been updated, went over to burningyggdrasilover.blogspot.com, read his
latest post, wanted to tag, figured out his convoluted navigation
links, read some tags dating back from July about me, went thru the
navi thing again to find his archive links, clicked on July 09 [if you
want to follow, just click this link: http://www.burningyggdrasilover.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
, then the (horizontally speaking) second cross from the left],
scrolled down, and saw one of his posts where he rants about people
comparing him with me and stuff.
Can I just say: If you know me, and you know Ben, I think you know
what we're like. If not, then perhaps you should read on...
(you're still reading on, aren't you, Raymond?)
Ok, first thing I must say is: (I know this will sound like that Chris
Crocker guy, but heck) just leave Ben alone. Stop comparing him with
me - we may be doing quite similar stuff - we're doing video for our
art project, we're both in choir, we're both into photography, etc. -
but we're two different people who happen to have the same interests
and closely similar subject combinations; we have differences. I can
give you a long list where we both differ. Here's a couple of examples:-
1. He actually knows music theory and he can play the piano, while I
don't.
2. Though we're both 'geeks', I can keep in shape better than he can.
Yes, that's a joke. But most importantly,
3. I've seen his work, and even though our medium is the same, the
underlying idea is absolutely different (mine was about the repetition
that I felt I was going through as a chorister, Ben's work has nothing
to do with choir, and I'm sure he has a different theme to work with
from mine).
You can't just say "Oh, look! Both of them are using the same brand of
paint! I bet one of them must have been looking at the other guy's
work and thought he should try doing the same kind of work, using the
exact same brand of paint!". No. Art does not work that way. One thing
that we learn in SOVA is that everything in an artwork has a deep
message or reason to be as such - from the choice of medium, to the
colour tone, or even the layout, or how realistic/abstract the work
is, etc. There's a reason for everything an artist does.
Look at it this way, I chose to do video because I wanted to do
photography, but was afraid my prep work would not be 'thick' enough,
judging from the way I do photography. I definitely didn't want to
dabble with a paintbrush or pencil for my final work, because I know
from my own experience how bad I am in handling those mediums compared
to others from my cohort. After all, if you're in a war where you can
choose your battleground, you wouldn't go for the one where YOU KNOW
you're at a disadvantage. I know I'm a tech-savvy person, so I chose
to bet 60% of my Art grade (with recommendation from Ms Chua) on a
medium that mixes all the things that I know I'm good at (sound from
PA and choir, visual communication from Photography and SOVA, and how
to use iMovie + Adobe Photoshop).
If you look at Ben and what he's good at (Music Theory, Photography,
Digital Art, and to a small extent, SOVA), you'd also agree that video
is a suitable medium for him. In fact, I've seen what he's done so
far, and I must say, his work is definitely more ambitious than mine,
and what he's done so far is definitely more complex than my little
loop. He did his own music track from scratch; I just processed some
recorded audio from the video shoots. He even tried to shoot frame-by-
frame to create a time lapse (I told him of a short-cut way using
Quicktime Pro after he showed me his first work-in-progress clip). You
can tell he's trying hard.
So enough about Ben doing Art. If he want to do it, and if he is
capable, then I think there's nothing wrong with him taking Art. He
shouldn't be criticized for taking a subject combination that is
similar to a previous student who happened to do well.
Also, don't keep saying he wants to be like me. You can draw
similarities between Ben and me, but you can only come up with a
correlation - a relationship between our similarities and our outcome.
You cannot draw causality - a definite cause-and-effect relationship
between our similarities and our results. Don't expect Ben to get 9
'A1's if he cannot cope with the pressure - be it from his peers, or
from his studies.
I'm a bit crossed, to be honest, that people view BenSee as a poser
trying to be like me, without thinking of
a) how their remark would be received by Ben / how their remarks will
affect Ben psychologically and emotionally,
b) how Ben actually feels from having to juggle 9 subjects, and
c) what else they can be doing - rather than making snarky remarks,
why not encourage him? I can see ZonG (the guy on his tagboard) has
done that.
K, I think I spoke quite a lot, maybe too much. I'm saying all these
only because Ben's a good friend of mine, and to give my perspective
on this whole issue of comparisons.
And Ben, if you're reading, I know you're trying hard. Just do to the
best of your ability, and remember to take a breather once in a while.
Don't let the critiques get to you.
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