just get angrier without truly understanding why. No number of scholars in the Gahmen will be able to fix that.

From today’s Straits Times:

Govt doesn’t make money from ERP

THE CashCard reader in labour chief Lim Swee Say’s car beeps four to six times a day.

This is because he passes through that many Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) gantries along busy city roads to get to and from work.

He was driving home the point that ERP exists solely to control road congestion and not to enrich government coffers or raise the cost of living for Singaporeans.

Mr Lim was responding to a question at a dialogue on why the Government was raising ERP rates by as much as $2 and adding five new gantries from July7 in a climate of rising inflation.

The new gantries along the banks of the Singapore River bring the total number of gantries islandwide to 65.

Mr Lim said Transport Minister Raymond Lim had told Parliament previously the Government does not make any money from the ERP increase.

The reason: It will collect $70 million a year from the ERP increase, but will lose $110 million due to the 15 per cent reduction in road tax from next month.

That is, in fact, a net loss of $40 million, he said.

So motorists who do not use congested roads will be ‘net gainers’, said Mr Lim, pointing to Ang Mo Kio GRC MP Inderjit Singh.

This is because Mr Singh, who shared the stage with Mr Lim at the dialogue with Sengkang West residents yesterday, works in Changi.

Mr Lim is not so lucky as he works in the NTUC Building at One Marina Boulevard.

Relating his driving experience to laughter from the audience, he said: ‘Every morning when I come out of my house, it’s one beep along Bukit Timah, then another beep entering Marina South. From July 7, I’ll be getting another beep just along the road to my office.

‘The amount I pay through all this beeping will be more than the road tax rebate I am getting. Why? Simply because I am one of those who always go to busy areas.’

CLARISSA OON

Ahem. This is a classic case of pushing out a political story without weighing the context - the ERP unit in the Gahmen people’s car can beep away as much as they care, or we care.

What’s missing in this story?

1. Does Mr Lim get to claim his ERP charges as part of his official transport allowance?

2. If not, what percentage of his monthly pay does ERP eat up? It’s way higher for many sales people who have to drive into town. Some who cannot claim for the extra increase. Of course, Mr Lim’s salary will not be mentioned in the story…so why raise the point even?

3. Are the newer ERP gantries really necessary? This is being debated by many of us who work in Raffles Place and don’t see the congestion that LTA keeps talking about. Not being debated enough in the media though. The papers went into overdrive covering the seatbelt issue (and now that bus operators have threatened to raise fares by 50%, the story seems to have suddenly died out)

For the record, I take MRT to work only because I can’t get a season parking lot in the same building as Mr Lim, and my wife needs the car to drive the kids around.

I’m trying to write more positive and balanced blog posts in response to all the negative ones out there about our city and our Gahmen, but man, it’s really not easy.

And no, I won’t shut up.