Statement of Intent

The story of this project is based on a dream of my friend and me. Two years ago, my friend told me a dream of a festival in an old-fashioned village worshipping a monster living on a mountain in the middle of a black lake. A few months later, I dreamed of an escape from a tribe haunted by their past by killing a man. We fused the two visions together and decided to make a comic. Two years later, the comic is nowhere to be seen, but my interpretation of the dream grew wicked and twisted. In making logic of the dream for a clear storyline, I was dissatisfied with how the dream lost its mysterious fascination as it became more logical and apparent. I figured that the reason why this dream impressed me so much was due to the unconnected, jumpy events that contained complicated emotions.

In this dream:’ a girl mysteriously woke up in a village in the middle of a festival to worship a mountain god. When she regained control of her body, she was on a boat towards a temple on a mountain in the middle of a lake. She knew the mountain was evil, and in her attempt at resistance, she learned that everyone was dead and trapped in time due to their obsession with their mountain god. The girl eventually escaped by killing a man who claimed to be a collective representation of the villager’s past associations with the world.’ Luciam Fruid believed in dreams as ‘the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind’. With metaphors disguised in dreams visions, per his ‘Interpretations Of Dreams’, my subconscious reflects fear of the unknown, escapism and sexual desire. Unlike Fruid, I don’t try to make sense of the dreams. I simply appreciate the visual chaos and translate them into reality. 

Inspired by a Disney short film collaborated with Dali ‘Destino’ and ‘A Mind Sang’ by Vier Nev, I want to focus on animation transition performed by experimental materials. Last week, I used cyanotype for the first time using pressed flowers, creating highly detailed printings of nature. This process reminds me of shadow puppetry in how it records silhouettes, which interested me in creating an animation using cyanotype and traditional Chinese shadow puppetry Pi Ying. I have used shadow puppets in several projects. This time I would like to elevate the detail and the methods of manipulating shadow. I can also add another dimension to the use of shadow – filming an interaction of my shadows with animation. Additionally, I want to attempt other traditional Chinese painting materials, such as heat-treating copper – (Shao Bo) Remixing traditional methods into 3D. I will forget about clean drawings and a clear storyline in this project,  I will also try to make tribal, drum based music and chanting that offsets or mismatch the mood attempting to challenge a and express raw, uncanny emotions. I hope to explore and illustrate a chaotic, unexpected world of insanity.