Unknown: A Junior Experimental Project by Kaye Yap (2013)

For my experimental design, I am exploring the feeling of fear when we see or feel things that are unknown and unfamiliar. I am conveying this feeling because of the feeling I get when I see the ocean or I look up at the night sky. The ocean is such a vast distance and you never know how deep it can get. It has no end that you can see and there are parts of it that are very unknown to human. It has a deep mystery behind the cool blue waves that convey a feeling of fear. Space is also another vast distance that has no end. It is so big with so much in it--so much that we don’t know. Whenever we look up at the night sky, there is literally no end to the deep black we see.

I constructed this design by taking a photograph of the ocean and placing a figure of a scared cat along the shore. The frightened cat is looking out at the ocean and I photoshopped in space-like objects such as planets, stars, and galaxies. The cat is a representation of me and my feeling of fright I get when I think about the infinity of the ocean and space. I used Adobe Illustrator to create my design and spent lots of time creating the galaxy and all the little stars. One difficulty I had was creating the cat’s shadow, which I eventually had to hand draw with the paint brush. Overall, I really admire how my design turned out and I enjoyed this experimental unit.