Drawing Machines

Hello fellow art-maniacs!

My name’s Christine Kim and I created the BOW “Technical Questions, An Inquiry of Authenticity”, honoured with its inclusion in ARTEXPRESS 2009; my body of work included drawing robots/machines which drew instead of me: the “Artist”.

I’m writing this post mainly for students who are feeling a sense of unease or are unconfident about how their BOW may turn out, with the hope that I could provide you (a fellow student) with a sense of comfort – I want to tell you about the processes that I went through to complete my project as it might aid you with a greater understanding of the kinds of processes that you too may encounter throughout the year… I had a tough HSC year, and I hope that my experiences can make you feel a bit better…

I never envisioned my project to turn out the way it did (as you can see it in the Artexpress exhibition)… If you asked me at the beginning of year 12 “how will your major work end up by the end of year 12?” the description I would have given you would be very different to what it actually ended up being.

I finished my HSC year with what ended up being a large-sized project (6 drawing machines, 40 drawings, 2 flip-books, 1 photo book, 1 video = a total of 50 bits and pieces = a lot). A student once asked me “how brave were you to think of doing such a large project?” but to be perfectly honest… I was never brave, I was a consistent worker... I worked on one thing at a time: a thought became an idea, an idea became a drawing, which lead to another drawing, which lead to a robot, which lead to another robot…

and a single thought just continued to GROW.

of course, that is simplifying things a bit… there were a few ups and downs in between

By the end of Year 11 (the stage where you go into year 12), everyone in my art class was panicking:
“I don’t have a concept for my major work”
“I don’t know whether I’m a drawer, a painter, a sculptor, or an anything-er”
“I don’t know what kind of materials I want to work with”

and soon enough people became so stressed they become stressed about small things like “I don’t know how to sharpen my charcoal-pencil and I need to find the teacher to get permission to do it because it’s got something to do with OHS and I don’t think I’m allowed to sharpen it myself unless I might be able to get away with trying to sharpen it with scissors – will scissors be sharp enough…? Maybe I can figure out if it will be sharp enough or not if I just test it on the edge of this wooden table but then it might leave a conspicuous dent on the surface and that would be awkward… OH SHI* I WASTED TIME just sitting here WORRYING – WHY AREN’T I GETTING ANY WORK DONE?!”

By the end of the 4th term of the year, everyone had a vague idea of what concept/materials practice they wanted to work with: one girl wanted to explore the concept of “beauty”, another wanted to work with fabric materials, another wished to do charcoal drawings… the list goes on… everyone had a vague idea, except for me.

To find out what I thought I was good at, I tried making collages and acrylic paintings in my own time, I tried collecting materials to see if I felt a certain affinity with anything in particular. I tried everything, but found nothing that the teacher and I both agreed on… this was a bit scary for me for two reasons:

1) Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing

2) I started art a bit late, you see, (I started visual arts in the second term of year 11 because I was silly and took too long to realised that economics was a waste of time to learn and dropped it a bit late) and the other students in the class always seemed to be a bit ahead of me and always seemed to know more than me: know what they’re good at, know what ‘conceptual frames’ were, know the difference between the Dada movement to Cubism to expressionism to realism, and simple things like know where the teacher kept all the equipment

To make long stories short, I decided to make drawing robots, which was even more scary for me to agree to because I’ve never made robots in my life… let alone drawing ones…

During the holiday (you know, that MASSIVE one in between year 11 and year 12), everyone was given a holiday assignment (by the teacher) to finish over the holidays to get things started.

I was asked to collect junk to begin creating a complex machine… this is where problems at home began…
me: “Dad, I need your help… I need to collect junk… and LOTS of it..”
dad: “what for? You’re going to filth up the house… we already have enough junk in the house” me: “it’s for my HSC project”
Dad: “oh really? Oh in that case sure – tell me all that you need and I’ll do it for you”
me: “I need junk… and LOTS of it…”
dad: “what are you making?”
me: “drawing robots”
dad: “……………………..”
me: “………………………..”
dad: “you’re not going to make drawing robots…”
me: “but the teacher suggested that it’s the best option…”
dad: “no… you are going to.. that’s a silly/ridiculous idea… you’re going to make a collection of photoshopped images… I’ll even print them out on MASSIVE canvases for you (because my dad sells ink) trust me, it will be great”
me: “no… teacher said drawing machines”
dad: “no… that’s just silly… that’s really silly… you have no idea what you’re talking about…”

and it was hard to work when parents didn’t support me – he was reluctant to help me collect junk, which I needed a car for, and no junk meant that I didn’t have anything to work with.

Every time I drew sketches of potential robots dad would look worried and tell me he thinks photoshopped images are a far better idea…

It was scary to think that you have to shift your ideas in the absence of your teacher, but to keep dad happy, I changed my WHOLE concept – I wasn’t going to make drawing robots.

I made plans for my new idea – made sketches of various potential photoshopped images, etc, worked very hard, etc…

I came to school and the teacher really didn’t like what I did over the holiday… I was quite upset and couldn’t keep myself from crying because I had worked so hard… I worked so so so hard… I nearly completed one VAPD by now… all for nothing… it was frustrating… it was also hard because I was having other problems at home other than my school work as my parents were struggling financially and were in bad health…

BUT IT WAS OK!! Because year 12 had only just begun, and I had a whole year to redeem myself :)

So after long/frustrating talks with rents, I began making robots again… I initially wanted to have just ONE drawing robot (about 1m cubed in size), and perhaps ONE drawing with ONE DVD…
Things changed, and I ended up with a very different outcome (as mentioned in the beginning)

hhmm… this post is very long... sorry I just realised…

But there is ONE THING I wanted to let you know: no matter how uncertain things might seem, no matter how discouraged you might feel when things don’t work, no matter how hard things might be at home, you will be ok in the end – no, you will be MORE than ok – you will be fantastic… as long as you want badly enough to be! :) I can say that with complete confidence because it's the truth...

Completing a BOW is very rewarding… you feel like it was a busy year, but it was a year full of personal achievements and growth…

I hope you enjoy every moment of your BOW like as if it is the last you will ever do, regardless of whether you get into Artexpress or not...

because in the end it’s not really about the work… it’s about what you learnt from doing it

Christine Kim

P.S. This is an incredibly long post… there were lots of things I didn’t mention because I thought I might bore you. If you have any questions that you’d wish to ask me about HSC in general, more specific processes of completing a work, or would like help with VA HSC exam questions, or anything, email me or leave a comment on this post - I will try to get back to you asap.