"xyz Qin #1", March, almost finished

 

Poster of the "xyz Qin" Research-Creation project.  Advisors from Tainan University of the Arts, Master Chinese Music Instrument maker: Mr.Shan ZhiYuan

Almost finished "xyz#1" based on the Shosoin in Nara, final layers of finishing lacquer to be applied  and gold inlaid next.


 
First one almost finished ready for final touch up and lacquer finish, then there will be the gold inlaid to be designed and worked on with a specialist in the art of lacquer with gold inlaid at the Department of metal work. The wooden embryo - xyz Qin #2, will be delicately carved inside with thickness variations for different strings.  The variation is to enhance vibration properties of each string as per thickness of string.


   
Drilling holes for the strings: first half way through, align from the back, second half of the hole.  This way, the holes are aligned properly, neat and clean


   
 Samples of strings available on the market today:  left nylon strings with coating from PRC, "ice string" from Xiamen, "silk strings from Suzhou. 



   
 When applying the deer horn powder mixed with lacquer, the mixture is best to be rather dry.  If the lacquer is too wet, when it dries, the polymers will wrinkle into many folds like "sharpie dog skin" and will take a lot of work to remove, also the density of the material snuffles the sound.  When it is dry, the material is more porous, a much better vibration property for the sound to resonate.  Raw natural lacquer is toxic, some people are allergic to the fumes.  Skin may become red and burnt from the fumes.  Wear gloves, masks.  People who are very allergy should not work w lacquer because the inflamation that occurs inside the body is v dangerous.  On the hands, it doesnt look pretty or comfortable but not life threatening.



   
 Back of xyz Qin #1.  Back. with deer horn powder hui layer, coarse, medium and fine, one layer of black lacquer, one layer of lacquer with iron oxide for giving a bright color to the sound.  Excess is sanded off using no800 sandpaper.  Next, is the touch up black lacquer, then fine polishing lacquer.  7 lacquers of thin transparent lacquer to be applied next.



 
Happy Qin Maker, a very good worker, a classmate.   :)
His qin is in a Ming style, named "Phoenix Singing" (Feng Ming)
Here the qin is sitting inside a tuning rack to see if any adjustments are to be made and in general the character of this qin.  Each qin has a different voice, due to the natural properties of the wood - the body shape and many other factors.  This one is a solid, good volume qin.  Volume is not the same as timbre.  Every step of the way will reveal the character of the qin.  Even after completion, if a qin is not touched and just resting as a decoration, it would not have been "exercised" and could loose its voice.

Jin xing Canal+ interview, Christy Chung super woman, Russel Peters Smart Racism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_XxiFvCR9I
Canal+ interview JinXing, on Chanel suit, lovers, etc



Christy Chung - shes v sexy and natural. Christy Chung super woman

Doggie with perfect pitch

Berlin project: mixed reality machinima

Marina

A lot of people have tears rolling down their faces... do you think this could be a repeatable performance to be carried out by others? Ordinary people for example? Or is Marina a special person who could bring something special because its her?

Asia Art Archive : Huang Yong Ping, Hou Hanru, Liu Xiao Dong

Asia Art Archive : Huang Yong Ping, Liu Xiao Dong




Huang Yong Ping




Hou Hanru


 

Liu XiaoDong

Zhang Huan, Homeshop Beijing

Zhang Huan on his own work


 
http://www.homeshop.org.cn/#projects

http://www.homeshopbeijing.org/blog/

BuHua Cat Animation

http://www.china.org.cn/english/2004/Nov/113605.htm



Savage Growth





Cat

Heart

A seeds journey



 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z4evobnnic

urban alphabet short story

The sky : Lisa Reinermann

35 ways for Laura to Die

chicken a la carte, short film first prize Berlinale

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

Russell Peters, Ami Yamato

The adventures of Swannjie: Taiwan rl+sl

"The adventures of Swannjie :  Taiwan rl+sl "  under 5mn

=================================================

Synopsis of "The adventures of Swannjie : Taiwan rl+sl" showreel clips

The Swannjie character will be a small tiny mime artist moving along the edge of the frame, leaving a lot of room for the main focus :  the live footage

The Swannjie role is to accompany viewers, giving her responses to what is shown - and shared in viewing - in the real life footage.  Her role is not a narrator, but more spectator accompanying the viewer.  She also asks silly questions sometimes, and gets an answer from "a voice".  The "voice", doesnt always know the answer, but from the way the answer is given, we know "the voice" is trying to make Swannjie enjoy her trip and not worry about unknowns.  

After around 5mn of intensive visiting, Swannjie will be plucked out of the scene and put back into her Flys Eye Dome.  She says, goodbye to the viewers.

Components of a showreel : 

testing layers of clips and simple editing software

Mock up... real life footage in background w sl footage in foreground

===

http://youtu.be/Hm0AbP7ZqV4

Digital Guqin Museum Garden+Swannjie ap1

Film title too faint in red, using this delicate font best to be in yellow, or white

testing of: transitions effects, text box, fonts, tv in sl environment (how to get rid of the multiple other peoples clips unrelated to the focus?), 3d mouse versus 2d mouse, Eyebeam sim development, Digital Guqin Museum Garden, youtuberepeater.com  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSAf6qSo6pg&feature=youtu.be
Test clip :: small mime Swannjie from the Virtual World does kungfu moves in the front, and large live action from the real world on screen at the back.  



 http://youtu.be/6U6Qn2iA38I
 http://youtuberepeater.be/6U6Qn2iA38I
Kungfu Swannjie practicing infront of her HuaKui Mobile Music wall.  Chroma backgrd
Lots of room will be left for the live footage.  Depending on the footage we get from the real location, the foreground would be re-shot to achieve the right composition.



 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5F1IG0BiAI Swannjie practices on her little sky platform.  HuaHui (HuaKui) cube wall.  Uchui chair, HuaKui Dome home.  The cubes each has a QR code tag, its an interactive wall for amusement surfing and serious reading and research too.
The chroma layer will be filled by live footage from her visits.




  
http://youtu.be/3d8qm3iKlM8
Scene1// Test3, with round translucent carpet 
chroma green part will be filled with real life footage of Taiwan

===================================================



Swimming inside the shop: Katati shop at NeoKowloon sim



Stealth 2 testing, Swannjie tip toeing around...Inside Katati shop at NeoKowloon sim



          Hitchcock, Psycho in sl screen/audio capture + subtitle/text overlaid; 
screen captured at a LEA art installation which has been taken down. There will be a new filming studio sponsored by Linden Lab will be permanently installed at LEA20 in a few weeks time.        

===========================================================================

Storybook of Swannjie in Secondlife+Real Life while building a Digital Guqin Museum

(Mini graphic novel.)
















 



HuaHui Mobile Music under a tree




===

More about being a fairy...
Never thought I would enjoy being a fairy, but, and yet, here we are, and I am looking pretty w my newbie green wings too! :)


Mobile Music at ShangriLa, Fairy installation for fashion show of Wisteria Loon by Shenlei Flasheart

A beautiful book by Shenlei for Misteria Loon, great book, glossy pages.  A book of fashion, from sl to rl.  Nice coffee table book and for good memories!

===

Terayama Shūji 寺山 修司

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny_3M93Kcmg 二頭女 ─ 影の映画 (1977) 

Terayama Shūji 寺山 修司

Shūji Terayama From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Shūji Terayama 

Born December 10, 1935 Died May 4, 1983 (aged 47) Nationality Japanese Occupation Poet, dramatist, writer, film director, photographer Shūji Terayama (寺山 修司 Terayama Shūji?, December 10, 1935 – May 4, 1983) was an avant-garde Japanese poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. According to many critics and supporters,[1] he was one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan. He was born December 10, 1935, the only son of Hachiro and Hatsu Terayama in Hirosaki city in the northern Japanese prefecture of Aomori. His father died at the end of Pacific War in Indonesia in September 1945. When Terayama was nine, his mother moved to Kyūshū to work at an American military base, while he himself went to live with relatives in the city of Misawa, also in Aomori. At this same time, Terayama lived through the Aomori air raids that killed more than 30,000 people. Terayama entered Aomori Prefectural Aomori High School in 1951, and in 1954 went to prestigious Waseda University's Faculty of Education to study Japanese language and literature. However, he soon dropped out because he fell ill with nephrotic syndrome. He received his education through working in bars in Shinjuku. His oeuvre includes a number of essays claiming that more can be learned about life through boxing and horse racing than by attending school and studying hard. Accordingly, he was one of the central figures of the "runaway" movement in Japan in the late 1960s, as depicted in his book, play, and film "Throw Away Your Books, Run into the Streets! (書を捨てよ、町へ出よう)". In 1967, Terayama formed the Tenjō Sajiki (天井桟敷) theater troupe, whose name comes from the Japanese translation of the 1945 Marcel Carné film "Les Enfants du Paradis", so can be translated as "children of heaven", however its correct translation is "Ceiling Gallery" and has a meaning similar to the English expression "Peanut Gallery". The troupe was dedicated to the avant-garde and staged a number of controversial plays tackling social issues from an iconoclastic perspective. Some major plays include "Bluebeard" (青ひげ), "Yes" (イエス), and "The Crime of Fatso Oyama" (大山デブコの犯罪), among others. Also involved with the theater were artists Aquirax Uno (宇野亜喜良) and Tadanori Yokoo (横尾忠則), who designed many of the advertisement posters for the group. Musically, he worked closely with experimental composer J.A. Seazer and folk musician Kan Mikami. He was also involved in poetry and at 18 was the second winner of the Tanka Studies Award. Terayama experimented with ‘city plays’, a fantastical satire of civic life. Shuji Terayama's grave (Takao Cemetery zone A front row, 高尾霊園A区) Google maps view Also in 1967, Terayama started an experimental cinema and gallery called 'Universal Gravitation,' which is in fact still in existence at Misawa as a resource center. The Terayama Shūji Memorial Hall, which has a large collection of his plays, novels, poetry, photography and a great number of his personal effects and relics from his theatre productions, can also be found in Misawa. In 1976, he was a member of the jury at the 26th Berlin International Film Festival.[2] Terayama published almost 200 literary works, and over 20 short and full-length films. He was married to Tenjō Sajiki co-founder Kyōko Kujō (九條今日子), but they later divorced, although they continued to work together until Terayama's death on May 4, 1983 from cirrhosis of the liver.

Eva Joly

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1059891/posts about french judicial system, Eva Joly

thailand time lapse

mini film by Toyota 8mn romance

First contact with Guqin research 2000; 4th International Guqin Dapu Conference, Changshu, PRC; xyzQin # 1

I have a complete video record of the 4th International Guqin Dapu Conference, Changshu 2004.  Including some after conference evening informal concerts - called : YaJi - Elegant Gatherings, which happened in all the hotel rooms.  We were housed at a private resort owned by a bank in Changshu.  There were concerts non stop during the 4 days.  People met each other, exchanged ideas got all excited - people hung around in the hotel everywhere from 9h00 to midnight.

I purchased my first guqin made by Zhang JianHua in year 2000 at the occasion of 4th International Dapu Conference at Changshu, PRC - who is a famous qin maker now, in Beijing.  His atelier is shown in the prize winning book on Qin by Professor Cecilia Linqvist.  I have not been to his atelier but hope to do so when I visit Beijing next time.  Changshu is now declared Historical Heritage Town of Guqin by Unesco, and a very elegant museum of Guqin has been established.  Many years later, I have visited the museum and filmed the director Mr.Zhu Xi, a passionate Qin player.

I participated at the conference in 2000 and filmed the conference to have a record of the event - for my own reference purpose.  At that time, no one really had good equipment to do so.  I presented my research-creation project and found a suitable collaborator to work with me.  Professor Chen Changlin - a reknown Qin player and computer scientist was at the conference.  Chen Changlin was playing with a mini qin that he made himself.  It was a simple chipboard he cut from a retired computer cupboard and he added strings to the qin.  This little qin he gave me after we completed our research as a gift!    I thought it so marvellous that we could make a qin simply and it works!  He said he takes it with him everywhere in order to practice everyday.  I filmed his little qin playing session in his hotel room.  There were a few other young players.  The ambiance of the conference was very warm, everyone was so excited because the last conference on guqin had been 14 years earlier!

So, I felt very previleged and lucky a// to learn of this instrument up close, with this  group of passionate people in it, and b// that the conference had accepted my participation to present a project on the preservation and promotion of guqin using Digital Technology.  I wanted to do something meaningful with Digital Technology and as i had successfully received a research grant for my idea - why not do it with the guqin!  Take ancient Chinese Culture and bring it into todays world!  The instrument was very elegant and simple - with shapes of very clean lines - the sound is so human like - I decided that is the most worthwhile idea and I wanted to do "Qin and Qin Culture" with the grant.

At the time, some Hong Kong players proposed that I purchase a collectioner item from their own collection.   As I was a complete beginner, I prefer to begin at the beginning and buy a beginners guqin.  With the help of very enthusiastic Hong Kong friends, I had met Zhang JianHua and Wang Peng, and with careful deliberation, testing of sounds, playing notes, etc.  The dear friends collectively helped me choose a "Fu Xi" style qin.  Very big bodied, with a very nice sound.  It will age very well, they advised me.  

I am very happy with the Zhang JianHua qin.  I play with it and hang it up on my wall til this day.

I now have several qins.  Two prototypes, I had designed myself and had the embryo made to specification by Tian Shuang Kun, and the lacquer layer put on, through instructions by Zheng Min Zhong.  These were finished by a Cantonese Qin maker later as I had not enough off hour time to do it.  Qin number one is called "Half HunDun 2006", and Qin number two, "Small Hand scroll".  Pictures later.

In year 2011-2013, I finally could make an entire guqin by myself under the instruction of Master Shan ZheYuan at National Tainan University of the Arts, Taiwan, at the Chinese Music Department.  There is a Workshop where all kinds of Chinese instruments are made.  This would be the xyz Qin (number three for me), and its called "xyz Qin number 1" as these two xyz Qins are prototypes for other reasons which I will elaborate later in another post.

So as of today, 9Aug2013, I have a third completed qin made by myself.

I have great satisfaction just looking at it, seeing it leaning against a wall - in my bedroom.

http://www.geocities.jp/qsshc/cmusic/cmusicd3.html 

 

http://www.geocities.jp/qsshc/cmusic/cmusicd3.html

anna mae wong

http://youtu.be/I7famM6ABrg

Vanessa Paradis

KaKapo Animation 2010

Jean de la Lune 2012 dec

so you think you could dance, China.

Reggie Watts

feather balancing act

balancing act

machinima film studio

http://machinimasl.blogspot.tw/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-vik6nb58o



http://uwainsl.blogspot.tw/2013/03/reflections-machinimuwa-vi-launches.html

housing bubble in China

http://youtu.be/uxjwhk1ktNw

Chinese Mandarin Vocaloid

http://www.vocaloidchina.com/cn/vclib.html

http://www.vocaloidchina.com/cn/images/demo1_30s.mp3























HuaHui Mobile Music under a tree




===

More about being a fairy...
Never thought I would enjoy being a fairy, but, and yet, here we are, and I am looking pretty w my newbie green wings too! :)


Mobile Music at ShangriLa, Fairy installation for fashion show of Wisteria Loon by Shenlei Flasheart

A beautiful book by Shenlei for Misteria Loon, great book, glossy pages, wow. I want to have a book like this tooooooo.... :) from sl to rl. Good memories!! Nice coffee table book!

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