Week 1 - Experiment 1: The clients

The clients are three artists from very different backgrounds. Each example artwork by each artist below is accompanied by a noun, verb and adjective that tries to describe what I feel is being strongly conveyed in the image:

Untitled, 2008

Ai Weiwei: WOOD, ZIGZAGGING, DYNAMIC

Spiral Woman, 2003

Louise Bourgeois: CHIMERA, STANDING, UNSETTLING

Locomotor, 2001

Stelarc: FRAMEWORK, LUMBERING, INDUSTRIAL

Week 1 - Introduction

Hi there. I'm Julian, and I'm actually repeating this course again for this year.

As an introduction to the semester, here's a sample of three pieces of imagery for you to look at and think about:

A) YOUR BEST PIECE OF CREATIVE WORK BEFORE YOU CAME INTO THIS COURSE

This was done as a birthday gift to a friend from an online forum last year, who like me appreciates the male physique as a idealisation of the human physique as an art form. I think this is one of my "best" pieces so far as I like its simplicity, as well as the playful nature of the subject in the picture

B) AN IMAGE OF A GREAT PIECE OF ARCHITECTURE

Concept artwork for the Star Wars movie prequel Star Wars: Attack of The Clones. This particular building is a nightclub that featured in a scene where the main characters were looking for clues to a murder attempt on Coruscant, a planet which is nearly entirely covered in buildings. The architecture featured in this planet shows how the inhabitants are forced to build tall and make use of space in between and on top of buildings in order to accommodate so many people on such a crowded world (making me wonder if this is the way to sustainable city design in our own future).

C) AN ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPH OF SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

Some people say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", and I think that is very true - especially in places that you would least expect it. While I was on a trip to Bangkok in January of this year, I noticed that there were a lot of stray dogs on the streets. The dogs however were not dirty or emaciated in appearance, they looked remarkably well-fed and have their own resting places that remain undisturbed by the locals. I managed to take this shot of my younger brother and his friend walking up the stairs to a train station, and get one of the stray dogs in the composition. I like the way the dog just looks at my camera in curiosity while relaxing on the steps, and I find the idea of wild animals being taken care of by random strangers in a city to be an inherent beauty of this image.