Cycle of Thought

This was a piece of experimental animation I did few years ago for a local film competition: The Malaysian Video Awards (MVA).  I think it was around 2005 or thereabouts.  This was my first attempt at animation and using software such as Flash and Final Cut Pro.  The process was long, as I actually created each 'box' with Adobe Illustrator.  I know that it wasn't the most efficient way of doing things, especially by today's standards, but the process was necessary (at least to me at that time) to consider how and where each 'box' would go.  The deliberation that I went through might not be obvious when you view it, especially when things are sped up, but I must admit that I attained a lot of satisfaction in the process, if not slightly indulgent.


Anyway, the genesis of this work is actually from a painting, or more appropriately an artwork I did for another competition: The Philip Morris Asean Art Awards.  There has been some controversy regarding the tobacco conglomerate and their sponsorship of this competition, which I won't really get into here but if you wish, you can read about it here: http://www.takingontobacco.org/event/asean04/partI.html


In my defense, I was oblivious to the controversy and issues at that time, and saw it as platform to get work done and exhibited.  The mix media work of mine became the basis for my animation, and I hope one day I can take this idea to another medium, perhaps an installation.  I've included below the write up I did for the animation, which hopefully explains a bit of what it is about:

"The human thought shifts from one form to another. Our thoughts are ephemeral. The realisation of where and when a thought starts and ends scarcely ever crosses our minds. The mind is in constant flux. This ‘cycling’ of ideas, thoughts, memories and emotions make the human mind a complex creation of nature. The complexity of the mind is further complicated by its susceptibility to external and internal stimuli. This ‘feature’ enables thoughts to shift and change, to evolve, to be manipulated and eventually, lead to formations of ‘new’ thoughts and ideas. The ability to deform and reform the shape and pattern of our thoughts has made the mind the most durable, and rightly, the most complex structure nature can offer.

"This animation attempts to reflect and represent this ‘observation’ and strives to simplify this complexity, but not to trivialise it. The abstract human mind is ironically personified by a very tangible and pure geometrical shape: the square. The irony of representing formlessness with strict geometrical rigidity; of imbalanced consciousness with balanced symmetry; of human irrationality with calculated formality, is intentional to make sense from the nonsensical.

"This work does not presume to be able to justify how the mind works, or even seek to understand it, but merely to represent the complexity of the ‘processes behind the working mind’, and how often we take this ‘process’ for granted."

In a nutshell, I have always been fascinated by how the mind works. How we construct thoughts, or how thoughts are born and shaped. And I thought it would be fun to try and express this through firstly, an artwork and then through animation (by which is a more appropriate medium to communicate my intentions). The point is to show how quickly our thoughts, or line of thinking, can change just by simple suggestions or stimuli. If you have ever tried tracing your thoughts to the source, you'll understand what I mean. Again, I'm not suggesting this is how every mind works, but it is certainly representational of MY thought process.

And lastly, sorry if the video size is a bit big. That's the only copy I have and I couldn't really be bothered to convert it into a smaller file/format. And thanks to a certain student of mine who was interested enough about this to bring it up. So this post is for her and hope it has provided a little more illumination.