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This piece required us to create a time-based media that documented time in a way it is manipulated. This piece ties very close to my heart and is my most personal piece ever yet. I wasn't very pleased with the first piece I created for presentation, and thus after receiving feedback from my lecturer, I created an edited piece with subtitles.

My dad is a family man. He is the person that I aspire to be as I look up to him. For this project, I decided to bring him to places we visited when I was young that are very important to me. For the video, my inspiration came from the time when me and my mum chat about the future. About what would happen if they were to be gone from my life one day. We are a very emotional family, and I remembered crying terribly with my mum. I got inspired by that interaction a few years back, and decided to film a video that documents my interaction with my dad.

I chose not to include him in the video, reasons being that he is camera shy, and that the video would remind me of him if he were to be gone one day. This serves as a reminder for me to cherish him with all the limited time I get to spend with my family being far away from them. I miss them dearly everyday.

The video starts off with me going about with my routine and leaving the house. This is to show the process of me being on my own without my father. I took the motorcycle and ‘drove’ to Mandai. When I was young, there was once my dad brought me to Upper Pierce reservoir for stroll. We have never done that before and that was the only time we ever did that, thus it was such a treasured memory for me. We didn’t recall why we were there, but we remember the time we spent together. I chose to film myself sitting alone and overlapping the audio of my conversation with my dad in the background to show me recalling my memory of him. The interaction with my dad were mundane chats, either about the past or the monkeys by the pedestrian paths. But to me as the artist and the son, I hear my dad’s voice, his tone, his footsteps, his love for me, and him actually enjoying spending time with me despite me forcing him to do this project for me.

The next place we head to was Marine Parade. I’ve never stayed there before as my family moved to Tampines right after I was born. Even without staying there, I had a lot of attachment to the area I studied there. When I was in primary school, my dad would occasionally bring me out of the house early before school starts to buy me Mcdonalds for breakfast as my school is opposite the beach. Before I was born, my family used to head to that Mcdonalds every weekend for breakfast. Marine Parade to me and my family contains a lot of memories that we treasure dearly. I used the same technique as the scene in Mandai. This time, I’m seated in the crowded mcdonalds with much activities around me. There are many families there for breakfast, which is juxtaposed with me sitting alone. I thought about how this mcdonalds have changed so much from when I was young, and wondered how my family was like back then before I was born.

The last and most important part of the video is the audio at the ending. It turned out way better than I expected. It is how my dad wakes me up everyday when I was schooling last time. Now, being away from home and not having him to wake me up anymore, this phrase seem to be harder to come by and I miss having him to wake me up for school in the morning.

Explain your method of documenting time.

I documented time by overlapping the audio of my stroll with the video of me sitting on the bench. This is a depiction of me recalling my memory of my stroll with my dad.

How did you manipulate time and why?

I manipulated time by speeding up the routine and the time on the motorcycle. This places emphasis on the memory portion which is the focus of the video.

What are the semiotics of your work?

The families in the background are a representation of how my family was like before I was born, eating at Mcdonalds every weekend and is juxtaposed against my current self sitting at Mcdonalds alone.