PROJECT : THE LOST SYMBOLS

Muhammad Naqi Abu Bakar 1051102735

PROJECT PROPOSAL

Topic :

Symbols relating crop circles, their meanings and the connections between human and extraterrestrial

Background :

Crop circle is one of the most unexplainable events that occurred in some countries like in the United States. A crop circle is a sizable pattern created by the flattening of a crop such as wheat, barley, rye, or maize. Some says that crop circle is a hidden message sent from the unknown entity from other dimension. Some also conclude that crop circle is just another hidden agenda created by an unknown organizations for their own benefits. Albeit the numerous facts and myths stated about the crop circle, it is still a big question for people who really want to know the truth.

PROJECT PROPOSAL

Aim and Objectives :

To give a bigger perspective about the symbols and their meanings.

To create an awareness about hidden agendas in our world.

Ideation :

Creating an interactive installation that questions about the symbols and what they really wants you to understand.

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

"Symbols are more than just cultural artifacts:

[They address] our intellect, emotions, and spirit."

- David Fontana (The Secret Language of Symbols, 1993)

Before man learned about words and letters, he used different drawings and pictures to communicate stories and narratives to other people. Certain drawings or pictures were commonly used to connote particular things, thus symbols were born. Through the years, people all over the world have used symbols to mean many different things. They have become an easy way to point out an ideology, to express an abstract thought or even to denote a group or community who share the same goals.

Symbols Meaning

A symbol is something such as an object, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On maps, crossed sabres may indicate a battlefield. Numerals are symbols for numbers (amounts). All language consists of symbols. Personal names are symbols representing individuals.

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

Words Origin

The word symbol came to the English language by way of Middle English, from Old French, from Latin, from the Greek σύμβολον (sýmbolon) from the root words συν- (syn-), meaning "together," and βολή (bolē), "a throw", having the approximate meaning of "to throw together", literally a "co-incidence", also "sign, ticket, or contract". The earliest attestation of the term is in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes where Hermes on seeing the tortoise exclaims σύμβολον ἤδη μοι μέγ᾽ ὀνήσιμον "symbolon [symbol/sign/portent/encounter/chance find?] of joy to me!" before turning it into a lyre.

RESEARCH AND ANALYSISList of Symbols

These are the list of symbols :-

Alchemy Symbols

Celtic Symbols

Celtic Knots

Chinese Symbols

Christian Symbols

Egyptian Symbols

Good Luck Symbols

Greek Symbols

Japanese Symbols

Mayan Symbols

Native American

Pagan Symbols

Peace Symbols

Religious Symbols

Roman Symbols

Sacred Geometry

Strength Symbols

Symbolic Pictures

Tattoo Symbols

Buddhist Symbols

Irish Symbols

Hindu Symbols

Friendship Symbols

The Lost Symbols

Power Symbols

RESEARCH AND ANALYSISAbout Crop Circles

Crop circles uses symbols as medium to sent a message, The complexity of the crop circle attract many people around the world to analyze and interpret what the meaning behind it. Some people are attracted by the beauty of the crop circles and they want to create their own. But many are paranoid about where it come from and they create a lot of stories. Some stories are very strange by relating the crop circles as a message from aliens and some says that it's a propaganda by the government.

IDEA DEVELOPMENT

I tend to create an interactive and infographic installation that will uncover some of the mysteries of crop circles by using an electronic LED’s as a new medium to form the symbols. The symbols that will be present are selected from the most complex and meaningful as decoded by the researchers. Although there will be numerous questions about the genuine interpretations of the symbols, this installation will give users some new ideas and info to think about.

IDEA DEVELOPMENT

Precedence Studies

Command Line Wave Ver. 2

by Daito Manabe and Motoi Ishibashi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S72WjyGALJQ

IDEA DEVELOPMENT

'Command Line Wave' is a work combining live performances and installations that use light cubes with built-in handheld microphones and sounds for controlling the patterns of the light. What you hear from a fax or a modem when they are connecting is the information transformed into sound under a certain rule and it somehow sounds cool. I came up with an idea of making sound for my live performances by generating sound under a certain rule. (Not a musical rule, but a rule that derives from a technical reason for communication.) The plan of commands to control the patterns of light on the cube becomes the rule and the sequences of those commands generated under the rule becomes music. Also, the connection of the cube has an uncertainty depending on the position and angle at which it would be placed. This is not a simple interactivity on a one-on-one level, but a work that generates not only micro rules but also macro and spatial rules by selecting commands according to the information received previously such as by how many percent the object is unreactive.

CONTEXTUAL STUDIES

Mr Kok Yoong ask us to define the actual context about our project. In my understanding, my project is about an unknown symbols from the crop circles that has been related with supernatural things and conspiracy theory. I tend to create a new kind of "Crop Circle" based on interactive installation using an electronic LED's (Dot Matrix) on a board.

From what I understand, my project covers 4 context as advice by Mr Kok Yoong.

-Historical Context

-Social Context

-Political Context

-Institutional Context

Historical Context

UFO incident near Roswell, New Mexico that started the extraterrestrial phenomenon in June or July 1947

People started to pay attention about the unidentified flying object and related them to the military aircraft

CONTEXTUAL STUDIESSocial Context

After the famous Roswell incident, many science fiction movies / tv series started to take place in entertainment industries (The X-Files, Star Wars, Star Trek, ET, Independence Day)

New Pop Culture / trend about extraterrestrial and alien and people started to make money of it's popularity (Alien Workshop)

The discovery of Crop Circle became a new form of art for the designers and artists.

Political Context

Some believe that the government wants to divert people's attention about the global or local problems such as war crisis in the middle east, economy crisis, education crisis and the political crisis in the United States.

Some also believe that the government tend to generate fear among their citizens about the possibilities of war against the aliens from outer space.

Many weapons of mass destruction were produce as a national security excuse

Big countries fought each other for blaming that the UFO is actually a spy plane for spying an enemy, this create more excuses for more war.

Institutional Context

1. More people back to religious institutions because they are afraid of the unidentified extraterrestrial threats.

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT Technical Specs

I went to Jalan Pasar to gather some information about technical specification about my project, I went to Nixie Electronic store and asked the technician there about the possibility of making a single board of 576 light bulb and make them light up in different patterns and sensors.

The technician said it is nearly impossible to build the device because of it's budget and time problem.

So he suggest to use Dot Matrix instead of light bulbs. But the overall size of my project will be less than the original.

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT Dot Matrix

This is the illustrated picture of a single Dot Matrix

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT And this is the whole size of my project that should be (top

view). I have to use 25 pieces of Dot Matrix, a webcam for a sensor

and a monitor to show each symbols information.

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT Artist Impression

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT Output patterns examples (maybe I will use different

patterns for the final outcome)

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT Flow Chart

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT Gannt Chart

FINAL SYNOPSIS Crop circle is one of the most unexplainable events that occurred in many

countries around the world. A crop circle is a sizable pattern created by the flattening of a crop. It is an organized harmonic forms that manifest around the world, the result of an energy interacting with the physical world - in this case plants. This energy is comprised of light, sound and magnetism. To date, crop circles have been reported in 29 countries, and have appeared in mediums such as wheat, barley, canola, trees, ice, rice paddies, even linseed. Some says that crop circle is a hidden message sent from the unknown entity from other dimension. Some also conclude that crop circle is just another hidden agenda created by an unknown organizations for their own benefits. Albeit the numerous facts and myths stated about the crop circle, it is still a big question for people who really want to know the truth.

Crop circles are not a modern phenomenon, over 200 cases have been reported prior to 1970. Some eyewitnesses claims that crop circles forming in under twenty seconds; these witnesses describe sightings of “incandescent or brightly-coloured balls of light which either precede a crop circle or are actively involved in its creation; in some cases shafts of light have descended onto a field and swirled the crop into a geometric shape in less than fifteen seconds.” Such reports are often described by farmers and local residents.

FINAL SYNOPSIS The early designs in 1980 appeared primarily as simple circles, circles

with rings, and variations on the Celtic cross. By the late 1980s they had developed straight lines, creating pictograms not unlike the petroglyphs found at sacred sites thoughout the world. After 1990 the designs developed exponentially in complexity, and today it is not unusual to come across crop glyphs mimicking computer fractals and elements expressing fourth dimensional processes in quantum physics.

This interactive and infographic installation will uncover some of the mysteries of crop circles by using an electronic LED’s as a new medium to form the symbols. The symbols that will be present are selected from the most complex and meaningful as decoded by the researchers. Although there will be numerous questions about the genuine interpretations of the symbols, this installation will give users some new ideas and info to think about. The user will start the installation by walking around the LED board, there will be several sensors on each corner to trigger the patterns, plus there will be a monitor showing about the origins, history, actual patterns and information on each of the symbols.

TEASER VIDEO