So the opening night of my exhibition was last Friday but I have learned so much just in ONE NIGHT!

We spent 2 days setting up our exhibits at the Australian High Commission. It was not easy running between meetings at work and rushing to set up at the gallery. I am so grateful for my colleague and course mates who readily offered help and transportation.

My exhibits dealt with technology hardware as compared to my course mates’ interior models. I can’t even express my gratitude to those who were so generous in sponsoring their expensive equipments to me when I am literally “no-one” to them.

My course mate’s beautiful home. I just love the trees!

The exhibition is about “DESIGNING FOR SUCCESSFUL SINGAPOREANS“. And of course, each exhibitor defines “success” from reflection and examination of a person who is in our lives, then we designed spatial and graphical outcomes for our subject’s home. Don is my study subject, my source of inspiration for my exhibits.

My dean…the curator and the man behind the exhibition.

His definition of success revolves around family and friends in his life. His personal self is fully infused with the social self. Thus, interaction with these people define who he is and gives meaning to his life. A home without a human presence is like a prison to him.

My concept reproduces human presence from their formed habits. A familiar home embodies habitual idiosyncrasies and allows us to grow. A habit leaves traces which represent a past relationship that has present meaning and a projected future meaning for the inhabitant. My ideas focused on “sensing the presence but know the absence; Knowing the absence but feels the presence.”

I examined how I could give/modify meanings to home from interaction and emotional design within a space, is order to “turn a space into a place“.

This exhibition SS Exhibition Brochure highlights all the work we did.

I turned my exhibition space into a temporary comfortable home.

Though the exhibition started officially at 6.30pm but people started coming in from 6pm onwards. By 7pm, the gallery was packed with people.

It was so encouraging that people were interested in my work and I was constantly sharing throughout the evening. Didn’t get to eat anything except a glass of wine.

My scent art (which I talked about in previous entry)

This was the interesting one. Many visitors commented that they loved my scent art. I placed 8 “domestic” scents for them to sample without labeling them. I wanted to let the visitors interact with them, recalling their memories and eliciting emotional responses . When I asked them what the scent reminded them of, all of them gave me interesting responses. One lady told me that one of the scents (a mosquito repellent) reminded her of a river in New Zealand. One said it smelled like her husband’s deodorant.The responses were very culturally biased.

The “shoes” – I reproduced human presence with shoes. What impression does a home give to you if you see its doorway filled with shoes of all different sizes, as compared to none?

The shoes are interactive. You can kick and move the shoes.

Many commented that my exhibits allowed them to interact with them, and also gave them an experience that they could bring back. I felt so encouraged!

Those an exhibition is about people’s work but to me, it is more about the people and friends who spend their time supporting me. It is truly an event which informs me how blessed I am.

All photos were taken by Mike..Thanks man!

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…is FINALLY HERE!

*panting*

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I blogged about Second Life several times before and this one that I received from my colleague really hit me hard on my head.

Full article here.

Archive:
1. Sickening avatars players in Second Life

2. Virtual terrorists in Second Life

3. Going virtual…is it good or bad?

4. Second Life as learning tool

The liberals say “WHY NOT?” / “EVERYBODY IS DOING IT”. But really, what does our CONSCIENCE tell us? If we still have one, we do not need others to tell us what is acceptable or not.

Should Second Life be encouraged among students to be used as a learning tool? I am sure there are many much better pedagogical-sound tools out there for learning.

What about the new generation…? What have they been feeding with? What have WE, as an educator been feeding them? Do we want to contribute to the whole Second Life culture thing, directly or indirectly?

Why would we want to encourage people to live in the virtual world? The movie “Surrogate” by Bruce Willis is not entirely impossible. In the movie, people send their avatars to live in the real world. The humans don’t move around much, just hooks up the machine to control their avatars at home. If you watch the movie, you could see most choose to have a prettier avatar, or even, a different gender. Seriously, what’s the difference from sitting in front of the computers to engage in such activities now?

Just a milestone away from the evolution of Second Life.

I DON’T WANT or NEED A SECOND LIFE. I WANT MY LIFE, MY FIRST REAL LIFE.

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I have been SO BUSY with work and studies. Guess what, I HAVE AN EXHIBITION coming up!

It is going to be at the Australian High Commission – 20th Nov. So mark your date! I’ll put up the details when the invitation is out.

Well, according to my Dean, it is considered as an “international exhibition” because it is held at the Australian High Comm. Technically speaking, that piece of land is “Australia“. Mm..Cute!

One of my pieces has to do with some of my research on olfactory design, means SCENT.

Did you know that SMELL is ranked the second after sight as importance for the sensory experience. There is so much to learn about how human interacts with scent, both consciously and unconsciously.

Can you imagine how a glass of black ice tea with lime at a beach sunset smells like?

When I asked some of my friends if they noticed the distinctive and unique scent at their homes, most of them said:“NO! My house doesn’t have smell!”. Think again.

You see, a home is not really a home when it is lacked of the “domestic scent“. In another words, it is made up of the people in your house, the detergent you used for laundry, the activities you run (eg. cooking), pet (if any), materials of your furniture and etc. And this combination of scents defines your home. Just as you step into other person’s house, the scent is never the same.

Scent at home could :
1) Tell a story, to motivate and to affect the inhabitant emotionally.

2) Contribute to enhance the inhabitant’s identification with the space and to develop a deep sense of belonging.

3) Modify the representation, enrich and to contradict to a supposed already existing identity of the house (that’s when a new scent is introduced to the home)

4) Redefine a function of space. (eg, kitchen: smells like dried flowers from spring, reminds of one used to arrange dried flowers in the kitchen)

If I could, I would LOVE to have a scent of freshly-baked waffles topped with melting butter and maple syrup on Sunday morning.

Talking about body odour, each person has a unique scent – works like a fingerprint. That was how the Stasi (East German secret police) collected the scent of their suspects and stored them in sealed jars with their names on it. The scent was then given to hunting dogs to hunt down a suspect or fugitive.

So the other day, I had a conversation with a friend regarding this project of mine. I mentioned that it was quite interesting to find out how people relate a scent to a person.

He then asked me:“What smell do I remind you of?”

“Mm…you reminded me of earthly smell. Dry tobacco leaves, soil…something that describes..BROWN!”

I have no idea why or how I concluded as such but, this has to do with my impression on that person. For him, I thought I would expect “strawberry or cherry”. In fact, he said:“Lavender…and the lip gloss that you have been using. Wait! I think Tea tree oil too!

*My Body Shop Strawberry lip gloss just “emits” such strong sweet smell that it often fills the car when I use it.*

“Why Tea Tree??!! That’s so clinical…AND sounds so… DISINFECTIVE!!”

“Well, there was a time that you liked to carry them in your bag. You applied some on your palms to inhale when you had sinusitis.”

True…because SCENT is very powerful in evoking memories and emotions. It is highly interpretive, depending on your personal experiences. That’s also why a victim could be very traumatised when he/she smells a particular scent years after a tragedy when that scent was present at the scene.

Smell is such a mysterious “thing”. It can’t be touched but you definitely know its presence. Sometimes, people can only recall a presence (of thing/human/activity), when there is an absence of scent.

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