Natsu no Koi

Reconstructivism and Art

As an expansion of Reconstructing History in Anime, Reconstructivism can be used as a framework towards audience engagement or education development. I strongly feel that topics (such as history or art) can be made more relevant to various audiences in various forms. As demonstrated by the previous example in Kantai Collection, how can we possibly infer the usage of Reconstructivism in art presentation?

Mona Lisa and Her Sisters

A strong example of re-looking at a celebrated painting would be Leonard da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. I am sure many would know of this iconic masterpiece that currently resides in the Louvre, France (incidentally, the gallery renovation was financed by the Nippon Television in 2005).

On the superficial level, it is just the painting itself – beautiful and enigmatic. However, Paris-based Lumiere Technology was able to uncover various layers of the Mona Lisa through their multispectral digitisation processes. While the information from these various layers allowed for optimal conservation (which is another boring thing that can be made amazing), the Louvre was able to present the scientific information gathered from the painting itself as an educational tool in the form of their specialised web portal – Focus Louvre (direct link to the comparison aspect).

Since then, the Mona Lisa (and her layer-sisters, har har) became part of a travelling exhibition called the Da Vinci – The Genius. This exhibition made its rounds to Singapore in 2009 and became wildly popular with students and general public alike (I was there, the crowds were crazy). Most of the people I met and talked to were amazed by this layered (I have to stop punning) approach in presenting an iconic masterpiece, and allowed them to feel more attached or relevant to the painting itself – it wasn’t just the famous Mona Lisa, it was Mona Lisa and everything she is under all that.

Linking the Framework

Let’s analyse the exhibition here in the framework of Reconstructivism (as mentioned in the previous column)… the Mona Lisa painting itself (classic structure), the multispectral layers (visual symbols), the narratives behind each layer (context), and audience engagement (emotive-reflective significance).

It is pretty obvious how the Mona Lisa can be construed as classic structure – due to its iconic status as a masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci. The multispectral layers are visual symbols based on the fact that each layer is a simplified visual symbol (for example, preparatory layers of the painting) but still form the basis of reference to the end result. Based on my memory of the exhibition, there are narratives attached to each layer (such as corrections made to the structure of the face, inclusion of objects in various parts of the painting, and even material usage) – these narratives form the context of the layers themselves. Through the presentation of these layers and narratives, audience response gave strong evidence of the significant attachment or realisation that the iconic masterpiece was not just the reverence towards the masterpiece nor just Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile.

Influence on Presentation and Programming

This particular presentation of Mona Lisa can be concluded as a masterwork in education and presentation. The very idea of bringing a “commonly known” masterpiece to the audience, and shedding new light for the benefit of the audience; is simply staggering in its implications towards closer engagement with audiences.

Now it is not just about “We have beautiful artworks here! Come and see!” or “We managed to butcher the artworks so you can have a photo opportunity!”, it is now “I bet you didn’t know about this! Let’s find out more together!”. The thought of enticing audiences with a sense of mystery, allows presenters and programmers the ability to provide windows of opportunity towards self discovery. When the audience is given this opportunity, it allows for their self growth within their own control and be positively receptive as compared to being forced down the throat with cut-and-dried information on how to interpret something.

End Note

Self discovery and growth, coupled with interest (of any multitude), can be factors that influence successful presentation and programming. By utilising Reconstructivism as a framework, presenters and programmers may find it easier to develop their presentations with a direct focus on audience engagement and education. It would be a slow process to engage and educate, but a trickle turns into a torrent – and that is where sustained interests in the arts (or any form) can be achieved for the long term.

Credit: Image from Focus Louvre (http://focus.louvre.fr/)

Anime and Philosophy

Japanese animation (henceforth, anime) is something I am quite fond of. I was inspired to illustrate and doodle by this particular art form practised by the Japanese (my pathetic attempts can be seen all over this website too). As I grew older, I have begun to look at anime with different perspectives based on what I understand about various philosophies and ideologies (and sometimes theological perspectives). A good example would be my fascination of the ability of the anime industry to relate the life styles and social impact of their hikikomori population (for example, N.H.K ni Yokoso).

I have often talked about Reconstructivism (Wiki summary and Chris Sunami’s influential essay) as a way to analyse art, to analyse the creative process, and to engage audiences. In fact, a lot of my research is oriented towards human engagement in arts as opposed to the tired path of historical regurgitation. However, what are some ways to reap the benefits that the ideals of Reconstructivism can provide? Allow me to present one fine example.

Reconstructing History in Kantai Collection (Kancolle)

I do have a fondness for history pertaining to the second World War where tanks and naval ships have always been the key focus of my interests in that particular aspect of human history. However, cut-and-dried history is something I cannot grasp fully… I don’t exactly have a photographic memory of names and dates – the stories behind the individual points of conflict were what kept me fascinated.

I chanced upon a game called Kantai Collection, which is developed by Kadokawa Shoten and DMM.com. The premise of this web browser game is the idea of ships being anthropomorphised into cute (usually) anime girls (henceforth, kanmusu) sporting naval armaments, who are then sent on various sorties to fulfil quests or whatever the developers have in mind. I was hooked, it had everything I was interested in… WWII, naval ships and anime.

The Japanese are very good at this.
– T Tsuruta, Japanese artist (referring to anthropomorphisation)

Allow me to indulge here and perhaps you will understand.

This is Myoko. She is a heavy cruiser from the Imperial Japanese Navy (henceforth, IJN) during the second World War. When I first saw her design, the camouflage design reminded me of how a lot of the coastal batteries in Singapore were painted (or influenced by).

When the Kancolle Summer Event 2016 rolled out, the event map was a representation of the maritime waters around Singapore.

One of the Summer Event bosses is called the Harbour Summer Princess, who is identified as Singapore.

Look! The developers anthromopohised Singapore into a cool anime girl with a brolly and leg-things that seems to hint towards our cultural icon, the Merlion (not to mention the coconuts).

Over here, you can see Ushio (an IJN destroyer) with Myoko and another destroyer (hidden) called Kasumi.

If you are half as crazy as I am, you begin to wonder why anime girl ships in a game and how does that relate to Reconstruction and history?

Following the Reconstructivism framework that I written about (based on Sunami’s work), it follows the structure of familiar game mechanics (classic structure), the kanmusu designs (visual symbols), the kanmusu backstories that are identifiable and attached to them (context), and community reflections (emotive-reflective significance).

The kanmusu are re-birthed (as the backstory goes) from the souls of the brave naval crew and the actual ships themselves… manifesting in a way where the kanmusu experience existence in this fantasy world. However, the kanmusu and game mechanics can be considered as symbols or semiotics. The context of the entire game experience (the basis of Reconstructivism) would be the meanings and stories behind each particular kanmusu.

When I see Myoko, I am reminded of the historical fact that she was left at the Seletar harbour when the IJN decided that they did not have the resources to repair her towards the end of the war. It was just that smidgen of military history that I have, but when Myoko (the anime kanmusu) appeared as a visual character… it appeared to me as a symbol of something far more complex and of significant context.

Myoko was berthed in Singapore’s Seletar harbour after she was hit by torpedoes from USS Bergall (SS-320) on 13 December 1944. Prior to being hit, she (and Ushio) was escorting a convoy of naval auxiliaries (convoy HI-82) heading back to Japan. After the encounter with USS Bergall, Myoko was towed back to Singapore by Kasumi and Hatsushimo for repairs. After evaluation, Myoko was deemed to be unrepairable (due to lack of resources) and she was left at Singapore with another crippled heavy cruiser, Takao. Both were moored at the Seletar harbour to act as anti-aircraft platforms due to their incapacitated status instead (which the British later found that both cruisers were stocked with anti-aircraft ammunition instead of ammunition for their main naval guns).

Towards July 1945, Myoko and Takao became the targets of Operation Struggle as their main naval guns was thought to pose a threat to maritime activities of the Allied forces. However, the operation (involving submarines from the British Navy) were not particularly successful in sinking both ships.

 

After the surrender of Japanese occupation forces in Singapore, Myoko was towed and scuttled (accompanied by IJN submarines I-501 and I-502) in the Straits of Malaya, off the now Port Klang, Malaysia.

Now… this game really means something else now, eh? Following the game mechanics, presentation style and stories of actual naval ships, the concept of Reconstructivism is alive and well in Kancolle – and it is simply amazing. However, I have left out a significant portion of the Reconstructivism framework – emotive-reflective significance.

The Kancolle community boasts a large number of players who are working professionals, military historians, manga artists, musicians, story writers and other professions. Due to their interests, they are happily involved in creating derivative fan works based on the history of the ships while utilising the characterisation given by the game itself. The community then shares these derivatives on platforms such as Pixiv, NicoNico and Youtube – as well as a large number of manga artists who would produce derivative comic shorts/books and make them available for sale in Japan (Melonbooks is one such publishing platform utilised by such artists). Do note that the Kancolle community is not just limited to the Japanese audience, but world-wide as well.

The story of the IJN destroyer Shigure is one of the many IJN naval ships that has captured the hearts and minds of the Kancolle community. Fan-made music videos ( Tom キネマ106’s まっくろな雨 is one fine example) and manga (due to the fan community’s propensity to orientate towards questionable content, I am unable to share links on these) revolves about her character’s suggested PTSD issues (as originally suggested from her voice lines within the game and canonical information from the developers) stemming from the historical fact that she was the sole survivor of the Battle of Surigao Strait (which saw the loss of IJN battleships Fuso and Yamashiro, heavy cruiser Mogami, destroyers Michishio, Asagumo, and Yamagumo – as part of the Southern Force, commanded by Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura during Operation Sho-Go).

Due to her backstory and the community reactions towards her, Shigure is one of the most popular characters as it definitely resonates with how the community see her as an exemplary icon of being a loyal protector of her friends.

Now What?

While it can be argued that only people who are marginally interested in history and naval battles would be motivated enough (by this game) to explore further and research on the actual histories of such kanmusu… the question now is how can we actually utilise what we have learnt from Kancolle’s example to further engage audiences in various genres of topics.

I actually have an idea using an iconic national artwork as a case study
towards this concept of Reconstructivism and audience engagement.
But I can’t write about it… because reasons.

I’ll write about how Reconstructivism, education and audience engagement can be presented (sort of) in another column.

Further Fun Reading

Some WWII ships which survived the war – IJN Yukikaze (post-war service in Taiwan), IJN Hibki (known as Верный during her post-war service in the Soviet Union’s navy), and USS Iowa (conferred as a museum ship in 2012).

After spending a few days learning how to use a video production tool (HitFilm), I managed to trim and cut synced videos of dad’s first batch of field test videos.

This particular video production tool, while easy to learn, caused some confusion earlier when I was trying to export the video files properly. There were so many settings for exporting videos and I just went blank (bit rate, frames per second, resolution… what?). Thankfully, the video production tool allows me to save my editing work as project files before committing to export them out as finalised videos.

To be honest, each session’s video took a few steps before making it onto the finalised cut. One of the issues I encountered was that the GoPro cameras, that I am using for data capture, outputs separated files once each video file (on the camera itself) reaches about 4 GB worth. That means I have to stitch all these separate files and combine them into a singular video file (plus fisheye correction rendering) on the video production tool.

I was rubbish with this step at first. So I blew an entire weekend trying to render all four sessions of videos from each camera – for a total of twelve videos (three cameras, four sessions) each averaging a total render time of four hours. And then, I realised I screwed up somewhere… and had to redo everything again.

Frustration, yes. But I think I learnt how to use
this video production tool on my own. =_=

Once those twelve videos were done, I had to spend almost a day each to eyeball and sync two videos from each session (there are four videos, from the perspective of the overhead camera, which are not used for data capture). This was where most of the editing and trimming work are done – once the project files were ready (averaging about two hours to trim and sync as a project file), I rendered them as high resolution video files for archival purposes. The final step is to queue them into another tool (Handbrake) to cut the file sizes without losing too much quality.

For these four sessions, the video production process took almost took an entire week to complete (not including the foul ups earlier). I guess I would much better prepared for the next twelve sessions!

While waiting for the next sessions to start again, I am currently tabulating the data captured by the session videos. Each video averages about 40 minutes in duration, but tabulating each session video takes about four to six hours (watching the videos from start till end repeatedly, as I need to collect information for about seven data points).

While assessing the data capture, I realised that there are ways to improve the data capture. However, for the sake of consistency, I would not be improving the data capture but discuss about the improvements in the final research paper itself.

Another artist has caught wind of what I am
doing… and wants to be documented as well.

More data for the data god!

A friend who has been working late for a few days in a row, managed to send me some messages late at night (probably not knowing whether I am still awake). For some reason, this friend’s messages kind of encouraged me to work harder (and late through the next day) for some reason.

When the crates come, couriers and curators
are really dynamic people to work with.

Probably won’t have much update on this until the field test session start again (they are based on different conditions) when dad is back from overseas.

In the meantime, ボンジュール鈴木「羊曜日に猫ごっこして」

 

Well, at least I think I am on the way there…

I have always been fascinated by the artist’s creative process – especially their thoughts processes and how they go about creating their artworks. Their techniques and “trade secrets” are equally amazing for me to understand and document (often with the condition that I keep it to myself).

In a run-up to an exhibition in early 2017, I am assisting my father in documenting his creative process. After understanding how his version of hybridity in Chinese ink painting had inspired me to write something about it, he agreed easily to be a lab rat for my proposed independent field study.

At the end of this particular session (of four paintings), I am stumped by about 120 GB worth of video data to gather my quantitative data from.

I love geeking out.

The best part is… I am supposed to gather data from sixteen paintings in total. Woooohooooo~