Modify Concept 1

Design Project A: Concept

Concept 1

1. It is combining the double bed with the boxing stage to represent the violence between man and wife which is so unnecessary.

2. It is combing the nipple (of a feeding bottle) and the iron ring ( It is a made up name by my own, please see the picture) in order to warn people that do not put violence on children. 

Concept 2

I am thinking of a board game designed for the whole family. We hope it can help to develop the relationship between each other in family. 

Design Project A and Design Research: Conflict Resolution

Research Map

Summary of Brainstorming

Key words 1. People VS People

In everyday life, people have to communicate with the others. It is really hard to avoid facing conflicts during we are living.

Key words 2. Family members and domestic violence

In my brainstorming, I distinguish three types of relations within people: the strangers, the family members, and the friends. I think there will be more conflicts happen in the family group for they are much more closed to each other in living. Moreover, the closer we live, the serious violence we will face. It even can change a whole life of the person.

Key words 3. Husband and Wife

The violence in case between husband and wife happens most frequently and it will affect children indirectly, representing as assault, ague, and abuse( physically or mentally) 

Key words 4.Parents to Children

The most pained case of violence happens on children which affects children directly, representing as assault, abuse(mostly in physical) and abandon.

Key words 5.Old people

The cases are represented mostly as mentally abuse and abandon.

By the way, in China, it is really normal that parents punish children by beating them, especially to boys. Although the law clearly forbids the beating way of parents, it is still believed that the punishment can help children keep good behaviors. Punished by beating is not only a way of education, but also a way of proving parents’ love on their children. 

Research Process

According to my research subject, my firstly focused on searching the organization or institution which is helping people against domestic violence. I found the United Nations Children's Fund at the beginning. However, it is too big to study deep and it is not easy to contact. Then I found the local institution called Standing Together Against Domestic Violence. Established in 1998, Standing Together Against Domestic Violence (Standing Together) coordinates the ground-breaking multi-agency response to the crime of domestic violence. Because it is a local institution in a clear response area, I believe that it would be more easier to contact them and get details of information. So I got in touch with them, asked if I can do a interview to them by emailing. The staff of Standing together was so nice to respond.

During the interview, I asked a few questions in order to get a whole picture of the reality in  domestic violence subject, and also to know about the specific details in cases. The questions had been asked as followed:

1. In your acknowledge, do you think that the situation of domestic violence is serious now? Could you please describe how serious it is?
2. By the cases study, do you know which types of domestic violence happen most frequently or more general?
3. Is there any specific types of person would more likely under the case of domestic violence? I mean female, children or the older.
4. To the solution, what ways of solution or complain could be chosen for the victims?
5. How do the perpetrators get punished in most case? Do you think most of them had been judged appropriately?
6. How many ways of punishment to the perpetrators? Do the victims always are satisfied by the results?

The officer who responded me in the interview gave me a brief answer to above questions.  At the same time, he send me a PDF of a research study about the statistics in the past few years in domestic violence area which is so useful to me. Therefore, after the interview, I was engrossed in this file and got a lot of ideas from it.

The report relates to figures collated from the Specialist Domestic Violence Court(SDVC) held at West London Magistrates Court. The two boroughs covered by the SDVC are:

London Borough of HAMMERSMITH & Fulham (LBHF)

Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC)

Time period of the data:2003-2008

The first graph I would like to post here is a triangle. In the triangle below are the baseline statistics drawn up prior to implementation of the Standing Together initiative in 1998. The top half of the triangle uses research and population figures to set the context.The lower half of the triangle presents actual figures from the Fulham part of the borough and starkly represents the high attrition rate in domestic violence cases. This is the problem that the Standing Together initiative set out to address.

From: http://www.standingtogether.org.uk

We can see how small the number is for the effective punish to the perpetrators in above triangle. It tells us the whole picture of the serious situation in a way.

Secondly, I pose the table of the key indicators of the SDVC by year from the data report.

Over the past 5 years there has been:

An increase in the percentage of defendants convicted

An increase in the percentage of early guilty pleas

An decrease in the percentage of discontinuances/withdrawals

An decrease in the number of hearings per completed case

An decrease in the number of days between charge and completion

An decrease in the number of NEO dismissals

Thirdly, the Breakdown of Charges/offences arriving at the SDVC by year is shown as a big scale of table as below:

Learning from the table, we can see the Common Assault,ABH,Criminal Damage and Harassment were the four most common charges to arrive over all years.These four charges have consistently constituted approximately three quarters of all the charges arriving in the SDVC.

Fourthly:

Just over 60% of convicted defendants received a community sentence since the start of the SDVC. The proportion of defendants receiving a financial penalty as a sole sentence remains low. 4% (n=21) of all convicted defendants received a financial sentence only over the entire five years.

At last, I would like to post the table of Cases involving support of victim/witnesses by voluntary agencies at the SDVC during Years 2 - 5 by borough. 

In this table, we can find that the number of cases involving support through court proceedings was increasing in these five years. We can say that the court played a more and more important role in against the domestic violence happened. There are a lot more data for us in the report. I only post the most significant ones here.

References from http://www.standingtogether.org.uk/index.html

Researching in movies

I have spend my spare time to research in my personal interest area-the movies. I watched a lot of them, and found two really inspired me. They both mainly relate to Children abusing. 

1. An American Crime

It is a 2007 American crime-drama film directed by Tommy O'Haver.

Starring: Ellen Page, Catherine Keener, Hayley McFarland, Ari Graynor, Scout Taylor-Compton.

Plot: It alternates between the 1966 trial of Gertrude Baniszewski (Catherine Keener), and lengthy flashbacks to the events of the previous year described by the witnesses.

16-year-old Sylvia Likens (Ellen Page) and her 15-year-old sister, Jenny (Hayley McFarland), have, in the past, travelled with their parents who work on the carnival circuit, where Sylvia always felt safe riding the merry-go-round. She and Jenny now live with their mother Betty Likens (Romy Rosemont), who recently separated from their father Lester Likens (Nick Searcy). Betty reconciles with him and they decide to go on tour together. They agree to leave their daughters in the care of a single mother named Gertrude Baniszewski, whose daughters the Likens girls met in church. In dire financial straits, Gertrude offers to care for their daughters for twenty dollars a week, and as their parents leave, the girls settle in with Baniszewski's six children: Paula (17), Stephanie (16), Johnny (13), Marie (12), Shirley (10), and infant son Kenny. The abused story started here from Sylvia telling that Paula is pregnant.

Background introduction:

Based on the true story of the torture and murder of Sylvia Likens by Indianapolis housewife Gertrude Baniszewski, it premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Because of internal problems with the film's original distributor, First Look International, the film was not released theatrically. The Showtime television network officially premiered An American Crime on May 10, 2008. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe, an Emmy (both for Keener's performance) and a Writer's Guild Award.

Above quoting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_Crime

2. Aurore

Aurore is a 2005 Quebec biographical drama movie that was directed by Luc Dionne and produced by Denise Robert and Daniel Louis. The movie is a remake of Jean-Guy Bigras 1952 movie La Petite Aurore : l'enfant martyre. (English trans. Little Aurore: The Child Martyr)

Starring Marianne Fortier, Serge Postigo and others.

Synopsis

The movie itself is based on a true story and was filmed in the small community of Saint-Philémon-de-Fortierville south of Trois-Rivières. The main character, Aurore Gagnon, was born in 1909 to Marie-Anne Caron and Telesphore Gagnon as the second child of the couple. However, during the fall of 1917, Aurore's mother develops tuberculosis. Plans are made to give custody of Aurore and her sister Marie-Jeanne to Telesphore and his late cousin's wife Marie-Anne (often simply referred to as Telesphore's cousin in the movie), with whom he fell in love. 

Aurore's mother passes away in 1918, and Telesphore and Marie-Anne marry immediately after the funeral. The situation soon becomes worse for Aurore.  Marie-Anne carries out most of the abuse by slapping Aurore, striking her feet with a 2X4 with nails, and burning her with a burning steel hook. Her father also abuses her by slapping her and striking her with an axe handle. She is also locked in an isolated room with little food. 

When the peace judge and several others, including doctors, arrive at Aurore's home, it is too late: she collapsed in the stairs and was attacked again by Marie-Anne with a 2X4. Doctors are unable to save Aurore, who passes away from blood poisoning.

After Aurore's funeral, the couple is arrested for Aurore's death. Telesphore is sentenced to life in prison for manslaughter. His cousin and wife Marie-Anne is initially sentenced to death by hanging for second degree murder. She is then given a life sentence, but health issues force her to leave the jail, and she later dies from breast and brain cancer. Father Leduc, whom Oreus blames for his lack of action on the case, kills himself with explosives.

Above quoting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurore

3. The Conflict Resolution Terminal

It is an idea from a Chinese movie named If You Are the One. The idea is that using the finger-guessing game which we all played when we were children as a solution to terminate the conflict among us. It was a cylinder made up of two plastic tubes with handels. During the two who disagree with each other using it, they should offer one hand and put it into the tubes, making their mind on what pose of finger they would like to show. Then pulling apart the tubes when it is counted on three, by the rules of the finger-guess game, the winner would clearly come out. One of the advantages is that no one can cheat and change their finger temporarily by using it. 

Although it is a funny way of solution represented in the movie as comedic story. It is further surprised to find that there is an actual product created by a Chinese software designer for iphone surface. It is selling on App store now and working as the same idea as what the movie told. 

Posters 

Furthermore, I researched a number of posters design works. Most of them are using photography realistically as methods to represent the pain brought from domestic violence, giving a very strong visual impact to the readers. All these inspired me a lot about how to develop my own concept. So I would like to keep attention on them.

Book reading 

During searching the idea in domestic violence subject, I also looked for some academic reading for supporting the concepts. There are two books I found. One is named Culture & Conflict Resolution by Kevin Avruch. The other one is named Sexism and the War system(by Betty A. Reardon) which is slightly more connective to my ideas. 

The theories that talk about sexism and feminism, enemies and victimes and the peace system are inspired. However, they are too academic to be use practically for developing my concept. So I gave up to read in details. But I still mansion them here, because they could be really good sources for helping me level up my academic thinking. We will never know that if there will be a chance needing such thinkings.

Timetable

 

REVIEW

Reviewing the Shadow Catchers photography exhibition

Shadow Catchers, which follows a subtitle as Camera-less Photography, “presents the work of five international contemporary artists- Floris Neususs, Pierre Cordier, Susan Derges, Garry Fabian Miller and Adam Fuss- who work without a camera. Instead, they create images on photographic paper by casting shadows and manipulating light, or by chemically treating the surface of the paper.”

In fact, I found that there were so many differences between each photographer (or artists). They used the similar materiel  to create their own work but actually did different pieces of art.  Like the one of Floris’ considered the light issue while the one of Garry’s concerned more about the time. The artists hold a different purpose or idea to create. Thus, we felt the disharmony throughout the exhibition. This made us more interested in searching and questioning about the topic that what is the exact mean of photography. We can explore for the answer through all the works of these five artists. 

The most abstracted one for me was the works created by Garry Fabian Miller. He “discovered a method of using a photographic enlarger that allowed a direct translation between plants and the photographic print. Many of his works explore the cycle of time over a day, month or year, through controlled experiments with varying durations of light exposure.” His idea of time is the one that most interesting me. The works named Delphi number 1 to 8 were telling his visual understand about time. It was showing a group of leaves that he exposed their shape and colour day by day. It came out different colour in a durations of days. At my point of view, I was tracing the time’s going day by day, which is a so fascinating idea of seeing the time visually. 

The other thing that worth to say about is the video that interviewing each artist. Sometimes, I found that it is more senseful of the video to watch how artist making their works or listen to their interpretation for their own ideas. In some way, I realise that it might be more meaningful in the process that we are creating something rather than the final achieved works itself. 

Review of V&A Product design collection exhibition

I would like to say there were a lot of design I like in the exhibition. The most interesting one for me is the Radio in a Bag. It was a so clever idea from the materials it used to the form of presenting. 

                    

“Product design involves different collecting criteria than are applied to more traditional objects. While a consistent, identifiable, and often aristocratic provenance is regarded as one determinant of significance for the historic objects in the Museum, examples of modern product design often come from everyday, anonymous consumers or international manufacturers. By virtue of its nature as a market- or consumer-led industrial activity within a capitalist economy, product design enables the Museum to chart the relationship of design, industry, and society in the twentieth century.”

“Daniel Weil’s Radio in a Bag subverts our preconceptions of the appearance of audio equipment, which, by the 1970s, was dominated by hard-edged black and chrome boxes, visual indicators of high technology. The flexible and transparent bag features the radio’s scattered components as the object’s decoration, while also demystifying the mechanism and allowing for easy maintenance. About ten thousand were made, most of which were sold in Japan. Weil studied architecture in his native city of Buenos Aires and then moved to London to study industrial design. His “plastic bag” clocks, radios, and lights earned him international recognition, and he has designed for several major manufacturers of quality products.”

I can not help to quote all the description about Daniel Weil’s Radio in a Bag as above. It is much more clear and obvious to tell the significant character of the work using such a formal introduction.  Personally, I feel the simple but smart idea directly through the object. After I found the critique writing from V&A website, I learnt that sometimes simple can also mean incredible clever. Furthermore, clever idea always can make riches both materially and mentally. People love to buy something smart and stylish. Especially when we produce clever ideas on a smart look object, it is more effective than making a stodgy advertisement. I am saying with respect and grateful.  

Review of Anish Kapoor’s Turning the world upside down-kensington gardens exhibition

exhibition describing  

“It takes place in the beautiful surroundings of one of London’s eight Royal Parks, showcasing a series of major recent works never before shown together in London. Kapoor’s stainless steel sculptures are situated within the beautiful landscapes and stunning setting of Kensington Gardens. This free exhibition runs across autumn, winter and spring, reflecting the different colours, elements and moods of the changing seasons.”

Feeling

Walking into the garden is an enjoyable thing. When we saw the stunning sculpture setting in the middle of the river or under a tree, we were not thinking about the sculpture itself but the fantasy view upon us. The reflection shown on the mirror-like surfaces confused us but also fascinated us. “Despite their monumentality, the works seemingly exist through the reflection of their surroundings: the sky, trees, water, passing swans, or people.”

One of my friend told me that he felt it looked like dragging the heaven down to our earth. I think this is what the title of the works trying to tell us, it is making the world upside down here. My favourite one is NO. A work named Sky Mirror 2006 which is setting on the other side of the Longwater. On the first glance, we could not tell what exactly was there. Or we could say that we could not believe that there was a piece of sky right in front of us. It stood out because we had a distance far from it. Looking by the angle, we could only see the pure sky on the surface. It felt like the boundary between sky and ground had been disappeared  at that point. What a wonder land there!

The whole group of works really inspired us to think about our relationship with nature surrounding.  At the same time, I also admire our mankind having such a intelligent idea and representing it in such a smart way. It  always can be seen in another way onto something which is too common to us in our life time. 

Design for Business

Studio and Logo

About the main design aspect of my studio

The main design aspect of my studio is graphic design and I gave it two names, "Vicom" and "Ideamind" namely. I need to choose one of them.

At first, I came out three logos for representing my studio. 

The first one was combing english letters  as a Chinese character form with a specific traditional chinese meaning. I hoped it could take some Chinese feature so that it could represent my studio’s traditional chinese spirit. 

At the second stage of designing, I got deep into my concept, linking with the traditional mask of Beijing opera.

I found that it was too dark and not bright enough. Besides, the mask I chose at the first time was not a good enough model as a representative of China. 

Therefore, when the design went on to the third stage, I researched lots of masks of Beijing opera on internet. Finally, I found one that could not be more proper to my goal. It is named the Monkey King or Sun Wu Kong.

It is a lively character which belongs to a very traditional Chinese fairy tale-The Pilgrimage to the West. Monkey King are seen as a most capacity character who has lots of abilities, such as transfiguration, good fighting and flying on the cloud. He is fractious but creative. He loves to challenge the authority and break the convention. This is way I decided to use the mask of the Monkey King as model to represent my studio.

Moreover, the simple of Monkey King is not only well known in China,  but also in many other parts of the world in many forms of art. For instant, the film-The Forbidden Kingdom-was one of the famous works used Monkey King to tell a fascinating story. The famous acter Jet Li was the one who took the role of Monkey King in this film. 

I am hoping my studio can have a breakthrough basis on our chinese traditional elements and create my own looks. The Monkey King is the right one which can add both the strength and the intelligence inside my studio as the best choice.

The moodboard

About me

I would like to choose Tattoo as an object to present myself. 

Firstly, tattoo is a group of beautiful traces stabbed on human skin by needle. It only can be obtain after the serious thinking, self-examination and the pain bearing. I think the path of getting a tattoo is similar to the process of designing. A good design can not be achieved without the careful thinking, repeatedly negation and rebuilding. 

Secondly, it was seen as a bad thing because only the criminals and mafias would have a tattoo in the past in China. However, there are more and more young people like to have a tattoo in their body as a piece of art that could be hold in their whole life. Apparently, I am one of them as well. So, I really think that Tattoo is a wonderful object to show who I am.