a journal following the thought and physical process of the eventual project:
i wanted to focus my project on love, or rather a distanced love. not neccesarily a long distance relationship, rather partners that are together, showing signs of distance towards each other.
I think this made it too broad since i tried to make this relatable for too many people. In turn i got lost in some way, only finding my way back again when i asked myself:
"what is the reason for that distanced love?"
I started going back to my roots again, my chinese heritage and culture. Where love is seemingly only done through actions and never through words, it's almost like these words are taboo.
and that's the moment i changed my narrative to: why is expressing my emotions taboo in chinese families?
expressing emotions, needless to say is essential in how an individual grows up, talk about problems, insecurities & frustrations verbally. but when it comes to sharing these emotions it was never there. there were never moments where i could talk and share emotions with my parents without it becoming a fight or argument.
during the midterms presentation i got one remark from a student saying: "was this what you did last year as well?". referring to the visuals and aesthetics of my usual tone of voice, but it also got me thinking.
i felt the need to express this pain and regret of one; having difficulty communicating verbally and two; not feeling acknowledged by my parents at all. this created a barrier between me and my family as we slowly grew distant.
my obsession with expressing the anger i felt of not being being recognised and acknowledged by my family, i felt like an outsider. having both a traditional chinese family but finding passion in art and being free, felt like two mentalities crashing together. no matter what you would do or say, it would end up in a fight only to worsen the situation.
since my archive has been growing with lots of my own artworks containing photography & paintings about anger and sadness about this topic while following this practice,
i wanted to expand upon those pieces. in my film work there is lots of storytelling, feeling & context. but in a still image, it's hard to see what the narrative is of the piece. i then looked into audio, how strong words can have an impact in an audio visual piece; you can look away, but you can't naturally block out your ears when something is too loud unlike with our eyes.
the choice i went with is animation combined with ai, and a lot of animation. making all of those artworks come alive while still keeping the powerful message and visuals about this topic.
in the classes of lila, we had to create knowledge & gap maps.
in these maps i created poems that fit the theme of my original idea and i noticed that the tone of voice was too calm for a situation that would normally anger someone or highly frustrate them.
it was then that i decided to not only have a calm and sad tone, but rather an angry and hurt tone.
irrational, hurt and angry. a darker tone about the inability to express emotions in chinese culture.
during the video essay lecture from sarah, the assignment opened my eyes once again about audio and how i could improve my abilities by putting much more emotion behind them, a relaxed and calm voice almost causes me to stay stuck in 1 tone of voice. once i improved it in workshop #5 it became clear that if i wanted to change or improve, i had to go deeper, more raw and dark.
it'll always be in the past, but how would you feel in that moment? you would feel irrational, angry, aggressive, sad. i want to express those stages of almost going insane with my words and artwork.
my very first step would be collecting & creating the visuals for the story, edit and animate them in the style that would almost simulate a mental psychosis when overthinking and in denial of the lack of paternal care and acknowledgement. i already decided to use ai to make the artworks i have come alive along with the pictures that showcase confinement & being lost.
these visuals consisted of paintings & photographs, i decided to not use video since that already has movement and would not have the same effect as a still image "coming alive"
these are the visuals that i wanted to use in the story that i felt like would represent my feelings towards this taboo of expressing emotions and the consequences in my adulthood of never receiving the emotional support from my family.
this visuals will be edited using ai of my own artworks and animation in after effects
in the midst of the chaos, we of course also had a to organise a teach-in even, which was in this case was with sabreen haj ahmad & alaa abu asad.
being most fascinated about alaa's obsession with a plant that was seen as invasive and unwanted. the similarities with migration etc. were inspiring to see.
being part of the documentation group, it was our task to record the even in audio format and share them again so they can be used for radios, podcasts or education purposes.
the next step was to find a way for an algorithm that would create the right effect like: bleeding out, adding movement, zoom in certain elements of the visuals and warping them.
after this was done, i would use the visuals and use another algorithm called stylegan, to apply the style of my own painting to these visuals and create a good balance between photography, painting and abstract effects.
the algorithm that fit the best was runway, it had the ability to create moving images out of your artwork, which was perfect since i want to keep my own painting style. all that is left is to experiment and enjoy the process of creating.
after i acquired the visuals that met my standards, i continued in after effects to animate the visuals and make them flow together to create an abstract, but still understandable from a storytelling perspective.
here is an example of making the painting "come alive" this effect creates an almost psychedelic effect which i plan to enhance using after effects to add flowing and glitching effects, all for the sake of making sure it represented my mind when going through dark though like these. the original painting can be found in the previous images.
the next step is adding warps, glitches, and an almost energy like beams makes the effect of confusion, anger, grief & denial stronger, especially combined with the audio.
one artist i've found while working on this project is vaxo lang, a painter and i was inspired by his use of horror.
it's similar to the style i paint in, but it goes a level further by using fear and a certain kind of darkness.
apart from the horror and gore, there is a theme of pain.
he manages to visualise the expression of being in pain very well and would love to try to grow in this direction more with my painting in the future.
at the stage of animating the clips made from still images and animating them in a way it mimics the intensity of what i feel when going through words my parents never told me, but desired the most. all the dots on the timeline are keyframes that determine what and when a certain effect or movement is happening.
it is a long and tedious process however, it creates a much more intense experience that is similar to the effect i desire, the images here show only half of the amount of effects and keyframes for just one of the many visuals in this film.
this would take a long time before i move on to the next step, as it was fun to experiment with different effects and see how the originally still images were coming alive, with the effects added it created the perfect visual interpretation.
raw, noisy and intense
after successfully creating a test from the visuals, i improved upon it
by adding more chaotic and noisy elements and effects.
left is the before, right is the improved version, though not final yet.
after the visuals are finished for now, i thought it was finally time to write the script for the voice-over, but unlike my usual very calm and rational tone of voice, i wanted to sound emotional, angry and sad.
this is a huge challenge because it is out of my comfort zone to be emotional and intense.
writing in my usual style, poetic but relaxed and rational. however, needed to include the parts that are more emotional and gain the courage to actually put a lot of emotion and anger in the audio. thought this would prove to be a lot harder than i thought it would.
after i was happy with the script, which was written to be originally spoken in my mother tongue. because of that reason the text in english might not flow as well as it was written to be spoken in another language.
the recording part was the next stage that made the most sense , how else can i edit a video to make sense without having a voice to tell the story and narrative of the film?
i eventually recorded the audio in garageband and as you can see in the images, every line has been individually recorded and mixed to sound exactly like how i needed it to sound, reverb, bass, pitch correction and mastered.
the angry parts of the audio (in green on the timeline) are edited in such a way that it almost sounds demonic and evil, these parts have to sound angry and degrading which was essential since it needed to sound like a demon.
it was very hard to actually sound angry and emotion, but i feel like i have made progress in my narrating abilities all the same.
after the audio finished, i focused on improving and matching the visuals and effects with the audio, this proved tricky, since the visuals were shorter than the audio, which meant i've had more editing to do to extend the length of the visuals without affecting the quality and feel too much.
i wanted the final composition to be organised and keep an overview, so that meant having to create lots of precompositions to match the audio and make the experience more intense and impactful.
of course adding subtitles which took a long time and to find a suiting soundtrack to fit the despair and grief that is in the audio. i eventually chose for a dark ambient soundtrack that has "angelic" vocals for extra impact and i had to time the most intense parts of the track to specific moments that in the story so it would be more impactful.
during a feedback session with sarah, i talked about the projection, visuals and audio. my original plan was to hang a foam board and project it that way, but sarah gave me an interesting take on thinking about the value of the object i'm projecting on as well.
i started thinking about what materials i could use to project it on, for example a mirror, cloth and even myself. i decided to go with the mirror and partly cover it with paper to still clearly see the projection, i thought it would be interesting to see how the mirror would interact with the light from the projector.
after finishing editing, animating, subtitling & sound design, i was finally ready to move on to how it would work in an exhibition format. i didn't want to have a screen since that would feel too easy with a video. i needed a unique and surreal way of displaying the artwork, so i eventually stumbled on using projectors.
projection mapping always interested me and since these visuals are based on paintings and photographs, it made sense for me to project the film on a frame, though the frame would have to be fitting in the theme. dramatic, dark & maybe even gothic.
i eventually stumbled on a mirror that had the perfect frame in a baroque-like style in silver. this is originally a mirror and i would've loved to work with projections on a mirror, however when the package arrived...
the mirror was cracked, so i replaced the mirror with a specific paper that would be perfect for a projection:
luster paper, it has a glistening shine, without being too glossy, as this would ruin the projection by reflecting way too much light and that would lose the entire surrealistic "moving painting" style i wanted to go for.
the other option was matte paper, but i was afraid it would affect the colours and brightness since light doesn't reflect as well on matte paper
next up would be a projector that is bright enough to be as clear as possible, even in daylight, as the exhibition space is quite bright.
i rented a headphone and projector and made sure the lumen was 3000, this would make the projector bright enough to display in daylight and showcasing all the vibrant and dark colours of the film. the headphone was of course to ensure the most immersive experience without disturbing others in the exhibition space.
i first made a sketch of how it would work and quickly realized that light works in mysterious and warping ways. by testing and finding out the best angle and height for the frame, having the projector vertically and of course matching the video format, i was able to perfectly fit the projection within the frame.
for the extra surrealism effect i added led lights to the back of the frame, creating an almost divine or demonic shine glowing out of the frame which matched perfectly with the visuals.
after a location visit that i asked for, i was able to determine the space i had and adjust accordingly.
i found a comfortable chair and wooden chair to place the projector on while having it stable and got a small stool to balance the frame on top of.
the frame and projector worked perfectly together and the chair made it a comfortable, but intense and immersive. though of course, it might be very triggering for people. the words, the visuals and the horror like feel of the film.
thought because of the blue wall, other colours from the led lights on the back of the frame wouldn't show up as well as i wanted it to, so the colour blue or light yellow was the brightest on this specific wall. but luckily enough, i was right to pick out a projector that was bright enough. and to me, it looked exactly like i had in mind.
some videos highlighting the installation, look & feel of the film.
luckily enough, i was also able to be invited to another exhibition on sunday for a festival by cult north which focuses on street culture, spoken word & cultural diversity.
here is an example however for the full experience of both exhibitions and full movie, please refer to
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